Billyard Ave v Sydney City [2025] NSWLEC 22
Walsh C had refused a DA due to inconsistency with the objectives of the development zone in question9. The first objective of the R1 zone was ‘to provide for the housing needs of the community’. Walsh C construed this objective by reference to expert opinion and party evidence on what it meant.
Preston CJ said that ‘statutory interpretation is not a matter of evidence, but rather a question of law applying settled principles’. Deriving alternative views from the evidence then testing each against the R1 first objective ‘inverted and subverted the proper process’10. Rules against preconception11 and giving evidence on legal meaning12 align with this.
This principle is from Episode 120 of interpretation NOW!
Footnotes:
9 cl 4.6(4)(a)(ii) of the Sydney Local Environmental Plan 2012 (paraphrased).
10 Walsh C had adopted an ‘atomised construction of individual words’.
11 Certain Lloyd’s [2012] HCA 56 [26], AEU [2012] HCA 3 [28].
12 Simplot [2023] FCA 1115 [86], Uber [2017] FCA 110 [115], Pearce 10th [4.18].