School Chaplaincy Case

20 June 2012

In 2012 Mr Ron Williams, the father of children enrolled in a Queensland public school, challenged the Australian Government’s use of executive powers to fund the National School Chaplaincy Program. The program had been used to provide a chaplain in the school Mr Williams’ children attended.

In most circumstances, Government spending must be approved by the Australian Parliament. In this case, the payments made to the program had not been approved by Parliament. The Government argued it had used executive power granted in section 61 of the Australian Constitution to fund the program. The High Court of Australia found that executive power on its own did not allow the Government to provide funding for the chaplaincy program and ruled in favour of Mr Williams. This clarified the Government’s power to spend money and enter into contracts but raised questions about many other Government programs which had been funded in a similar way.

To continue the National Schools Chaplaincy Program, Parliament approved a law to authorise funding for it and 400 other programs. Two years later, Mr Williams again challenged the chaplaincy program. The High Court found the new funding method was also unconstitutional as the law providing for the funding of the chaplaincy program was not considered to be part of an area of law-making responsibility of the Australian Parliament.

The program continued through an agreement between the Australian Government and the states and territories. The Australian Parliament used the power to grant financial assistance to the states under section 96 of the Constitution to fund the program.