Laming v Electoral Commissioner [2025] HCA 31
Statutes rarely pursue one purpose 100%. Did certain Facebook posts not giving sender particulars attract civil penalties at the maximum possible level?12
Although an object was to deter non-compliance, it did not follow that penalties calculated on a multiple recipient basis were intended. Section 15AA was of little assistance. The deterrence object did ‘not exist in a vacuum’ and the assumption that the provision sought to achieve that object ‘at any price [was] particularly inapt’. Other objects supporting democratic functioning and freedom of political communication signalled that people were not to be subjected to ‘crippling penalties’ in this regard.
This principle is from Episode 124 of interpretation NOW!
Footnotes:
12 s 321D(5) of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 (Cth).