Olde English Tiles v TfNSW [2022] NSWCA 108
OET occupied land under a bare licence terminable at will with no market value. When the land was compulsorily acquired, OET claimed compensation in what SMH called a ‘high-stakes The Castle-style’ stoush5. OET argued it had a compensable ‘interest’, namely a ‘privilege over, or in connection with, the land’, …
Hitchcock v Reed [2022] NSWLEC 81
Development consents are statutory instruments governed by the same rules of construction as statutes7, as Robson J observed here (at [61-63]). R’s development consent would have lapsed if work had not physically commenced8. The work had begun, but conditions in the consent were not met. Did this mean the work …
R v Jacobs Group [2022] NSWCCA 152
JG pleaded guilty to foreign bribery offences11. One maximum penalty was potentially three times the ‘benefit’ JG obtained from the offence. ‘Benefit’ was used elsewhere in the same section to mean gross (not net) benefit. Did it take the same meaning here?
No, said Bell CJ (at [98-99]). Although words ‘ordinarily’ …
D&D Traffic Management v AWU [2022] FCAFC 113
This case (at [47-48]) summarises principles for interpreting industrial awards. Similar to statutes, the starting point is the natural and ordinary meaning of the award’s words, ‘read as a whole and in context’, with regard to history and subject matter.
Importantly, awards are designed for specific industries, so cannot be read ‘in …
This month the number of iNOW! subscribers passed the 1000 mark. Many are within the ATO but most are external. They come from across the professions, government, academia and the courts. Improving the reliability of answers to what legislation means caters to an important public interest across the community. The modest aim of iNOW! is to provide access to the …
R v RB [2022] NSWCCA 142
Statements in extrinsic materials cannot be substituted for the statutory text1. They may reveal legislative purpose, but must be subjected to scrutiny and treated with caution. They can also be wrong2, as this case shows. The issue was whether sex offence provisions required a relationship to exist or merely the …
BXS20 v Minister [2022] FedCFamC2G 515
Calculation of administrative fees often presents problems. In this case, various factors (including increases) made the fees ‘more difficult to calculate’5. But this ‘did not render the effect of the provisions uncertain’, as Judge Laing held (at [32]).
The court was bound to give effect to the regulations ‘even where they require …
Smith v R [2022] SASCA 48
Statutes are read not to breach fundamental rights and freedoms, absent clear words8. This protects against ‘inadvertent and collateral’ contraventions9. The boundaries here are ever being tested10.
In this roadside licence check case11, it was accepted (at [28-29]) there is a common law right to go …
LCM Funding v Stanwell [2022] FCAFC 103
Anderson J (at [79]) provides a statement of principle at the very heart of our ‘modern approach’ – ‘Consideration of purpose in statutory interpretation is not optional: s 15AA of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901’12. It was a ‘clear error’ of an earlier court to forego a purposive approach to a …
It’s more than easy to fall into the ‘1 + 1 = 3’ trap when interpreting statutes – that is, ‘provision + dictionary = answer’. We all recall that line from the old American case, repeated by our courts – ‘don’t make a fortress out of a dictionary’1. The point is that we have a contextual system of …
