 Hill, on the other hand, argued that: "The United Kingdom was not a foreign power at Federation, is not a foreign power now and never will be a foreign power while the Constitution remains in its present form." Hill said that because the Constitution was enacted as part of a statute of the British Imperial Parliament it derived its validity from British law. Further, she argued that because section 128 of the Australian Constitution provides that the Constitution cannot be changed except in accordance with that section, then only a constitutional referendum could change this special status of the United Kingdom, and the Australia Act had no effect, "so long as the United Kingdom retained any residual influence upon legislative, executive or judicial processes in Australia, it could not be regarded as'foreign' to Australia."
