Bilal v Ampol Australia [2025] FedCFamC2G 1724
The idea that the law does not concern itself with trifling matters is frequently invoked – see Episode 33. This case (at [91-93]) illustrates 3 things – (1) The law as stated by Hill J in Farnell remains correct10. (2) The principle is a rule of thumb rather than a rule …
Ziegler v FCT [2025] FCAFC 168
Section 33(3) of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 says –
Where an Act confers a power to make, grant or issue any instrument of a legislative or administrative character … the power shall be construed as including a power exercisable in the like manner and subject to the like conditions (if any) to repeal, …
Petersen v Argentine Republic [2025] NSWSC 1071
After Argentina’s nationalisation of energy assets in 2012, a New York judge awarded US$16b in damages to P as a dispossessed party. When P sought to enforce judgment, Argentina said relevant process had not been validly served on it, something it said could only happen under convention procedures5.
Argentina argued that, …
RPPL [2025] FCA 1126; Stretton [2025] VSC 589
Two cases show how the re-enactment presumption works in practice. In RPPL, the issue was whether jurisdiction provisions in new ART legislation are to be read the same way as in the old AAT legislation8. Given the new provisions took into account the ‘existing well-settled position’, Cheeseman J (at …
Crossley v English [2025] WASCA 141
This water access case (at [101-106]) considers the ‘principle of co-interpretation’ – that being, when one Act amends another, the two are read together ‘as one connected and combined statement of the will of parliament’10. The principle applies at both common law and under statute11, though the latter ‘has added …
Meredith v NSW (No 5) [2025] NSWSC 1133
M headed a class action for assault [etc] after she was strip searched by police for drugs at a music festival. Were the searches ‘necessary’ in terms of the ‘seriousness and urgency of the circumstances’14?
Necessary means ‘absolutely necessary’, and urgency indicates a situation ‘requiring immediate action or attention’. The …
Grapple Pay v Conroy [2025] NSWCA 171
The Latin term in pari materia means ‘analogous’. Parliament is presumed to intend the same words used in a later statute ‘in a similar connection’ take the same meaning7. The practical application of this depends on the strength of the analogy in question.
In the present case, a suggested analogy between …
Police Federation v CCP (Victoria) [2025] FCA 865
This case repeats principles applying to enterprise agreements10 but makes extra points. One, context extends to the ‘historical antecedents’ by reference to what they may show. Two, when an expression is transplanted from history, ‘it may have brought with it some of the soil in which it once grew, retaining a …
Laming v Electoral Commissioner [2025] HCA 31
Statutes rarely pursue one purpose 100%. Did certain Facebook posts not giving sender particulars attract civil penalties at the maximum possible level?12
Although an object was to deter non-compliance, it did not follow that penalties calculated on a multiple recipient basis were intended. Section 15AA was of little assistance. The deterrence …
Queensland v Johnston [2025] QCA 142
J was suspended from teaching pending unrelated criminal charges. On acquittal, he sought lost pay on the basis he was ‘available to work’ at all times consistent with a statutory directive13. J argued that an example in the directive of detention in a correctional facility operated to confine the directive to physical …
