The clerk's tale: letters from Harry.(The Constitution)

ONE OF MY great pleasures in retirement is as a part-time volunteer guide at Old Parliament House, Canberra, conducting visitors around that wonderful building that has played such an important role in Australia's constitutional and political history. The full-time salaried staff includes a team of Public Programs Officers, or PPOs, whose duties include conducting special information sessions for parties of school children from all over Australia, and fostering in them a love of the building and its traditions.

Recently one of my PPO colleagues came to me with a copy of Odgers "Australian Senate Practice (eleventh edition, 2004). In preparing for one of his schools' sessions he had come across a passage in Odgers' which he believed to be in error in its references to sections 59 and 60 of the Australian Constitution. These sections read as follows:

59 Disallowance by the Queen

The Queen may disallow any law within one year from the Governor-General's assent, and such disallowance on being made known by the Governor-General by speech or message to each of the Houses of the Parliament, or by Proclamation, shall annul the law from the day when the disallowance is so made known.

60 Signification of Queen's pleasure on Bills reserved

A proposed law reserved for the Queen's pleasure shall not have any force unless and until within two years from the day on which it was presented to the Governor-General for the Queen's assent the Governor-General makes known, by speech or message to each of the Houses of the Parliament, or by Proclamation, that it has received the Queen's assent.

The current and recent editions of Odgers' Australian Senate Practice deal with sections 59 and 60 as follows: