Manner and form

This article explores the meaning of ‘manner and form’ in s 6 of the Australia Act 1986 (Imp & Cth) using largely a historical — although not an originalist — approach. The phrase ‘manner and form’ was taken from the proviso to s 5 of the Colonial Laws Validity Act 1865 (Imp). The occasion for this investigation is the attempt by the Victorian Parliament to entrench a ban on fracking in the State’s Constitution requiring a three-fifths majority in each House of Parliament for future amendments of the existing statutory prohibitions of that practice. At present, there is no binding authority on whether the words ‘manner and form’ embrace a super-majority (not an absolute majority, being simply more than half of the total number of members of the House, but a majority in excess of the usual one-half — in this case, three-fifths). It is suggested that the drafters of the phrase ‘manner and form’ did not mean to include super-majorities within that phrase.