Plausability Check: Western Australian Secession in 1934

[Korporal Nooij]

I have been researching this for a while, for use in my TL, but i'm still not quite sure about it, and thus i probably need an expert.

Is it possible for the state of Western Australia to have seceded from Australia, as an independent British Commonwealth dominion in 1934? I understand that the British government eventually refused to negotiate, as it could not legally allow secession. That makes it impossible, i know. But is there some way to make the British grant them secession after all?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Korporal Nooij]

Anyone?

Sorry for the bump, but i really need an expert on the subject.

 

[NomadicSky]

If I remember history though Western Australia did vote to secede in 1933. So it could well have happened.

 

[Korporal Nooij]

Thank you for the reply!

I think they did indeed, but if i recall correctly myself, the British government declared it to be illegal. Is there some way to get the British to legalize it?

 

[corditeman]

Keep a low profile, like all civil servants...

Yes, but what's the point?

Australia is already part of the Empire and has no need to be granted secession. The Foreign Office would just do nothing.

 

[NomadicSky]

Perhaps though they could declare West Australia to not only be a nation of their own from Australia but from the British Commonwealth...

Their own Republic.

Western Australia sets to work printing their own money, flying their own flag, and declaring their area to be sovereign.

And then we have the United States, there will be those who feel that Western Australia is in the same thread as their country was in 1776.

 

[ah-sue]

Why not make the POD for your TL the terms and conditions of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (passed by UK Parliament in 1900)? The inclusion of a procedure for independent secession by any of the States might solve the problems of possible vetoes by the Australian and/or British governments.

 

[Korporal Nooij]

Perhaps though they could declare West Australia to not only be a nation of their own from Australia but from the British Commonwealth...

Their own Republic.

Western Australia sets to work printing their own money, flying their own flag, and declaring their area to be sovereign.

And then we have the United States, there will be those who feel that Western Australia is in the same thread as their country was in 1776.

Very interesting! Thanks! But wouldn't that make it a little too ASB?

Why not make the POD for your TL the terms and conditions of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (passed by UK Parliament in 1900)? The inclusion of a procedure for independent secession by any of the States might solve the problems of possible vetoes by the Australian and/or British governments.

That would be a very interesting and useful POD indeed! Thank you!

Now, is it possible to somehow combine these two without ASBs perhaps?

 

[ah-sue]

And then we have the United States, there will be those who feel that Western Australia is in the same thread as their country was in 1776.

But on the other hand the USA might compare it to the more recent history of 1861, the secession of their southern States, their Civil War etc. So perhaps a 100% ironclad, legal method of secession would be preferable?

 

[Arachnid]

Precisely the opposite, WA was one of the most loyal and London focused parts of the World in the 30's. The US is a very poor comparison, a much more accurate one is Newfoundland, a state which had to be forced to become part of Canada rather than continue to look to London. WA was the same, the two main reasons were the unhappiness with being ignored and the way Canberra was slowly moving away from the UK.

 

[Cook]

Is it possible for the state of Western Australia to have seceded from Australia, as an independent British Commonwealth dominion in 1934? I understand that the British government eventually refused to negotiate, as it could not legally allow secession. That makes it impossible, i know. But is there some way to make the British grant them secession after all?

The Australian Commonwealth was an independent Dominion by that time; Britain no longer had a say in Australian Constitutional issues. A change to the commonwealth constitution requires a majority vote in a majority of the sates and a majority across the nation is also required.

Western Australia was the only state to hold a referendum on its secession in the 1930’s. For it to have seceded would have required approval by a majority of voters in a majority of the other states.

Secession without approval would have required force, and that was never going to happen. The vote was motivated by economic issues, the West thought it could do better by going it alone, not nationalist issues. There would never have been a fight.

http://www.peo.gov.au/students/cl/constitution.html#changed

 

[Riain]

Our constitution is notoriously difficult to change, in practice only proposals which have the support of both major political parties will get up. If there is a whiff of controversy and doubt then the referendum will fail. There is no way both sides of politics will support the seccession of a state from a 29 year old federation for no good practical reason.

