The rules concerning the inconsistency of Commonwealth and territory laws have been little explored and largely neglected. They rose to recent prominence in the challenge to the validity of the ACT's same-sex marriage laws. The ACT claimed that even if the Commonwealth's Marriage Act was intended to cover the field, the ACT's same-sex marriage law could still operate concurrently with it, because of the different application of inconsistency rules in the ACT. This article considers how inconsistency rules operate in the different territories, what was intended by the ACT inconsistency provision, how the High Court determined the issue, and whether a better explanation can be given for the outcome.

The Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011 (Cth) (‘the Act’) has established a new model of pre-legislative rights scrutiny of proposed Commonwealth laws. This is undertaken by the political arms of government and involves: (1) the requirement that a statement of (human rights) compatibility must accompany proposed laws and certain legislative instruments when introduced into Parliament; and (2) the establishment of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights (‘PJCHR’) which regularly reports to the Parliament on the compatibility of its proposed laws with human rights.

This article looks at the relationship between the Act – and these two new mechanisms – and the interpretive role of the courts. It does so by first considering the (possible) direct use of statements of compatibility and PJCHR reports by Australian courts in the interpretation of Commonwealth laws that engage human rights. It then assesses whether the Act may exert an indirect influence on the content and scope of the common law interpretive presumptions that protect human rights.

The course of judicial decisions given pre-federation in the United States and England where the remedy of certiorari or of injunction was granted or refused against public officers assists an understanding of the apparent oddity in the omission of certiorari and the inclusion of injunction in the remedies specified in s 75(v) of the Constitution. Further, the significance of the inclusion of the injunction has yet to be fully examined in the case law dealing with s 75(v).

Since 24 March 2012, asylum seekers whose claims are processed in Australia have been able to claim protection on broader grounds than those contained in the Refugee Convention. This is known as ‘complementary protection’. Complementary protection provides protection to those who face a real risk of arbitrary deprivation of life, the death penalty, torture, or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment if removed from Australia. This article provides an in-depth analysis of complementary protection in its first two years of operation in Australia. It examines: (a) the kinds of factual scenarios giving rise to complementary protection; (b) case law developments in relation to the content of, and exceptions to, the complementary protection criteria; and (c) the extent to which Australia's approach reflects international practice.

Section 75(v) of the Australian Constitution gives the High Court original jurisdiction to hear ‘all matters … in which a writ of Mandamus or prohibition or an injunction is sought against an officer of the Commonwealth.’ This is said to guarantee the Court's ability to ensure that officers of the Commonwealth act within the law. Yet the s 75(v) jurisdiction is clearly limited. The Court is not authorised to hear all matters in which it is alleged that an officer of the Commonwealth has acted unlawfully; it is only given jurisdiction to hear matters in which a (somewhat surprising) selection of remedies are sought. This is confusing in itself, and it has caused broader confusion about the purpose and scope of this important constitutional provision. This article examines the historical ambit of the judicial review remedies and evidence from the Constitutional Convention Debates in order to determine why s 75(v) only gives the High Court jurisdiction to hear matters in which mandamus, prohibition and injunction are sought, and the significance of this for judicial review under the Australian Constitution.

The Social Security Appeals Tribunal (‘SSAT’) plays a significant role in the provision of administrative justice in Australia, deciding around 10 000 appeals each year. However there is little published information about its operation, especially as experienced by people who bring appeals. This article reports the results of a survey of SSAT users conducted in 2008. Participants were interviewed up to three times during the progress of their appeals. We found that while the majority of participants reported satisfaction with the SSAT and its processes, a small minority were very dissatisfied, not solely as a result of losing their appeals. We also found that the reasons for appealing were wide-ranging and included the desire for a respectful individual response or explanation that may not have been provided previously. Our analysis suggests that SSAT users value many features of the Tribunal, including multi-member panels, which require maintenance of current funding levels.

In the recent Fortescue decision, the High Court made some interesting observations regarding interpretation of the word ‘discrimination’ in the context of the Federal Government's power with respect to taxation in s 51(2) of the Australian Constitution. Coincidentally, the Federal Government has commenced consideration of options for the development of northern regions of Australia. Of course, one option would be to introduce a variable taxation system to encourage businesses and individuals to be based, and/or invest, in northern Australia. This article considers possible constitutional issues associated with variable taxation schemes overtly favouring businesses and individuals based in the ‘north’, given the recent High Court decision.

