Attorney-General Explains Parliament Is Supreme Because Parliament Consults

Attorney-General Chris Bishop told the Law Association on 6 August that important public policy choices should be made in the elected legislative assemblies, and not by non-elected judges. He gave three reasons. Parliament is elected and so best reflects the public will. Parliament has the resources, expertise and consultation machinery to handle problems with trade-offs running across many sectors at once. And Parliament has been supreme since 1688 settled the question against executive overreach.

The history is not in dispute and the first reason speaks for itself. The second is the one worth sitting with. Parliament earns the right to decide, on this account, because it can consult widely, take evidence, and work a complicated problem properly, in a way a courtroom cannot. That is a claim about capacity. Capacity is only an argument when it is exercised, and the speech is asking the courts to trust a process.

Bishop also asked Parliament to legislate clearly, so that courts can respect what it actually intended. That is the other half of the same bargain, and it falls on the House rather than the bench. He cited Fitzgerald v Muldoon, where the government remained subject to the law and Parliament remained supreme. Parliament is supreme because Parliament is representative. The representing is the part that takes time.