 

[ah-sue]

The Australian Commonwealth was an independent Dominion by that time; Britain no longer had a say in Australian Constitutional issues.

There's a moot point here. Although the UK Parliament passed the Statute of Westminster Act in 1931, Australia did not pass 'acceptance' legislation for over a decade (Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942). Did this mean that Australia was not technically an 'independent dominion' at the time of the WA referendum? After all, it takes two to tango and two (or more) to make a contract.

 

[Dan1988]

There's a moot point here. Although the UK Parliament passed the Statute of Westminster Act in 1931, Australia did not pass 'acceptance' legislation for over a decade (Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942). Did this mean that Australia was not technically an 'independent dominion' at the time of the WA referendum? After all, it takes two to tango and two (or more) to make a contract.

Not really - as far as Westminster was concerned, they basically washed their hands clean of Australia, like how they washed their hands clean of Canada.

 

[ah-sue]

like how they washed their hands clean of Canada.

Not really - Canadians technically had the right of appeal to the House of Lords (UK) long after Dominion status came into effect.

In 1982 the UK Court of Appeal refused to grant Canadian Indians permission to appeal to the House of Lords over a British guarantee of their land rights, granted some 200 years earlier when Canada was a British colony. The Court only ruled against them on the grounds that the Canadian Government had the responsibility for honouring the obligations, not on a point of law that Canadians had no right to appeal to the House of Lords.

 

[Cook]

There's a moot point here. Although the UK Parliament passed the Statute of Westminster Act in 1931, Australia did not pass 'acceptance' legislation for over a decade (Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942). Did this mean that Australia was not technically an 'independent dominion' at the time of the WA referendum? After all, it takes two to tango and two (or more) to make a contract.

Australia had full internal self Government from 1901 onwards. Britain did not interfere with Australian internal laws following federation.

Had Britain wished to interfere it would have been during World War One to have Australia introduce Conscription and the death penalty for military discipline. The British government brought a lot of pressure to bear on the Australian Government over both issues but did not try to over rule Australian law.

PM Billy Hughes chose to go to a referendum on the first issue and ignored the second entirely. The Referendum was defeated and Australia maintained a purely volunteer army throughout the First World War.

The 1933 referendum was purely based on economic issues, not nationalist. West Australians still considered themselves Australians and British Government interference in the Australian Constitution; coinciding with the Bodyline Test series would have been disastrous for Australian-British relations.

 

[Riain]

If Britain did try to pull the heavy then the first thing Australia can do is immediately ratify the statute of Westminster. Then Britain has no leg to stand on.

I mean, what are they going to do, abandon us in WW2 or something? As if! umm err......

 

[Cook]

If Britain did try ... ...Australia can do is immediately ratify the statute of Westminster.

Or to go to a greater extreme, kick Jardine and the English Cricket Team out of the country in retaliation.

 

[Julius Vogel]

I thought Britain retained significant but unused residual powers in Australia till well past WW2, until Australia repatriated those powers.

Wikipedia says that in addition to the obvious Privy Council appeals rights there was some power for states to appeal on constitutional matters to 1985

It would seem pretty unlikely that the British government would have done anything about this though, without a huge POD, given their very hands off approach to Australia and NZ in the 20th century

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_Acts

 

[Cook]

I thought Britain retained significant but unused residual powers in Australia till well past WW2, until Australia repatriated those powers.

Wikipedia says that in addition to the obvious Privy Council appeals rights there was some power for states to appeal on constitutional matters to 1985

It would seem pretty unlikely that the British government would have done anything about this though, without a huge POD, given their very hands off approach to Australia and NZ in the 20th century

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_Acts

G’day Julius,

For some reason those of us that spend all their time standing on their heads have to explain this on a regular basis.

As Riain said in his post (#12), our constitution is notoriously difficult to change.

It is also often ignored by us.

We have a very common sense approach to often just get on with things rather than worry about changing old laws.
My repeated references to the 1932-33 Ashes Series should have been an a hint, the Bodyline tactics used by England did more to damage relations between Australia and England than anything political between the world wars.

And would people please stop quoting Wikipedia, there are plenty of Australian websites for this and some may even know something.