[2] The 1926 Imperial Conference resulted in the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act 1927, and the Balfour Declaration 1926, which granted the Dominions equal status to the United Kingdom.

Sue argued that on the date of Hill's nomination to the Senate she was still a citizen of the United Kingdom and thus, because of the operation of section 44 of the Australian Constitution, was ineligible to be elected to the Parliament of Australia.

Sue also raised the example of section 51(xix) of the Australian Constitution, which grants the Commonwealth Parliament the power to make laws with respect to "naturalization and aliens", and argued that since the word "aliens" in that section had come to be regarded to include people from the United Kingdom, so too should the word "foreign power" be understood to include the United Kingdom.

The Commonwealth Government decided to intervene in the case, and the Solicitor-General of Australia, David Bennett, also argued that the United Kingdom was a "foreign power".

Hill also argued that if the Electoral Act actually appeared to confer jurisdiction on the court, it was nevertheless invalid, as the determination of disputes about election results is a non-judicial function.

Both the government and Sue argued that two previous decisions, which may have inter alia suggested that determining disputed returns is a non-judicial function, were incorrect.

[7] On the important issue of whether the United Kingdom was a "foreign power", only Gaudron, and jointly Gleeson, Gummow and Hayne, decided the matter, the other three judges having already found that the court did not have jurisdiction to hear the case.

[7][1] All four judges deciding did find that the United Kingdom was a "foreign power", because it no longer retained any legislative, executive or judicial influence over Australia.

[1] Gleeson, Gummow and Hayne said that the question was:[7] not about whether Australia's relationships with that power are friendly or not, close or distant, or meet any other qualitative description.

[7] Some commentators had suggested that section 1 of the Australia Act could pose constitutional problems in the United Kingdom, because of A. V. Dicey's proposition that the Parliament cannot restrict its future actions.

To this, Gleeson, Gummow and Hayne said:[7] Provisions such as s 1 may present doctrinal questions for the constitutional law of the United Kingdom, in particular for the dogma associated with Dicey's views as to the sovereignty of the Parliament at Westminster.

Professor Sir William Wade pointed out more than forty years ago that Dicey never explained how he reconciled his assertions that Westminster could destroy or transfer sovereignty and the proposition that it could not bind future Parliaments.

Eventually, Len Harris, the number two candidate on the One Nation ticket, was elected in Hill's stead, taking up his seat on 1 July 1999.

[12] Australian Greens Senator Bob Brown, despite being politically opposed to One Nation, attacked the decision for disenfranchising the people who had voted for Hill.