News

Independent remembers important State anniversary

3 March 2006

3 March 2006 is the twentieth anniversary of an important day in our state's history - the day its Parliament and Governor obtained their independence from the British Crown, according to Independent candidate for Victoria Park, Andrew Owens.

"As a proud Western Australian with a basic understanding of our legal system and its proud traditions, the passage of the Australia Act on 3 March 1986 and in particular its twentieth anniversary today deserve a celebration of their own," said Mr Owens.

"Until that time, the United Kingdom parliament, elected by the voters of that country but not of ours, had considerable power with respect to the Australian States. While in practice this power had fallen into disuse, in the 1950s and before there were clear examples of Westminster running roughshod over elected Australian state parliaments, appointing governors against the advice of premiers, and so forth.

"The Australian federal government had already received this freedom in 1942 when it signed the Statute of Westminster along with Canada, South Africa, Ireland, New Zealand and Newfoundland. "The text of the Australia Act can be found at http://www.statusquo.org/AustAct.html.

"During the upcoming public holiday weekend, I ask Western Australians, and in particular those in the electorate of Victoria Park, to use this anniversary to think about how far we've come - and how comparatively peacefully in world terms - since our days as a military-run colony in 1829, and to think to the future and whether the two-party system, a creature that evolved in a very different time in Australian politics, is really the best way to move forward in Victoria Park and indeed across Western Australia," said Mr Owens.