ZeroBonds v Commissioner [2025] NSWSC 265
This case is about the phrase ‘before or when’ in residential bond provisions13. Refusing declarations sought by Z, Brereton J held the phrase was used in a temporal sense rather than in a conditional sense.
In the former, the words ‘before’ and ‘when’ had different meanings, but in the latter they ‘usually mean the same thing’. It was noted that, while the presumption against surplusage is a ‘valuable guide’14, tautology ‘is not uncommon in statutes’. This he illustrated by the phrase ‘misleading or deceptive’, which he described as ‘an indulgence into tautology’15. This case underlines the starting idea that all words are to be given meaning and effect.
This principle is from Episode 120 of interpretation NOW!
Footnotes:
13 s 23(1) of the Residential Tenancies Act 2010 (NSW).
14 Taheri [2014] NSWCA 209 [121] cited, cf Pearce 10th ed [2.44-2.45].
15 Parkdale (1982) 149 CLR 191 (198) cited, cf Southregal [2017] HCA 7 [55].