In a ceremonial sitting of the High Court for Sir Anthony Mason, Gageler CJ called out the late chief justice’s ‘assimilation of taxation legislation into the mainstream of statutory interpretation together with Wilson J in Cooper Brookes …’1 It was said in that case that the fact ‘that an Act is a taxing statute does not make it immune …
Commissioner v Special Situations [2026] QCA 98
This case illustrates the point made in Cooper Brookes above. The issue was whether certain shares were ‘group property’ under State land-rich provisions3. Gotterson AJA quoted the High Court in Alcan, saying that ‘tax statutes do not form a class of their own to which different rules of construction apply’…
Diab v Secretary [2026] NSWSC 693
The Secretary sought to cancel Diab’s contractor licence to do residential work. A licence ‘must’ be cancelled if the Secretary ‘would be required to refuse’ a licence, but ‘may’ be issued if the Secretary is satisfied there is ‘no evident risk to the public’ 7. Diab argued that the Secretary was not ‘required’ …
Maple Media v Monash CC [2026] VSC 330
Many cases deal with how development consents and planning permits are to be read9. The common theme is that, while there are nuances, the ordinary principles of statutory interpretation apply generally to these instruments10. This case provides a twist.
Gray J (at [61]) noted that some of those …
Moore v Martin [2026] NSWSC 493
This case on the meaning of ‘serious harm’ for defamation purposes makes 2 important points.
The first (at [24]) is High Court mantra – The starting point for the ascertainment of the meaning of a statutory provision … is the text of the statute, whilst at the same time regard is had to context …
Countless are the cases where a court or tribunal sets out the basics of our ‘modern approach’ to statutory interpretation by reference to High Court authority. One recent case is novel in this regard1. For guidance on interpretation, Lindsay J quotes French CJ from his foreword to the 2014 edition of Pearce & Geddes2. The main …
Strata Plan v 3A Composites [2026] FCA 351
Strata headed a class action against 3A under consumer guarantee provisions in the Australian Consumer Law concerning aluminium composite panels implicated in high-profile residential fires4.
Although the consumer guarantees are beneficial legislation, limitations on them need not be given a liberal interpretation. Those limitations reflect a practical balance between competing …
Two recent NSWCA cases
In Glencore, a submission that the procedural history of a determination6 could not be considered given no ambiguity had been shown was rejected7. McHugh JA observed (at [86]) that ‘language is unavoidably contextual’ and that context is to be considered ‘in the first instance’. But this is not to deny there are …
FW Aviation v Vietjet Aviation [2026] QSC 63
Vietjet argued that registration of an English judgment against it be set aside, as it was for an amount greater than the amount ‘payable’ at the date of registration10. McCafferty J held that it was the total amount payable, not the amount ‘presently payable’, to which the statute was directed. …
Property Exchange v R-G [2026] NSWSC 344
Modern statutes may have their own interpretation provisions. The Act implementing the national e-conveyancing scheme13 is one of them. Schedule 1 of the National Law deals with things like legislative purpose, extrinsic materials and ordinary meaning. PEXA challenged denial of a request to pass through new charges to consumers on the basis …
