¢HAP. 11] THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA 823 
government. This also followed, in their opinion, from 
8. 61 of the Constitution, and it was part of the essence of the 
Constitution that within the ambit of its authority the 
Commonwealth should exercise its legislative and executive 
powers in absolute freedom, without any interference or 
control except that prescribed by the Constitution itself. 
In cases in which the states had similar power, s. 109 provided 
that the law of the Commonwealth should prevail ; but in 
matters within the exclusive competence of the Federal 
Parliament no conflict could arise, inasmuch as from the 
point at which the quality of exclusiveness attached to the 
Federal power the competency of the state was altogether 
extinguished. If, then, a state attempted to give to its legis- 
lative or executive authority an operation which would 
fetter or interfere with the free exercise of the legislative or 
executive power of the Commonwealth, the attempt, unless 
expressly authorized by the Constitution. was to that extent 
invalid and inoperative. 
The Court cited in support of this view the case of McCul- 
loch v. State of Maryland} decided in 1819, in which Chief 
Justice Marshall laid down doctrines which have ever since 
been accepted as establishing on a firm basis the fundamental 
rules governing the relations of the Federation of the United 
States and the constituent states. While an attempt had been 
made by the Attorney-General for Tasmania to distinguish 
that case from the present case on the ground of ss. 107, 108, 
and 109 of the Commonwealth Constitution, they were unable 
to see any material difference between the provisions of 
those sections and the provisions of the tenth amendment 
of the United States Constitution. The Court was not, of 
course, bound by the decisions of the Supreme Court of the 
United States, but so far as the constitutions of the two 
federations were similar, the construction put upon the 
United States Constitution by the Supreme Court should be 
' 4 Wheat. 316. For a criticism of this judgement cf, Mr. Higgins 
(now a justice) in Harvard Law Review, xviii. 559 ; Commonavealth Law 
Review, ii. 917. Tt had been invoked unsuccessfully in Wollaston’s Case, 
1902) 28 V. L. R. 357; see especially at pp. 387. 388. ner Madden C.J.