Instruction on the Great Depression used to come from our parents, our grandparents, and the History Channel. Now everyone has something to say about it. Economists tell us that the global financial crisis is the biggest economic reversal since the Great Depression, and governments in Washington, London and Canberra are likening their resolve to that displayed by President Roosevelt in the early days of the New Deal. If they were even half-way right, then these would be busy times indeed for administrative lawyers. Although they are wrong, the legislative and administrative responses to the current crisis include measures that should rekindle some of administrative law's deepest concerns about the democratic legitimacy of the administrative state. New banking laws, in particular, have transferred enormous discretionary powers to central government's regulatory authorities, and these pose real issues about protection from arbitrary power, and about the very process of making laws and holding the administration to account. In other areas, we are likely to see a more hands-on style of market and corporate regulation, but probably nothing so radical as to require us to dig out the history books.

It has been an eventful year for the Criminal Code (Cth). Chapter 2 General Principles of Criminal Responsibility ('Chapter 2’) emerged unscathed, indeed reinforced, as a consequence of judicial scrutiny by the High Court in R v Tang and it was the subject of an extended exposition of the principles of statutory interpretation, incorporating elements of his McPherson Lectures, by Spigelman CJ in R v JS. The High Court decision is remarkable for the strict literalism of its interpretation of Part 2.2 The elements of an offence. The judgment of Kirby J, though dissenting in the outcome, provides a valuable addition to his earlier judgment in R v Barlow, on the principles of interpretation of legislation codifying the criminal law. Danger signs are apparent, however, in an equally literal reading of Chapter 2 by the Queensland Court of Criminal Appeal in Crowther v Sala, which will be discussed later in this essay. As appellate case law on Chapter 2 grows, stresses on its structure that were unforeseen by its framers have begun to accumulate. If Chapter 2 is to continue to guide Parliament and courts in the formulation and interpretation of criminal legislation it will require continuing legislative maintenance.

In recent years, scholars worldwide have begun organising and developing a coherent framework and research agenda focused on the emerging field of ‘global administrative law’. This nascent body of law, unlike domestic or national forms of administrative law, does not operate within the bounds of unitary nation states, and unlike traditional accounts of public international law, it does not arise exclusively between nation states. Instead it operates in a transnational or global space occupied by a vast variety of administrative actors responsible for trans-governmental regulation and administration; the field of ‘global governance’. To combat growing concerns that there are crucial legitimacy, accountability and democratic deficiencies inherent in this system of global governance, numerous administrative law type mechanisms and principles have been developed by global administrative bodies. Global administrative law embodies the totality of these various mechanisms and principles.

The legal distinction between work performed by an employee under a contract of service and work performed by an independent contractor under a contract for services is a central preoccupation in the field of labour law. This preoccupation has been traditionally focused on which workers fall within the common law definition of ‘employee’ (workers with a contract of service), which workers do not fall within the definition but should and what legal consequences follow from the inclusion of a worker within the labour law regulatory framework. Primarily the focus has been on ensuring that the labour law net encompasses those workers who are considered to be in need of the protections offered by labour law and debates over who those workers are. However, until recently, little attention has focused on the regulation of those workers who fall outside the definition of employee, where the worker's status as an independent contractor is uncontested.

This note will look at the litigation that arose in the lead-up to World Youth Day held in Sydney in July 2008. In Part II, the events that gave rise to Evans v New South Wales will be outlined and the reasons of the Full Court of the Federal Court for its decision briefly explained. The consequences of the Court applying the principle of legality in Evans — which lay at the heart of its reasoning and decision — will be explored in Part III. First, I will consider how it impacted upon the argument made by the applicants that the relevant legislation was invalid for infringing the implied freedom of political communication guaranteed by the Australian Constitution. And second, I will discuss whether the decision in Evans highlights a lacuna in the legal protection of freedom of expression in Australia — as some commentators have suggested — and whether a statutory charter of rights would remedy this. And finally, in Part IV, I will make some observations about the principle of legality and the judicial protection of rights more generally. Taken together, these observations lead me to conclude that the judicial role in the protection of rights in Australia may be best served through the application of the principle of legality rather than an interpretive obligation under a statutory charter of rights.

The detention of David Hicks by the United States in Guantánamo Bay detention camp was an event which attracted significant attention in the Australian community. By the time Mr Hicks’ detention in that facility ended in early 2007, newspapers and other media were reporting it daily, the voice of dissatisfaction among human rights organisations and the broader community was becoming insistent, and politicians were beginning to act. And the lawyers, of course, were far from silent.

Since Mr Hicks pleaded guilty to the charge of ‘providing material support for terrorism', was repatriated from Guantánamo Bay to Yatala prison in Adelaide, and served out that portion of his sentence which was not suspended, the public debate surrounding his detention and treatment has died down. Some legal issues which the affair threw up, however, remain unresolved. One such issue is whether or not Mr Hicks can publicise his story for profit. Determining this issue requires analysis of Australian proceeds of crime legislation, and consideration of the circumstances in which it would prevent Mr Hicks profiting from publication of his story. It is this task which this paper takes up.