The Government of Western Australia Act 1829 (10 Geo IV, c.22) of the British Parliament, which was passed on 14 May 1829, was the Act that created the basis on which European settlement of Western Australia relied. This Act didn't start to have any real impact on governance until 1 November 1830, when an Order in Council gave the British government the power to appoint a Legislative Council of three or more persons to 'make all the necessary laws and to constitute all necessary courts for the peace, order, and good government of the settlement.' The persons appointed to the Legislative Council were the Governor, the Senior Military Officer next in command to the Governor (who was also a military officer), the Colonial Secretary, the Surveyor-General and the Advocate-General (Battye, p.109). This Legislative Council first met on 7 February 1832.
Until 1870 when a new constitution and a limited franchise enabled some citizens to vote, the appointed Legislative Council made the laws and policies which governed or impacted on the treatment of children in WA.
Sources used to compile this entry: Battye, J.S., Western Australia: A History from its Discovery to the Inauguration of the Commonwealth, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1924; Phillips, Harry CJ, Second Reading: Parliamentary Government in Western Australia, Revised Internet Edition edn, Parliament of Western Australia, Perth, 2010, http://www.parliament.wa.gov.au/WebCMS/WebCMS.nsf/content/parliamentary-education-office-resources-and-publications.
Prepared by: Debra Rosser
Created: 21 December 2011, Last modified: 22 April 2015
Last updated: 17 October 2023
Cite this: https://www.findandconnect.gov.au/ref/wa/biogs/WE00489b.htm
First published by the Find & Connect Web Resource Project for the Commonwealth of Australia, 2011
Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License