In 2021, the High Court said the principles of interpretation are ‘familiar’, adding – ‘Oftentimes they can seem banal’1. The sense of this is that the principles are trite, commonplace or mundane. Gageler J described them as ‘workaday’2. A recent case observes again (A) that the principles are ‘well established’, and (B) that the language of the text ‘in light of its context and purpose … is the surest guide to legislative intention’3. Sheer repetition of these themes may seem to condemn the principles to a kind of banality. It was Chekhov who once said there was ‘nothing more awful, insulting and depressing than banality’. Our interpretation principles, however, are anything but banal in this way. As Edelman J explained in Babet v Commonwealth, they largely reflect the natural means by which we humans understand ordinary communication4 … including the works of Chekhov.
Gordon Brysland – Tax Counsel Network gordon.brysland@ato.gov.au 0417 605 338
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Thanks – Oliver Hood, Jacinta Dharmananda & Michael Mirtsis.
Footnotes:
1 Port of Newcastle [2021] HCA 39 [85], Episode 79.
2 Esso [2017] HCA 54 [71], cf Charles [2017] FCAFC 218 [51].
3 DZY [2025] HCA 16 [23] citing Certain Lloyd’s [2012] HCA 56 [24].
4 Babet [2025] HCA 21 [131], cf Pearce 10th ed [4.1], Glass (1991) 7 AJLS 16.