In Australia, controversial incidents regarding the treatment of live animals exported from Australia spark regular debate on whether the live export trade should be banned or more tightly regulated. Government responses to public outcry often take the form of restrictions on the trade of the animals concerned, but the legality of unilateral measures of this kind is yet to be directly considered by the World Trade Organization's Appellate Body. This article examines the legality of imposing restrictions on live export under the international trade law regime set up by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994 (‘GATT’), and in particular, whether such measures could be justified under Article XX. In exploring this question, special attention is given to the Australian government's new regulatory framework, as introduced by the Export Control (Animals) Amendment Order 2012 (No 1), which imposes an exporter supply chain assurance obligation on Australian suppliers. In addition, in light of the continued calls from animal welfare groups to ban the trade entirely, the legality of a complete moratorium on live exports will also be considered. Although the exceptions in Articles XX(b) and XX(g) of the GATT appear to be relevant to live exports, ultimately any regulation might be best supported under the ‘public morals’ exception in Article XX(a). However, care will need to be taken in the design of any restriction to avoid breaching the strict chapeau requirements of Article XX.

Can the honour of the dead be prejudiced? There is much philosophical debate about whether the dead can, or should, enjoy legal rights. Australia, like many jurisdictions, has apparently bypassed that debate and confers post-mortem moral rights on authors, which endure for at least 70 years after an author's death. The Australian moral right of integrity protects authors from certain conduct in relation to their copyright works, which is prejudicial to their honour or reputation. This deliberate conferral of a posthumous right ostensibly acknowledges that a deceased author's honour can be harmed. This article examines questions surrounding the apparent conundrum of posthumous prejudice to an author's honour. How can prejudice to the honour of the dead be established in the absence of the author, particularly if honour is interpreted subjectively? Do insuperable evidentiary hurdles render the posthumous honour limb of the moral right of integrity illusory? The article concentrates on Australian law, but engages in relevant comparative treatments, particularly with French, Canadian and United Kingdom law. Judicial consideration of moral rights under the common law is scant, particularly in Australia, and rarer still in a post-mortem context. However, the issues explored in the article are important, will inevitably arise for consideration and merit a comprehensive examination.

Reconciling registration and use as mechanisms by which rights can be acquired in a trade mark is inherently difficult. The federal Australian registered trade mark system is built around a hybrid of a registration-based and a use-based model of protection. While it is perfectly possible to defend such a dual model, the two means of acquiring trade mark rights rest on very different logics. In the event of a conflict between a registered mark and a mark that has been used for some time the question of which should take precedence is not necessarily capable of being determined a priori. The relationship between registration and use is mediated by a number of provisions of the Trade Marks Act 1995 (Cth). In this article we focus on one such provision, s 58A, a relatively recent addition to the legal landscape.

Through a close analysis of s 58A, focusing on court decisions and decisions of the Trade Marks Office that have applied this provision, we demonstrate that s 58A has the potential to operate in an entirely unsatisfactory manner. We then use problems with s 58A as a vehicle to explore the relationship between use-based and registration-based rights generally, suggesting a new conceptual framework that might serve to guide future discussion of how the relationship between registration and use ought to be mediated.

Federalism permits sub-national diversity and experimentation. The Kable principle limits sub-national diversity and experimentation in relation to state courts. But this apparent tension between ‘laboratory’ federalism and the Kable principle is somewhat illusory. Kable does not always hinder experimentation, but rather enables it by securing its necessary preconditions. By preventing state legislatures and governments from conscripting state courts to implement political designs, the Kable principle prevents state legislatures and governments from using state courts as a ‘cloak’ against political accountability. This preserves the capacity of sub-national communities to compare policies across multiple jurisdictions, to express their preferences through ‘exit and voice’, and thereby to render sub-national experimentation effective on its own terms.

Betting on elections has a long history, despite periods in which wagers were unenforceable and even criminalised. In recent years, significant online markets have emerged, driven by the bookmaking industry in those jurisdictions which license betting on politics. These markets treat election wagers as a form of sports betting. This article examines the provenance and regulation of election betting in the common law. It charts this from early case law holding wagers involving electors to be void (as tainting voting decisions) through criminal prohibitions, some of which are still on the statute books (since wagers could disguise electoral bribes) and onto contemporary regimes for licensing electoral bookmaking.

Normative arguments about election betting and the law include the liberal harm principle, the precautionary principle and the concept of commodification. The article concludes that friendly wagers should be permitted, to allow partisans to intensify the ritual experience of elections. But bets involving politicians should be outlawed, and the industrialisation of election betting should not be encouraged given the risk of commodifying the values underlying electoral democracy.

When s 15AB of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 (Cth) was enacted over 30 years ago, its purpose was to establish clear and particular rules about when extrinsic materials could be used in the interpretation of Commonwealth legislation. Accordingly, s 15AB stipulates three threshold tests, at least one of which must be satisfied before extrinsic materials can be considered as an aid to interpretation. However, developments in the common law since that enactment have largely overtaken the utility and effect of s 15AB (and its State equivalents). In particular, the development of the ‘contextual’ approach to statutory interpretation has meant that the common law now permits recourse to extrinsic materials, including parliamentary ones, without the need to pass any gateway test. Consequently, the important emerging issue is, not when such materials can be considered, but how they may be used. This article, using recent High Court cases, examines some of the key threads that have emerged about the ‘appropriate use’ of parliamentary materials, particularly with respect to identifying the purpose of the statute and as against the weight of the statutory text.

