Succession to the Crown (Request) (National Uniform Legislation) Act 2013

The central concept is succession to the Crown as the legal mechanism determining who becomes the reigning monarch of Australia. Because Australia shares its sovereign with the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms, any change to succession rules must be coordinated across jurisdictions to avoid a divergence that could result in different persons holding the Crown in different realms. The Perth Agreement of 2011 committed realms to three changes: remove male preference primogeniture, end disqualification for marrying a Roman Catholic, and limit the requirement for monarchical consent to marry to the first six persons in line. The NT Act and its scheduled Bill implement those commitments. Gender neutrality in succession is addressed by section 6 of the scheduled Bill: the gender of a person born after 28 October 2011 (by United Kingdom time) does not give that person or their descendants precedence over any other person whenever born. This means that for births after that date, younger sisters no longer rank behind younger brothers; the order is simply by date of birth. The concept applies prospectively only; those born before the cut-off remain subject to the old male-preference rule. Removal of disqualification for marrying a Roman Catholic is achieved by section 7 of the scheduled Bill: no person is disqualified from succeeding to or possessing the Crown because they marry a person of the Roman Catholic faith. This removes a disqualification that had existed under the Act of Settlement 1701 and the Bill of Rights 1689. The removal applies to marriages before commencement if the person is still alive, giving retrospective effect. However, the Act does not remove the disqualification for being a Roman Catholic personally (the monarch must still be in communion with the Church of England). Disqualification by marriage is retained but narrowed: section 8 of the scheduled Bill disqualifies a person from succeeding if they are disqualified by subsection 3(3) of the UK Succession to the Crown Act 2013 as in force at commencement. That UK provision disqualifies persons who marry without the sovereign's consent if they are among the first six in line (the old Royal Marriages Act requirement, now codified). This is a static reference to UK law at a point in time, so future UK changes would not automatically apply. Validation of marriages voided by the Royal Marriages Act 1772 is provided in Schedule 1, item 9 of the scheduled Bill, but only for marriages meeting four cumulative conditions: neither party was among the six next in line at the time of the marriage; no consent was sought or notice given under the Act; it was reasonable for the person not to have known the Act applied; and no one acted on the basis that the marriage was void before commencement. The validation operates for all purposes except succession to the Crown, preserving the integrity of the line of succession while providing relief from legal uncertainty. The entrenchment provision in section 12 of the scheduled Bill is another key concept: the proposed Act can be expressly or impliedly repealed or amended only by a Commonwealth Act passed at the request or with the concurrence of the Parliaments of all States. This creates a high threshold for future change, locking in the succession rules as agreed.

The legislation directly affects the persons in line of succession to the Crown, predominantly members of the British royal family. For those born after 28 October 2011, the order of succession no longer depends on gender. For example, a younger daughter born after that date would not be displaced by a later-born younger brother. This affects the future composition of the monarchy, although the current line of succession (as at 2013) remains unaffected for those born before the cut-off. The removal of disqualification for marrying a Roman Catholic affects any person in the line of succession who married or may marry a Roman Catholic. Prior to this change, such a marriage resulted in loss of succession rights (under the Act of Settlement and Bill of Rights). The retrospective application in section 7(2) of the scheduled Bill means that living persons who had previously been disqualified for marrying a Roman Catholic have their succession rights restored (though they would only become relevant if they are in line). The disqualification by marriage under the Royal Marriages Act 1772 is replaced by a narrower disqualification under section 8 of the scheduled Bill, affecting only the first six persons in line and their descendants (if they marry without the sovereign's consent). The validation of marriages under Schedule 1, item 9 directly affects persons who entered into void marriages under the Royal Marriages Act 1772, providing them with legal certainty that their marriage is now treated as never void for most purposes. This relief is only available if the four conditions are met, and it explicitly does not affect succession rights, so those who would have been in line but for the void marriage are not restored to the line. The Commonwealth Parliament is the immediate addressee of the request - it is asked to enact the scheduled Bill. The States and Territories are affected through the uniformity created: because all States passed similar request legislation, the Commonwealth could act under section 51(xxxviii) and bind all jurisdictions. Courts may need to interpret the provisions, particularly the validation conditions and the static reference to UK law. Legal practitioners advising on succession matters (both royal and general, since the change is part of the law of Australia) must be aware of the new rules. The Sovereign as a constitutional institution is affected only in terms of the identity of the person holding the office; the legislation disclaims any intention to change the relationship between Sovereign and Territory (section 3 of the NT Act and section 4 of the scheduled Bill). The United Kingdom Parliament is not directly affected, but the reference to UK law in section 8 means that future UK changes to the disqualification provisions in its 2013 Act would not automatically flow into Australian law because the reference is to the UK Act "as in force at the commencement of this section". So UK and Australian law could diverge if the UK later amends its disqualification rules.

