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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

Geoffrey Sawer was the Foundation Professor of Law at The Australian National University, appointed in 1950 at the age of 39. He was a pioneer in the understanding of law in a broader context, especially at the intersection between law and politics, and his fluid and incisive writing has been a major influence on succeeding generations of academics, practitioners and judges. Drawing on Sawer's writings, oral history interviews and private papers, Michael Coper makes an affectionate biographical sketch of this outstanding scholar and warm and genial human being. In particular, he explores how Sawer's scholarship stands up today, when so much has changed in the legal and political landscape; what is enduring and what is transient in a life's work; and what lessons we can draw when we look at law and life through the lens of biography.