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Australian ministers lose veto power over territory laws

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Wednesday, November 2, 2011

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Ministers in Australia's federal government have lost the power to veto laws in the nation's two mainland territories after legislation passed the national parliament. The legislation requires for both chambers of the parliament to strike down laws made in the Northern Territory (NT) and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) parliaments.

We've never felt that overturning the laws of a democratically elected government at the swipe of a pen was a fair situation

—Katy Gallagher

Previously government ministers could veto laws unilaterally. "What that means is that it is no longer the case that the minister can step in with the stroke of a pen and dismiss territory laws as we've seen many instances before," Greens MP Adam Bandt said.

The legislation is the first piece of Australian Greens-proposed federal legislation to be signed into law. Greens leader Senator Bob Brown said "[this is a] very important milestone for democracy in the territories," he said.

ACT Chief Minister Katy Gallagher welcomed the law change, saying that while the ACT government would continue to call for a joint territory-federal review into the self-government legislation, there was no need for a delay to "sensible" veto law changes. "We've never felt that overturning the laws of a democratically elected government at the swipe of a pen was a fair situation."

The opposition attempted to change the legislation to prevent the legalisation of same-sex marriages in the territories, but Government frontbencher Craig Emerson told parliament that federal marriage laws made the amendment unnecessary.


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Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

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The text of this article is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License
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