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Ch11 Financial legislation / CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS / Financial initiative of the Executive



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House of Representatives                                Ch 11                                                 p 407

 

Financial legislation / CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS

 

Financial initiative of the Executive

What is called the ‘financial initiative of the Executive’—that is, the constitutional and parliamentary principle that only the Government may initiate or move to increase appropriations or taxes—plays an important part in procedures for the initiation and processing of legislation.

The principle of the financial initiative, which is dealt with at length in May, 1 may be paraphrased as follows:

  • The Executive Government is charged with the management of revenue and with payments for the public service.
  • It is a long established and strictly observed rule which expresses a principle of the highest constitutional importance that no public charge can be incurred except on the initiative of the Executive Government.
  • The Executive Government demands money, the House grants it, but the House does not vote money unless required by the Government, and does not impose taxes unless needed for the public service as declared by Ministers.
  • The financial initiative in regard to appropriation is expressed in, and given effect by, section 56 of the Constitution:

    A vote, resolution, or proposed law for the appropriation of revenue or moneys shall not be passed unless the purpose of the appropriation has in the same session been recommended by message of the Governor-General to the House in which the proposal originated.

    As section 53 of the Constitution provides that proposed laws appropriating revenue or moneys shall not originate in the Senate, the ‘House’ referred to in this section is, for all practical purposes, the House of Representatives.

    The principle of the financial initiative is also firmly expressed in the constitutional restrictions on the powers of Senate to initiate and amend financial legislation.



    May , 23rd edn, pp. 848-57.