BLOG - Wedding Crashers in Canberra?

Australias national government, the Commonwealth of Australia, has today launched legal proceedings in the High Court of Australia challenging the ACTs ability to legislate on marriage. Under the Australian constitution, the Commonwealth argues, national marriage legislation establishes a single and indivisible concept of marriage for the law of Australia, and the ACT cannot undermine that concept by providing for a new form of marriage. The new legislation, the Commonwealth argues, is inconsistent with the Commonwealths Marriage Act and other federal legislation. The ACT has yet to respond formally to the Commonwealths writ. But based on past legal advice which it received with respect to a civil union law, the ACT can be expected to argue that there is no inconsistency here: the Commonwealths legislation regulates opposite-sex marriage, whereas the ACTs law only applies to same-sex couples. As such, it could be said, there is simply no inconsistency.