The NT Act itself imposes no duties or confers no rights. It is a request, not an operative law. The scheduled Bill, however, creates legal rights and removes disqualifications. The primary right is the right for a person born after 28 October 2011 not to be passed over in the succession by a younger sibling of the opposite gender solely because of gender (clause 6). This is a right against the state and the established succession order. The right to not be disqualified for marrying a Roman Catholic arises under clause 7: a person may marry a Roman Catholic without losing succession rights. This right is retrospective for living persons, so a person who lost succession rights before commencement due to such a marriage now has those rights restored (though the practical effect depends on their place in line). The right to have a formerly void marriage under the Royal Marriages Act 1772 treated as valid is created by Schedule 1, item 9, subject to the four conditions. That right is limited: it applies for all purposes except succession to the Crown (subitem (2)). So a person who was never in line because of a void marriage does not gain succession rights, but the marriage is otherwise regularised for law. There is no duty imposed on any person by the scheduled Bill. The Bill operates on the law of succession, not on conduct. The exclusion of disqualification is a removal of a legal barrier, not an obligation. The reference in clause 8 to the UK Act may incorporate a duty to obtain the sovereign's consent before marriage for the first six persons in line, but that duty arises under UK law, not directly under the Australian Act. Clause 10 provides that references in any law of the Commonwealth or a Territory to the Bill of Rights or Act of Settlement provisions on succession are to be read as including references to the Act. This imposes an interpretive duty on courts and those applying the law to read existing references consistently with the new Act. The right of the Commonwealth Parliament to enact the requested legislation is triggered by the State and Territory requests under section 51(xxxviii). The right of the States to consent to future amendments is protected by clause 12: no repeal or amendment can occur without the request or concurrence of all State parliaments. This gives the States a veto over future changes to the succession rules, effectively entrenching the 2013 settlement unless unanimous State consent is obtained. There is no equivalent provision requiring Territory consent (the NT Act was a request, but clause 12 only mentions States). This asymmetry means the Territories have no guaranteed role in future amendments, though in practice they would likely be consulted.

The NT Act and the scheduled Bill contain no penalty provisions. No criminal sanctions, civil penalties, or enforcement mechanisms are created. The legislation is purely facilitative: it changes the legal rules of succession. Non-compliance with these rules is not a punishable offence; rather, it results in a person either being or not being the lawful successor. The only consequence of acting contrary to the rules would be a legal determination that a particular person is not entitled to the Crown. For instance, if a person attempted to claim the Crown based on a gender-based precedence that was abolished by clause 6, the claim would fail as a matter of law. If a person married without sovereign consent and fell within the disqualification under clause 8, they would simply lose their place in the line; no fine or imprisonment would follow. The validation of marriages under Schedule 1, item 9 has remedial effect: it treats certain void marriages as never void, so persons who might have faced legal uncertainty (e.g., status of children, property rights) are relieved. There is no enforcement mechanism needed because the law operates directly on legal status. The absence of penalties means the legislation does not create a regime of bureaucratic oversight or regulatory enforcement. The only potential for dispute would be in litigation over the interpretation of the conditions for validation or the scope of the disqualification reference. Such disputes would be resolved by courts applying the law, not by any statutory enforcement body. This is consistent with the nature of succession law, which is fundamentally about legal status rather than behaviour regulation.

