BOUNTIES
Northern Territory: SUBSIDY PER POUND OF MEAT KILLED IN TERRITORY: WHETHER bounty on production or export of goods: WHETHER BOUNTY ON GOODS PRODUCED IN TERRITORY required by Constitution to BE uniform throughout Commonwealth: territories power
CONSTITUTION ss 51(iii), 122: NORTHERN TERRITORY SURRENDER ACT 1907 (SA): NORTHERN TERRITORY ACCEPTANCE ACT 1910
A proposal has been made to grant to Messrs. Vesty Brothers Limited a subsidy of so much per lb. on all cattle killed at the Works in the Northern Territory.
I am asked to advise whether this subsidy would be a bounty, such as is, by the Constitution, required to be uniform throughout the Commonwealth.
Under section 51(iii) of the Constitution the Commonwealth Parliament has power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to ‘Bounties on the production or export of goods, but so that such bounties shall be uniform throughout the Commonwealth’.
Section 122 of the Constitution provides that ‘the Parliament may make laws for the government of any Territory surrendered by any State to, and accepted by, the Commonwealth’.
The Northern Territory was surrendered by the State of South Australia to the Commonwealth by the Northern Territory Surrender Act 1907 of the State and was accepted by the Commonwealth by the Northern Territory Acceptance Act 1910.
The Parliament of the Commonwealth, therefore, has full and plenary power without limitation of subject matter to make laws for the government of the Northern Territory.
The legislative powers given by section 51 are limited to specific subject matters; the legislative powers given by section 122 are not.
The limitation of placitum (iii) of section 51 is a limitation on the exercise of the legislative power conferred by that placitum; it is not a general prohibition.
Section 122 is an independent grant of full legislative power for the government of the Territory. In the exercise of that power Parliament is not, in my opinion, limited by the conditions imposed in section 51 with regard to legislation under that section.
Therefore I am of opinion that the Commonwealth Parliament in the exercise of its power under section 122 to make laws for the government of the Territory may grant bounties on the production of goods in the Territory or on the export of goods from the Territory, and is not required by the Constitution to make such bounties uniform throughout the Commonwealth or even throughout the Territory.
[Vol. 19, p. 390]