Colonial Laws Validity Act
The Colonial Laws Validity Act, 1865 was a statute enacted by the United Kingdom Parliament, in order to remove inconsistency between colonial and imperial legislation. The statute was required by the existence at that time of different opinions expressed over the validity of a series of acts passed by the colonial legislatures. The main issue was that of repugnancy: any colonial law contradictory to the provisions of an imperial statute extending to a British colony was void and inoperative. While the Act was intended to extend rather to restrict the powers of the colonial legislatures, it reasserted in statutory form the overriding supremacy of British Parliament.
The imperial conference of 1930 adopted in political terms a convention to abolish the supremacy of British Parliament over the dominions legislatures. In pursuance of this conference recommendation, the Statute of Westminster 1931 repealed the Colonial Laws Validity Act 1865 in its application to the dominions, and the Australia Acts 1986 its application to the Australian States.