The scheduled Bill contains specific interaction provisions. Clause 10 provides that references in any law of the Commonwealth or a Territory to the Bill of Rights 1689 or the Act of Settlement 1701, insofar as those Acts relate to succession to the Crown, are to be read as including references to the provisions of this Act. This means that any existing legislation that refers to those provisions (e.g., in defining the succession) is automatically updated to incorporate the changes made by the 2013 Act. For example, a reference in a Commonwealth Act to the Act of Settlement's disqualification for marrying a Roman Catholic would now be read as qualified by the removal of that disqualification under clause 7. Clause 11 provides that certain Union legislation - the Union with Scotland Act 1706, the Union with England Act 1707, the Union with Ireland Act 1800, and the Act of Union (Ireland) 1800 - are subject to this Act where they form part of the law of the Commonwealth, a State or a Territory. This ensures that any provisions in those Acts that might conflict with the new succession rules are overridden. Clause 9 and Schedule 1 amend or repeal specific English and Great Britain Acts that are part of Australian law: the Act of Settlement and the Bill of Rights are amended to remove references to disqualification for marrying a Roman Catholic (Schedule 1, Part 1); the Royal Marriages Act 1772 is repealed in its entirety (Schedule 1, item 8). The validation provision in Schedule 1, item 9 interacts with the Royal Marriages Act by deeming certain marriages voided by that Act as never void, for purposes other than succession. The scheduled Bill also interacts with United Kingdom law through clause 8, which incorporates by reference the UK Succession to the Crown Act 2013, section 3(3), as in force at the commencement of this section. This static reference means that if the UK later amends its corresponding disqualification provision, Australian law would not automatically change. This avoids a future divergence where Australian law would follow UK amendments without Australian legislative action. The NT Act itself interacts with the Commonwealth Constitution by invoking section 51(xxxviii), which requires a request from the Parliaments of all States. The NT Act is not a State request but a Territory request; the preamble to the scheduled Bill notes that the Parliaments of all the States have requested the Commonwealth enactment. The NT request is additional but not constitutionally required for the Commonwealth to act. The Act also interacts with the Australia Acts 1986, which govern the relationship between the Australian states and the Crown. The changes to succession are consistent with those Acts because the Sovereign of Australia remains the same as the Sovereign of the United Kingdom, as stated in the object of the NT Act (section 2). The disclaimed intention in section 3 of the NT Act and section 4 of the scheduled Bill ensures that the relationship between the Sovereign and the relevant polity is not altered beyond the succession rules. The legislation does not affect the reserve powers of the Crown or the functioning of the monarchy in Australia; it only changes who can succeed.

The Succession to the Crown (Request) (National Uniform Legislation) Act 2013 (NT) was enacted as Act Number 30 of 2013. It received assent on 8 November 2013 and commenced on that date. According to the endnotes in the source, the Act has not been amended. There is no evidence of any subsequent amendment to the NT Act. However, the scheduled Bill that the Act requested the Commonwealth to enact - the Succession to the Crown Act 2013 (Cth) - was enacted and may have its own amendment history. The NT Act itself remains on the statute book as enacted, and its function has been fulfilled: the Commonwealth did enact the requested legislation. The amendment history of the Commonwealth Act is beyond the scope of this source, which only contains the NT Act and the scheduled Bill as requested. The scheduled Bill contains a provision (clause 12) that any repeal or amendment of that Act may only be done by an Act passed at the request or with the concurrence of the Parliaments of all the States. This entrenchment provision means that the Commonwealth Act, once enacted, is more difficult to amend than ordinary legislation. If the Commonwealth Act has been amended since 2013, such amendment would have required unanimous State consent. As of the source date (8 November 2013), no such amendments had occurred. The NT Act, being a request Act, has no analogous entrenchment; it could be repealed by the NT Parliament at any time without affecting the Commonwealth Act, since the request had already been made and acted upon. The practical effect is that the NT Act is largely spent: its purpose was to request Commonwealth legislation, and that legislation exists. However, the NT Act remains in force and its provisions (especially section 3 about the relationship with the Sovereign) might still be relevant for interpretive purposes. The source endnotes show no amendment or repeal actions.

