Legal Opinions

The Prime Minister desires to be informed whether the passing of resolutions by both Houses of the W.A. Legislature is a reference by the 'Parliament' of that State such as is contemplated by Constitution s. 51 (xxxvii) and the opinion of the Attorney-General of 11 April 1906.⁽¹⁾

Clause 15 of the Spirits Bill proposes to enact that:

A person shall not-

The Prime Minister forwards for my consideration a memorandum by Mr C. G. Wade, Attorney-General of New South Wales, upon the provisions of the Eminent Domain Bill (now before the House of Representatives as the 'Lands Acquisition Bill⁽¹⁾).

The most convenient way of considering Mr Wade's memorandum will be to set it out paragraph by paragraph, and to set [out after] each paragraph the observations that it appears to me to call for.

The Minister for Trade and Customs asks to be advised on the following questions:

The following question has been submitted to me by the Minister for Home Affairs, for advice:

A candidate born in the Commonwealth where he resided for fifteen years, goes to a foreign country (or anywhere outside of the Commonwealth), and returns after a lapse of fifteen years, and has only been resident one year. Is he qualified to nominate, or must he be resident for three years after he returns?

The accompanying file has been referred to me by the Minister for Trade and Customs for advice as to how far the audit inspection should go in regard to the internal administration of the Customs Department.

It not being easy to gather from the file the precise questions in dispute between the Auditor-General and the Customs, I have asked the Auditor-General and the Comptroller-General to state what they consider should be included and excluded respectively, and their replies are herewith.

Further particulars (see my opinion of 9 July 1906⁽¹⁾) are now furnished as to the rebates of pilotage dues allowed by the Queensland Government to shippers of Queensland coal-with reference to which I was asked to advise whether they were not equal to a bonus and whether they did not conflict with the Federal Constitution.

It appears that pilotage dues are payable by The Navigation Act of 1876 (Q.), as amended by The Port Dues Revision Act of 1882, which is to be read with the Act of 1876. Section 4 of the Act of 1876 provides that:

1. The Secretary of State for the Colonies has asked for the views of the Commonwealth Government on the recommendations of the Inter-departmental Committee appointed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department with respect to the laws relating to naturalization (1901).
2. [Matteromitted.]
3. The main questions on which it appears desirable to report are:
1. The question as to the effect of Imperial and local naturalization respectively-and the area over which they should operate.

The Minister for Home Affairs asks to be advised as to the constitutional position of the Commonwealth with respect to the resolutions (with the papers) regarding the distribution of the waters of the Murray River and its tributaries to the use of the States of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, agreed to by the Premiers of the said States at a conference held in Sydney on 16 April 1906.

The main points of the proposed agreement are:

Mr G. J. Benjamin, a resident of Queensland, left Queensland for the United States in March 1905, but was refused admission on account of alleged disease of the eye. He returned to Australia, and wrote to the Premier of Queensland, urging that a claim for £200 should be presented to the United States Government. The Premier forwarded Mr Benjamin's letter, with supporting documents through the State Government to the Secretary of State, without reference to the Commonwealth Government.