Disallowance and Reservation - in Australia

In Australia

The powers of disallowance and reservation still exist at the federal level in Australia, and are described in sections 58 to 60 of the Australian Constitution. Section 58 gives the Governor-General an additional power, that of returning a bill to Parliament with suggested amendments. Once the Governor-General has assented to a law, the Queen has one year in which to disallow it. If the Governor-General reserves a bill for the Queen's assent, the bill will die unless the Queen approves it within two years of its passage. However, the power of disallowance has never been used in relation to Australian federal legislation, and reservation has likewise been rare to nonexistent.

There were similar arrangements in at least some Australian states, whose constitutional arrangements predated Australian federation by years or decades. Unlike in Canada (see below), disallowance of state laws, and reservation by state Governors, were matters directly for the Imperial government, to avoid giving the Australian federal government the power to block state laws. Use of disallowance and reservation in the states declined and eventually ceased, and both powers were formally abolished by the Australia Act 1986.

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