The source text provides no information about any litigation concerning the Succession to the Crown (Request) (National Uniform Legislation) Act 2013 (NT). This is unsurprising given its nature as a request Act with limited operative effect. Litigation concerning the substantive changes to succession law would more likely involve the Commonwealth Succession to the Crown Act 2013 (Cth), which implemented the changes. The absence of litigation in the source does not mean none occurred, but no cases are mentioned. The common law courts in Australia may have considered the succession changes in the context of cases about royal prerogative, but no specific decisions are recorded in the source. The changes were non-controversial in Australia, as the Perth Agreement had broad political support. Had there been litigation, it might have tested the interpretation of the validation conditions (Schedule 1, item 9) or the scope of the disqualification in section 8 referencing UK law. The entrenchment provision (section 12 of the scheduled Bill) could be litigated if an amendment were attempted without unanimous State consent, but no such attempt is known. The static reference to UK law in section 8 could also be a source of dispute if UK law changed and a person argued that the reference should be dynamic, but the text is clear that it is "as in force at the commencement of this section". Any future divergence between UK and Australian disqualification rules would need to be resolved by Australian legislation, not by judicial innovation. The validation of marriages under Schedule 1, item 9 applies only if "in all the circumstances it was reasonable for the person concerned not to have been aware at the time of the marriage that the Act applied to it". This reasonableness test could be litigated in a family law or succession dispute. For example, a descendant of a void marriage might argue the marriage was validated in order to claim an inheritance, and another party might argue it was not reasonable for the person to be unaware of the Royal Marriages Act. Such cases might arise in jurisdictions where the Royal Marriages Act 1772 was part of the law (e.g., Australia). However, the source gives no examples. The Court of the Northern Territory may have jurisdiction to hear matters under the NT Act, but none are recorded. Overall, the litigation history related to this specific NT Act appears to be negligible.

Several subtle features may catch practitioners off guard. First, the static reference to UK law in section 8 of the scheduled Bill: a person is disqualified from succeeding if disqualified by subsection 3(3) of the UK Succession to the Crown Act 2013 "as in force at the commencement of this section". That means if the UK later amends its disqualification rules - for example, expanding who needs consent or changing the consequences - Australian law does not move with it. Someone relying on the current UK law to determine their status might be mistaken if they assume the reference is dynamic. Conversely, a person who relied on a UK amendment to remove a disqualification might still be disqualified under Australian law. This could cause a rare but real divergence in who is eligible for the Crown in Australia versus the UK, which is precisely what the object of the Act (section 2 of the NT Act) sought to avoid. However, the divergence would only occur if the UK amended section 3(3) and Australia did not follow. Second, the validation of marriages in Schedule 1, item 9 of the scheduled Bill is narrow. It only validates marriages that were void under the Royal Marriages Act 1772 if four cumulative conditions are met, including that neither party was among the six persons next in the line of succession at the time of the marriage. So if a person was within the first six at the time of the marriage (even if far from the throne), the marriage remains void. The validation also applies only if no consent was sought and it was reasonable for the person not to have known the Act applied. A Royal Family member cannot claim ignorance simply because they did not read the law; reasonableness is a high bar. And crucially, the validation does not affect succession to the Crown - so even a validated marriage does not put someone back in line or make their children eligible. A person who lost their place due to a void marriage does not get it back. Third, the retrospective removal of disqualification for marrying a Roman Catholic in section 7(2) applies only if the person is alive at the commencement of the section. Deceased persons remain disqualified even if they were alive when the UK changed its law. This could affect the succession of descendants: if a deceased person would have been disqualified, their descendants cannot claim through them. Fourth, the entrenchment provision (section 12 of the scheduled Bill) means that the Commonwealth Act can only be repealed or amended by an Act passed at the request or with the concurrence of all State Parliaments. A future Commonwealth government wanting to change the succession rules - say, to allow a monarch of a different religion - would need to persuade all six state parliaments to request or concur. This is a high hurdle. The Territories have no such veto, which could be seen as inconsistent with their status. Fifth, the definition of Crown in section 5 of the scheduled Bill is "the Crown in all of its capacities". This means the succession changes apply to the Crown in right of the Commonwealth, each State, and each Territory. This is standard but worth noting. Sixth, the interpretive direction in section 10 of the scheduled Bill: references in any law to the Bill of Rights or Act of Settlement provisions on succession are to be read as including references to this Act. This could affect Victorian-era legislation still in force in Australia that refers to those Acts. Practitioners must ensure that any such references are updated by reading them consistently with the 2013 Act.

