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House of Representatives                                Ch 11                                                 p 409

Amendment

The secon d paragraph of section 53 of the Constitution provides that ‘The Senate may not amend proposed laws imposing taxation, or proposed laws appropriating revenue or moneys for the ordinary annual services of the Government’. The third paragraph of section 53 provides ‘The Senate may not amend any proposed laws so as to increase any proposed charge or burden on the people.’ However, the Senate may request the House to make such amendments as the Senate itself is unable to make. The effect of these provisions is examined in more detail in the following chapter on ‘Senate amendments and requests’.

Section 54 of the Constitution states that bills appropriating revenue or moneys for the ordinary annual services of the Government—that is, the main Appropriation Bills (and, in the past, the main Supply Bills)—shall deal only with such appropriation.

Section 55 of the Constitution requires that laws imposing taxation shall deal only with the imposition of taxation and furthermore with only one subject of taxation.

The importance of sections 54 and 55 is that they protect the Senate’s right to amend non-financial measures. As the Senate is precluded from amending a main Appropriation Bill or a main Supply Bill or bills imposing taxation, these two sections together were inserted in the Constitution to prevent the House embodying in such bills other provisions (known as ‘ tacking’), a course which would prejudice the right of the Senate to amend such provisions.