From: Separation of Powers and Parliamentary Systems

Scrymarch : Good long view, and timely: If you generalise the Separation of Powers pattern described by Montesquieu and various constitutions around the place you get something this bloke calls Separation of Duties.

Within this you've got delegation to specialists: separate command structures for the military, and to the civil service in Westminster and Imperial China.

The civil service is merely a brake on the executive, and often a highly effective one I'm sure, but lacks the formal veto power that would make it an equal branch of government.

It's kind of impressive that the American system of checks and balances works even though it's relentlessly partisan and the drafters were determined to avoid the "evils of faction". The separation of powers between the Presidency and Congress boils down to the Senate filibuster at the moment.

Which is why the article is timely. Since the advent of the Australian Democrats the Australian Senate has had a roll-your-own separation of powers where the lower house is the House of the Executive and the upper house is the House of Legislative Review. The forthcoming government majority will give us the chance to see how the British and Canadians run their show. They seem to muddle through ok with their weak upper houses but I hope it's a brief political vacation.

I also note with amusement that if you hold Kerr acted correctly or established a useful convention, as some monarchists do, the figurehead of the Governor-General is more powerful than the figurehead of the monarch, as he has more frequent occassions where he has to exercise his own judgement.