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 special strength and colour in its new environment’11.
There is no need for ambiguity before history is to be consulted. But history cannot displace the meaning of the text, nor is its examination an ‘end in itself’. In the present case, history showed little and the ‘intensive focus’ on it by one party ‘at times distracted attention from the structure and text …’
This principle is from Episode 124 of interpretation NOW!
Footnotes:
10 [47], cf Episode 109, Barwon Health [2024] FedCFamC2G 376 [22].
11 [49], Short (1993) 40 FCR 511 (518), cf Toms [2015] FCAFC 35 [40].