Maple Media v Monash CC [2026] VSC 330
Many cases deal with how development consents and planning permits are to be read9. The common theme is that, while there are nuances, the ordinary principles of statutory interpretation apply generally to these instruments10. This case provides a twist.
Gray J (at [61]) noted that some of those principles apply but queried others, ‘particularly those relating to the need to adopt a purposive and contextual construction of permits’11. They ‘could come into tension with the principle of being able to give a non-technical, practical and essentially freestanding interpretation to a permit’. Comment – these comments may signal a change in approach12.
This principle is from Episode 135 of interpretation NOW!
Footnotes:
9 Episodes 88, 91, 113, 123 & 132; cf Herzfeld & Prince [16.190-16.220].
10 Most recently, Aesthete [2026] QCA 136 [59] ‘the same principles’.
11 [56-58] on Pegasus [2018] VSC 484 [45], cf Salisbury [2024] SASC 92 [67].
12 cf Kovacevic [2016] NSWCA 346 [83], Matic [2008] NSWLEC 113 [9].