Intergovernmental immunity (Australia)

In Australia, the doctrine of intergovernmental immunity defines the circumstances in which Commonwealth laws can bind the States, and where State laws can bind the Commonwealth. This is distinct from the doctrine of crown immunity, as well as the rule expressed in Section 109 of the Australian Constitution which governs conflicts between Commonwealth and State laws.

Prior to 1920, the High Court of Australia tended to employ the US jurisprudence governing intergovernmental immunity, expressing it as an implied immunity of instrumentalities, where neither the Commonwealth nor State governments could be affected by the laws of the other. This was first expressed in D'Emden v Pedder,Deakin v Webb, and the Railway Servants' case. As Griffith CJ declared in the first case:

In considering the respective powers of the Commonwealth and of the States it is essential to bear in mind that each is, within the ambit of its authority, a sovereign State, subject only to the restrictions imposed by the Imperial connection and to the provisions of the Constitution, either expressed or necessarily implied... a right of sovereignty subject to extrinsic control is a contradiction in terms. It must, therefore, be taken to be of the essence of the Constitution that the Commonwealth is entitled, within the ambit of its authority, to exercise its legislative and executive powers in absolute freedom, and without any interference or control whatever except that prescribed by the Constitution itself... It follows that when a State attempts to give to its legislative or executive authority an operation which, if valid, would fetter, control, or interfere with, the free exercise of the legislative or executive power of the Commonwealth, the attempt, unless expressly authorized by the Constitution, is to that extent invalid and inoperative.

However, the doctrine did have limits. In the Steel Rails case, it was held that States were still liable to pay customs duties.

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