Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Appleby on the federal spending power in Australia

The Provenance of the Federal Spending Power is a new conference paper by Gabrielle J. Appleby, Lecturer in Law, University of Adelaide, setting the history of the spending power in Australia in the context of two traditions from which framers of the Australian constitution drew: the broader U.K. Commonwealth and the United States. Here's the abstract:
This paper was presented at the Law and History Conference 2008 held at the University of Adelaide. It examines the limits of the federal spending power in Australia by reference to its history founded in a combination of the United Kingdom conventions of responsible government and the federal system of government adopted from the United States. In both systems the breadth of the executive spending power has been the cause of debate and political struggle.