Governors of the Australian states


Each Australian state has a governor to represent Australia's monarch within it. The governors are the nominal chief executives of the states, performing the same constitutional and ceremonial functions at the state level as does the governor-general of Australia at the national or federal level. In practice, with notable exceptions the governors are generally required by convention to act on the advice of the state premiers or the other members of a state's cabinet.
Australia's state governors are not subject to the constitutional authority of the governor-general, but are direct representatives of the monarch. This means, for example, that the governor-general may not issue pardons or commutations of sentence for any state offences, or issue any state honours.

Origins

The office of governor is the oldest constitutional office in Australia. The title was first used with the Governor of New South Wales, and dates back to 1788 to the day on which the area became the first British settlement in Australia. Each of the subsequent five states in Australia was also founded as a British colony, and a governor was appointed by the British government to exercise executive authority over the colony. The first governors of the colonies, and their dates of appointment, are as follows:
Only in New South Wales and South Australia was the date of the appointment of the first governor the actual date of the colony's foundation. The settlement which became Queensland was founded in 1824, but was not separated from New South Wales until 1859. In Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia executive authority was exercised by a Lieutenant-Governor for some years before the first Governor was appointed; Tasmania was founded in 1804, Western Australia in 1828 and Victoria in 1835.
New South Wales and Tasmania were founded as penal colonies, and their governors exercised more or less absolute authority. Tasmania in particular was run as a virtual prison camp in its early years. The Governors were also commanders-in-chief, and the troops under their command were the real basis of their authority.
From the 1820s, however, the increasing number of free settlers in the colonies led to a process of constitutional reform which gradually reduced the powers of the governors. New South Wales was given its first legislative body, the New South Wales Legislative Council, in 1825. Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia, which were not founded as penal settlements, moved rapidly towards constitutional government after their establishment.

Federation

When the six colonies federated to form the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901, there were some suggestions that the position of state governor should be abolished or that its appointment be made by the Governor-General as is done in Canada. However, the states insisted on retaining their separate links to the Crown, a concept that can be compared to the American system of separate sovereignty for state and federal governments. The states were concerned that Commonwealth-appointed governors might be used to do the federal government's bidding, up to and including use of a Governor's reserve powers to dismiss a recalcitrant state government. To ensure that state governments would be free from such extra-constitutional intervention or coercion, state governors continued to be appointed by the monarch on the advice of the Colonial Secretary in London, usually after an informal consultation with the state government.
The post of governor was again called into question during the Depression of the 1930s, when the cost of maintaining six vice-regal establishments drew criticism from the labour movement and others. During this period some states left the position unfilled as an economy measure for some years, and the vice-regal functions were filled by the state chief justices with the title of administrator. But no state attempted to abolish the post of governor, and this could not have been done at this time without the consent of the Crown.
The political role of the governor became a matter of controversy in 1932 when the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Philip Game, used his reserve power to dismiss the premier, Jack Lang, on the grounds that Lang was acting illegally. All governors at this time were British, and most were from the upper classes and political conservatives, and Labor governments always suspected that they had an enemy in Government House. Most governors, however, tried to act impartially, and some were genuinely popular.
From the 1940s the states, particularly those with Labor governments, began to appoint Australians to the post of governor. The first Australian governors of each of the states, and their dates of appointment, were:
The first colonies were penal settlements and the early colonial governors were military officers who ruled under martial law. Once the governors' role moved from the executive to the ceremonial, most governors were drawn from the ranks of retired officers. Although a few members of the peerage served as governors, the Australian colonial capitals were small towns and considered not grand enough to attract senior members of the British aristocracy. Even when Australians replaced Britons as governors, most continued to be retired Army, Navy or Air Force officers until the 1970s.
The last non-Australian governor of an Australian state was Rear Admiral Sir Richard Trowbridge, who was governor of Western Australia from 1980 to 1983. Davis McCaughey, born in Northern Ireland, was not an Australian citizen at the time his appointment as governor of Victoria was announced in 1985, but was a long-time resident of Australia and took up citizenship before commencing his term in 1986.
From the 1960s the governors continued to be appointed by the Monarch of the United Kingdom, acting on the advice of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary. While usually acting on the recommendation of the state premier, the role of the British government was more than nominal. In 1975 the British government refused to accept premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen's request that Sir Colin Hannah's term as Queensland governor be extended due to Hannah's impartial public comments on the Whitlam government. It was not until 1986, with the passage of the Australia Acts through the state, Australian and British parliaments, that governors became appointed by the Monarch of Australia on the direct advice of the relevant premier.

The Australia Acts 1986

Although the Commonwealth of Australia became largely sovereign in external and federal affairs over a period beginning with the Imperial Conference of 1923 and the adoption of the Statute of Westminster in 1942, the states remained colonial dependencies of Britain, subject to the authority of the British government and Imperial Parliament. State laws were still invalid if they conflicted with British laws due to the Colonial Laws Validity Act 1865. Additionally, state governors continued to be appointed by the Queen of the United Kingdom on the advice of the British Foreign Secretary. Generally, the premier of each state recommended a prospective governor to the foreign secretary, who almost always acted in accordance with that recommendation. However, in 1976 the Foreign Secretary refused to advise the Queen to extend the term of Sir Colin Hannah as governor, as recommended by Queensland premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, on the grounds of the governor's partisan comments on the federal Whitlam government.
In 1978, the Parliament of New South Wales passed the Constitutional Powers Act, requesting that the Commonwealth Parliament legislate to address the constitutional anomaly of the United Kingdom Government's role in the constitutional affairs of the state. Eventually, identical Australia Acts were passed by the Commonwealth Parliament and the Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1986, thus removing what remaining authority London had over affairs in Canberra. Under section 7 of these Acts, the King now receives advice on the appointment and termination of appointments of state governors from the relevant state premier.

Role of the governors

The role of state governor in modern times is broken down into constitutional, ceremonial and social responsibilities. Regarding constitutional practices, in most cases the governor observes the convention to act on the advice of the state's cabinet. Nevertheless, the state governors, like the governor-general, retain the full panoply of the reserve powers of the Crown. This has been shown on two recent occasions.
In 1987 the Governor of Queensland, Sir Walter Campbell, refused to accept the advice of the National Party premier, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, to dismiss five of his ministers and call fresh elections. Campbell believed that Bjelke-Petersen had lost the confidence of his own party and was behaving irrationally. He was also reluctant to call an election for a legislature that was barely a year old, and felt that the situation was a political rather than a constitutional matter. Bjelke-Petersen subsequently resigned.
In 1989 the Governor of Tasmania, Sir Phillip Bennett, refused to grant a fresh dissolution to the Liberal premier, Robin Gray, after Gray lost his majority in the recent election. Although no one party had a majority in the new House of Assembly, Bennett had already been assured that the Tasmanian Greens would support a minority Labor government under Michael Field. Bennett thus took the view that Gray no longer had enough support to govern and could not advise him to call a second election. Gray then resigned; Bennett then commissioned Field as premier.
In the event of a Governor-General's death, incapacity, removal, resignation or absence overseas, each of the state governors has a dormant commission to become the Administrator of the Commonwealth, that is, to take on the Governor-General's duties until he returns from overseas or a new appointment is made. The convention is that the longest-serving state governor who is available is the one to assume the administration of the government of the Commonwealth. When Peter Hollingworth resigned in May 2003, Sir Guy Green, Governor of Tasmania, took on that role, serving until Major-General Michael Jeffery took office in August 2003.