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Last updated: March 2008
Constitutional, legal and Government framework
Executive power
skip further information boxInformation supplied by:
For more information :
- The rule of law
- The Constitution
- Australian Government Solicitor, Making Good Decisions
- Guy Aitken and Robert Orr, in Sawer’s The Australian Constitution, Chapter 7, Australian Government Solicitor 2002
Executive power is often formally exercised by the Governor-General acting with the advice of the Federal Executive Council. The Constitution provides that all Ministers of State are Executive Councillors. Since March 2000, parliamentary secretaries have also been treated as Ministers of State for the purposes of the Constitution, and so are Executive Councillors.
Commonwealth Ministers and parliamentary secretaries must sit in Parliament, as Senators or Members of the House of Representatives, and are appointed by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the Prime Minister. Ministers and parliamentary secretaries are sworn to administer the Department(s) of State in the portfolio to which they have been appointed. Each portfolio may contain one or more agencies. The composition of portfolios may change over time as Governments review their policy priorities.
There are three broad categories of the executive power of the Commonwealth:
- executive power can be conferred by statute
- the Australian Government is a legal person, and so can, through its officials, do many of the things an ordinary person can do (for example, enter into contracts)
- the Australian Government has various prerogatives that historically were vested in the Crown (for example, in relation to entering treaties).
