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Conventional Roles And Powers Of The Governor General

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CONVENTIONAL ROLES AND POWERS OF THE GOVERNOR GENERAL
Whilst the Constitution gives the Governor General many roles and powers, conventions of the Constitution limit the Governor General’s ability to exercise these roles and powers. Conventional roles and powers of the Governor General include:
Section of Constitution Constitutional Power of Governor General Conventional Power of Governor General
Section 5 Proclamation of the parliamentary session within 30 days of an election; proroguing Parliament between session; dissolving the House of Representatives after an election The Governor General performs this role and its power “on the advice of the Prime Minister” (GG)
Section 28 Dissolving the House of Representatives The Governor General …show more content…

The Governor General used his reserve powers, derived from the Constitution to dismiss the government because it couldn’t obtain supply through the Parliament and it refused to call for a general election. By replacing Gough Whitlam and the ALP as Prime Minister and the government with Malcolm Fraser and the Coalition, Kerr used several reserve powers to do so, and broke numerous conventions of the Constitution in doing so.
Section 64 of the Commonwealth Constitution states that “the Governor General in Council is to appoint the Queen’s Ministers of State to administer government departments.” In the 1975 crisis, Sir John Kerr used the Constitutional reserve powers present in this section to:
1. Dismiss the Prime Minister. As the Prime Minister is appointed by the Governor General and is a Minister of State, the Governor General was well within his Constitutional reserve powers to dismiss Whitlam.
2. Appoint a new Prime Minister to replace Gough Whitlam. This new Prime Minister was the Opposition Leader, Malcolm

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