The existence and potential scope of a Commonwealth constitutional immunity from State law has been a vexed issue ever since the High Court decided its first case on this question in 1904 There have been major shifts in the approach of the Court over the last century, and the doctrines expounded by the Court have been subjected to an unusually large volume of academic criticism. The operation of Section 64 of the Judiciary Act 1903 (Cth), together with the presumption of crown immunity, have in many cases prevented the question of constitutional immunity from arising. There are, however, a range of situations in which the constitutional issue will still arise. More importantly, the Commonwealth immunity from State law remains a highly relevant topic because of the significance of the constitutional issues that it raises. The debate over the existence and scope of the immunity reflects a broader uncertainty as to the form of federalism created by the Australian Constitution.

In this article, I will argue that the Commonwealth immunity from State law must be recognised as a constitutional implication. Although there has been some acknowledgment that the immunity is an implication, there has been little consideration of the consequences that might follow from this.

Certainty generally is illusion, Holmes once said, and repose is not the destiny of man. Mr Coper vividly illustrates this in relation to the High Court’s exposition of the meaning of “duty of excise” under section 90 of the Constitution, and argues that the Court’s failure to achieve certainty in this area has not been due to a Barwick-led departure from a so-called settled formula, as alleged by some critics, but has rather been the consequence of the inherent limitations of any legalistic approach. Mr Coper then looks to the purposes of section 90 for guidance, but finds a surprising degree of ambiguity surrounding them. The High Court has also referred to the purposes of section 90, but in attempting to achieve certainty without entirely losing sight of those perceived purposes, it has, Mr Coper argues, compromised both objectives. The author concludes by considering how the Court might escape from the present impasse.

Under the provisions of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 (Cth) (the Interpretation Act), the Seat of Government (Administration) Act 1910 (Cth) (the Administration Act) and other Acts which contain parallel provisions, either House of the Commonwealth Parliament can disallow virtually any delegated legislative instrument laid on the table. Originally however, there were no disallowance provisions in the 1901 version of the Interpretation Act although, even then, disallowance machinery had been introduced into specific Bills, particularly those of a fiscal nature.

The principle that all federal regulations be subject to disallowance by resolution of either Chamber originated in the Senate and it was eventually achieved by a Senate amendment to the Interpretation Act in 1904. The rationale was simple and compelling – without such a procedure, a Minister who can make regulations obtains a larger power of legislation in that respect than the Senate itself possesses.

This article examines the ‘operetta crisis’ that blighted the Italian operetta industry in the 1920s. Little has been written about the crisi dell’operetta in scholarship on Italian operetta to date, despite extensive coverage in contemporary sources. I attribute this neglect to the contested legacy of the composer, impresario and publisher Carlo Lombardo, at the height of his influence in the 1920s and responsible for most of the best-known Italian operettas today. Lombardo’s works embodied critical anxieties about operetta’s perceived artistic degradation, thanks to their overt sexuality and embrace of popular music (i.e. jazz). However, as I argue with reference to the 1925 operetta Cin-ci-là, narratives of artistic decline may miss the true significance of the crisis. Operetta, striving to be a ‘light’ form of opera but never fully accepted as such by the Italian establishment, was ultimately ill-equipped to survive in an entertainment landscape reshaping itself around popular music.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a Chinese infrastructure and investment project launched in 2013 that seeks to link China with over 70 countries through transport, communication, and trading networks. The BRI consists of building and construction projects including railways, ports, roads, and other vital trade infrastructure. Importantly, the BRI also includes the establishment of a new “Digital Silk Road” (DSR) enhancing digital connectivity using the latest 5G high bandwidth, low latency mobile and satellite technology. In 2019, several Western states (notably USA, Australia, Canada, and the UK) banned Chinese telecommunications technology companies, such as Huawei, from rolling out 5G networks in their respective jurisdictions. The purported basis for the bans were security concerns over the ability of the Chinese government to control and potentially intercept communications over the Huawei systems. In the MENA region, no such bans have been adopted and the DSR is proceeding to connect MENA economies to China at a rapid pace. This places MENA countries in a precarious position between strategic links with the US as the global hegemon with a strategic interest in the region, and the emerging Chinese global political and economic order. The regulation of digital communication technologies is one dimension where legal frameworks must be designed with care and discernment to balance competing geopolitical forces. This article seeks to answer the question of how best to understand the legal regulation of new technologies in the MENA region and argues that the conceptual lens of “Tech-diplomacy” helps to provide such an understanding. In addition to privacy-centric, security-centric, and growth-centric philosophical and jurisprudential approaches to understanding data regulation, the predicament of the MENA region is a case study in how geopolitics can also inform our understanding of tech regulation.

In this article the author exhaustively examines the decisions of both the Trade Practices Commission and Tribunal and abstracts from them a number of general conclusions which are of invaluable assistance in interpreting section 50 of the Trade Practices Act. This discussion is particularly apposite in the present economic climate when the merger is increasingly popular, especially as the Act has only been recently amended. The author concentrates on “market definition” in all its permutations and discusses the various indicia of altered competition levels and the consequent likelihood of success of a merger application. As the author points out in his conclusion, attention to such details amply repays the effort involved when viewed against the backdrop of sanctions which the Act contains against those who infringe it.

The common law “punitive” privileges against self-incrimination and exposure to a penalty have received renewed attention in a series of decisions concerning their application in such highly visible and sensitive contexts as Royal Commissions of Inquiry; investigation of corporate crime; police misconduct and economic regulation. Possibly less dramatic but no less fundamentally at issue is their application to the wider spectrum of rights and interests arising from, and affected by, the extensive administrative and discretionary powers in the hands of the executive and government officials.

Central to “this fertile new province of the law” is the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (henceforth referred to as the “Tribunal”). This appeal mechanism has been established at the Commonwealth level for the purpose of reviewing on the merits, decisions of administrators and thereby promoting fair and equitable decision-making principles.

This article examines the nature of merits review, focusing upon the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. Some forms of merits review are less than full merits review and some are hybrid merits review. It is contended that a proper appreciation of merits review may expose misperceptions concealed in some claims that judicial review resembles merits review.

This report describes the first long-term survival following a heart transplant for Williams syndrome-associated cardiac pathologies. An 11-year-old patient with severe global left ventricular dysfunction presented with heart failure and underwent heart transplantation. Her peri- and post-operative courses were complicated by hypertension related to underlying vascular pathology.

Recent years have seen an increase in the number and scope of non-publication orders and other limits on open justice, an increase in the number of statutes that regulate or threaten open justice and the articulation of an Australian constitutional principle (of institutional integrity) that has the potential to protect some aspects of open justice. The purposes and values of open justice are, however, rarely examined in a comprehensive or theoretically-informed manner. This article provides a theory of open justice which accounts for its heterogeneous nature. Australian judicial approaches to the substance, limits and constitutional dimensions of open justice are analysed in light of the purposes and values of open justice, and a comparison with the much more coherent Canadian approach is supplied. The author concludes that threats to open justice are best managed by an analytical framework which systematically identifies both the benefits of open justice and the countervailing values that are at stake in a given case, and which seeks to provide maximum protection to all of these values on a case-by-case basis.