The application of s 137 of the uniform evidence legislation, which essentially restates the Christie discretion, has been thrown into confusion with the Supreme Courts of New South Wales and Victoria taking a restrictive and expansive interpretation respectively of the meaning of ‘probative value’ for the purpose of the weighting exercise between probative value and unfair prejudice. Definitive clarification of such an important and well known evidential principle, which could reasonably have been previously regarded as settled law, will most likely be postponed until a suitable case is heard by the High Court. This article seeks to anticipate such a judicial resolution of the application of s 137, by applying well-understood principles of statutory interpretation, to argue in favour of the Victorian expansive approach to the meaning of ‘probative value’ in the uniform evidence legislation.

Momcilovic v The Queen (2011) 245 CLR 1 provided the first opportunity for the High Court of Australia to consider the constitutional validity of a ‘declaration of inconsistent interpretation’ made under s 36 of the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 (Vic). The Court's ruling on this point attracted attention going well beyond the rest of the case. The constitutional status of the Charter's ‘declaration’ function had long been uncertain; in addition, although the case concerned a conviction under State law, the judgment of the Victorian Court of Appeal, from which Ms Momcilovic's appeal had come to the High Court, had been exercised in federal jurisdiction. This, then, raised questions about the extent to which the State Court was jurisdictionally limited, under the Kable doctrine, by its ‘identity’ as a Ch III court: whether the declaration power could be exercised by both, either, or neither, a State or federal court. Notably, French CJ found the power valid for a State court, but invalid for a federal court. In explaining his conclusion, the Chief Justice identified what this paper calls ‘State jurisdictional residue.’ In his Honour's words, ‘there is no reason in principle why the Court of Appeal, having exhausted its functions in the exercise of its federal jurisdiction … could not proceed to exercise the distinct non-judicial power conferred upon it by’ the Charter. Further questions were then raised about the extent to which a State court, albeit exercising federal jurisdiction, remains free to exercise a ‘residual’ State power relevant to the same proceedings. This paper considers such questions. It also asks what the case might be for reconsidering Kable v Director of Public Prosecutions (NSW) (1996) 189 CLR 51, particularly in light of the more recent judgment in Kirk v Industrial Court (NSW) (2010) 239 CLR 531.

This article considers the patterns of centralisation within the federal judicial system. While centralisation of legislative, executive and fiscal power within the federal system has been well documented, the architecture of judicial federalism has been the subject of less attention. The article, first, seeks to show that principles derived from Chapter III of the Constitution have, on the whole, exhibited broadly similar centralising characteristics and exerted centralising effects, and, secondly, offers explanations for this centralisation.

This article assesses whether Australia's system of enterprise bargaining has helped to streamline workplace relations rules by replacing overlapping industrial instruments with a single enterprise agreement. It presents empirical findings from a content analysis study of enterprise agreements made in the higher education and fast food sectors between 1993 and 2011. These findings suggest that there has been a remarkable shift over time in the contribution of enterprise agreements to the problem of regulatory ‘layering’. Whereas the majority of early agreements exacerbated the problem by inserting new arrangements on top of existing industrial instruments, more recent agreements have tended to replace multiple instruments with a single agreement. The empirical findings also point to various ways in which legislative reforms and funding incentives have contributed to this shift towards greater simplicity in the workplace relations system.

Genetic information is widely recognised as being particularly sensitive personal information about an individual and his or her family. This article presents an analysis of the privacy policies of Australian companies that were offering direct-to-consumer genetic testing services in 2012–13. The results of this analysis indicate that many of these companies do not comply with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), and will need to significantly reassess their privacy policies now that significant new amendments to the Act have come into force. Whilst the Privacy Commissioner has increased powers under the new amendments, the extent to which these will mitigate the deficiencies of the current regime in relation to privacy practices of direct–to-consumer genetic testing companies remains unclear. Accordingly, it may be argued that a privacy code for the direct-to-consumer genetic testing industry would provide clearer standards. Alternatively it may be time to rethink whether a sui generis approach to protecting genetic information is warranted.

In this article, the author honours three former Deans of Law of The Australian National University: Jack Richardson, Harry Whitmore, and Michael Coper. His remarks are derived from three speeches he gave in 2012: the 2012 Harry Whitmore Memorial Lecture, the 2012 Jack Richardson Memorial Lecture, and an address to The Australian National University's 2012 Law Alumni Dinner on the occasion of the retirement from the Deanship of Michael Coper. Jack Richardson and Harry Whitmore were pioneers of Australian administrative law. Michael Coper, a constitutional lawyer whose views were shaped by his family's direct experience of Nazism, served as Dean for a record term of 15 years. The author reflects on the life stories of these three Law Deans, and derives some conclusions on the nature of the office of Dean of Law in a modern Australian University.