Compliance with the Succession to the Crown (Request) (National Uniform Legislation) Act 2013 (NT) is not a matter of ongoing duties; the Act itself required only that the Legislative Assembly pass the request, which occurred. For persons affected by the changes, compliance means understanding the new legal landscape. For the Commonwealth Parliament: having received the request, it was expected to enact the Succession to the Crown Act 2013 (Cth) in terms substantially similar to the Schedule. That was done. For individuals in the line of succession: they should note that gender no longer affects order for persons born after 28 October 2011. If they are a female born after that date, they no longer lose precedence to a later-born male sibling. This requires no action; the law operates automatically. For individuals who have married a Roman Catholic: if they were disqualified before the change, they are now restored to the line if alive at commencement. They need not notify any authority; the disqualification is lifted by operation of law. However, if they are within the first six in line, they should be aware that the new disqualification for marriage without sovereign consent (section 8 of the scheduled Bill) now applies. That consent requirement is not about Roman Catholic marriage but about marriage without the sovereign's permission for the first six persons. They should obtain consent before marriage to avoid disqualification. For persons whose marriage was void under the Royal Marriages Act 1772: if they meet the four conditions in Schedule 1, item 9 (not among the six closest in line, no consent sought, reasonable ignorance, and no one acted on voidness), their marriage is now treated as never void for all purposes except succession. They should review the conditions carefully. If they meet them, they may rely on the validation for property, inheritance, and family law purposes. If they do not meet them, the marriage remains void. For legal practitioners: when advising clients on succession matters that touch on the Crown, they must update their knowledge to reflect the gender-neutrality for those born after 28 October 2011, the removal of Roman Catholic marriage disqualification, and the new disqualification rules. They should also check whether any relevant old legislation (e.g., state or territory laws that reference the Bill of Rights or Act of Settlement) needs to be read in light of section 10 of the Commonwealth Act. They should be aware that the Commonwealth Act is entrenched under section 12 and that any future amendment requires unanimous State consent, which is a rare and politically fraught process. For individuals planning marriage into the royal family: they should seek legal advice on whether they fall within the first six in line and thus need sovereign consent. The disqualification applies automatically under Australian law via the static reference to UK law; non-compliance means loss of succession rights. For state and territory governments: no action is required; the uniformity was achieved. If any state wishes to propose an amendment to the Commonwealth Act, it would need to request or concur in Commonwealth legislation, consistent with section 12. For the media and commentators: they should accurately report that the changes apply only to births after 28 October 2011, so the current order of succession (e.g., the Prince of Wales's siblings) is unaffected. The removal of Roman Catholic marriage disqualification is retrospective but only for living persons. No one is required to register or prove any change; it is automatic. Compliance costs are zero for individuals; the only cost was the government expense of drafting and passing the legislation. The legislation creates no ongoing compliance burden, which is consistent with its minimalist, status-changing nature.