That conclusion was reached in the 1560 case of Stradling v Morgan, and may be taken to correctly state the law at that time. In its context, it is clear that the phrase ‘foreign circumstances’ was intended to refer not to the state of international relations, but rather to the use of extrinsic material in statutory interpretation.

Despite this early acceptance by the English courts of the use of extrinsic material in statutory interpretation, strident restrictions on the use of extrinsic material were later to be introduced into the common law. In discussing the principle that, ‘Parliament speaks only through an Act of Parliament,’ Dicey stressed the point that, ‘the English Bench have always refused, in principle at least, to interpret an Act of Parliament otherwise than by reference to the words of the enactment.’

Can the formal amendment process embodied in s 128 of the Commonwealth Constitution be utilised to patriate the Constitution, to make Australia a republic, to establish a Bill of Rights, to abolish State Constitutions or Parliaments and to alter s 128 itself or provide a completely new amendment procedure? What is the ambit of s 128? This article considers the history, scope and interpretation of s 128.

The principle that the legislature can enact laws which bind the executive is a familiar one. The prerogative can be abrogated or abolished by legislation and the decisions of the executive made subject to administrative review.

More interesting, however, is the relationship within the federation between the legislature of one polity and the executive of another. To what extent can the laws of one polity bind the executive of another, or abrogate or abolish its prerogatives?

The High Court, over the last century, has had a very difficult time in answering these questions. Fundamental though they be to our governmental system, there has never been a clear and consistent principle established to provide ready answers to them. After the centenary of federation, one would think we would understand how the polities within that federation are intended to interact, but we do not.

In the French West Indies (FWI), practices alternative to chemical inputs are implemented to improve the sustainability of banana cropping systems. These agroecological practices are based on organic fertilization, soil covering with weed live mulch and severe prophylactic deleafing to limit sigatoka disease dissemination. However, these practices may impair the availability of soil mineral nutrients and the photosynthetic capacity of the plant and consequently induce suboptimal plant growth conditions. To assess the performance of the different banana cultivars from the Cavendish group in these suboptimal conditions, the yield components of 12 Cavendish banana cultivars were compared with four crop management modalities: i) high mineral fertilization, chemical weed control and minimum prophylactic deleafing (N + L+), ii) high mineral fertilization, chemical weed control and severe prophylactic deleafing (N + L−), iii) low organic fertilization, weed live mulch and minimum prophylactic deleafing (N−L+) and iv) low organic fertilization, weed live mulch and severe prophylactic deleafing (N−L−). The performance of all cultivars varied according to the crop management modalities in the following order: N + L+ > N + L− > N−L+> N−L−. However, the hierarchical order among the cultivars differed according to the crop management modality. Cultivar Americani exhibited the best performance in non-limiting conditions. Cultivars such as Ruby, Gua01 and Mat12 performed better with severe prophylactic deleafing while Gua02 and Ruby performed better with the low soil nutrient availability induced by organic fertilization and weed live mulch. These results can be used to guide the choice of Cavendish cultivar according to production constraints, particularly with regard to agroecological practices or abiotic stresses, such as reduced photosynthesis or limited nitrogen resource. These results suggest that there is a variability in the tolerance to abiotic stresses between the cultivars of the Cavendish group.

The High Court has recently heard argument in the case of WCP Ltd v Gambotto. The case is on appeal from the New South Wales Court of Appeal. Although the facts of the case are relatively simple, the issues they raise are rather more complex. WCP Ltd is a company, the shares of which are almost entirely owned by Industrial Equity Ltd.

In their majority judgment in the Work Choices Case, five Justices of the High Court endorsed a well known obiter dictum of Windeyer J in Victoria v Commonwealth ('the Payroll Tax Case’). The dictum concerns the Engineers’ Case, which famously repudiated the doctrines of implied intergovernmental immunities and reserved state powers, previously held by the Griffith Court to be entailed by the federal principle implicit in the basic structure of the Constitution. The Court in Engineers declared that both doctrines, and the reasoning on which they were based, were erroneous. But Windeyer J disagreed with this. He said that he had never regarded the decision in Engineers ‘as the correction of antecedent errors or as the uprooting of heresy': it ‘does not to my mind mean that the original judges of the High Court were wrong in their understanding of what at the time of federation was believed to be the effect of the Constitution and in reading it accordingly.'

Mabo v Queensland [No 2] is a landmark decision. The High Court held, by a six to one majority, that the common law of Australia recognises a form of native land title which survived the Crown's acquisition of sovereignty over Australia. The effect of the Crown's acquisition of sovereignty, according to the High Court, was simply to expose common law native title to the possibility of extinguishment by a valid exercise of inconsistent sovereign power.

The judgments in Mabo [No 2] range widely across issues of constitutional law and the law of real property. These issues are explored below in a description and analysis of the case. In addition, mention is made of the techniques of legal reasoning adopted by the majority judges.

It is a great privilege for me to be here today at this College, which had become distinguished as a seat of learning long before my own country had first been settled by English-speaking people. The occasion for my presence is to deliver one of a series of lectures given in honour of Sir Robert Gordon Menzies, who was Prime Minister of Australia from 1949 to 1966 and who, more relevantly for today’s occasion, was both a distinguished constitutional lawyer and a lover of Virginia.

The theory of Montesquieu, that to secure liberty it is necessary to separate the three main functions of the state — the legislative, the executive and the judicial — has had a profound and lasting influence on political thought. James Madison, who expounded the theory with such effect in No. 47 of The Federalist papers, regarded the separation of powers as the most sacred principle of the United States Constitution.

We identify forcing mechanisms that separately amplify subsonic and supersonic features obtained from a linearised Navier–Stokes based model for compressible parallel boundary layers. Resolvent analysis is used to analyse the linear model, where the nonlinear terms of the linearised equations act as a forcing to the linear terms. Considering subsonic modes, only the solenoidal component of the forcing to the momentum equations amplify these modes. When considering supersonic modes, we find that these are pressure fluctuations that radiate into the free stream. Within the free stream, these modes closely follow the trends of inviscid Mach waves. There are two distinct forcing mechanisms that amplify the supersonic modes: (i) the ‘direct route’, where the forcing to the continuity and energy equations and the dilatational component of the forcing to the momentum equations directly force the mode; and (ii) the ‘indirect route’, where the solenoidal component of the forcing to the momentum equations force a response in wall-normal velocity, and this wall-normal velocity in turn forces the supersonic mode. A majority of the supersonic modes considered are dominantly forced by the direct route. However, when considering Mach waves that are, like in direct numerical simulations, forced from the buffer layer of the flow, the indirect route of forcing becomes significant. We find that these observations are also valid for a streamwise developing boundary layer. These results are consistent with, and extend, the observations in the literature regarding the solenoidal and dilatational components of velocity in compressible turbulent wall-bounded flows.

The battles over official secrecy have to be fought on many different fronts. In the United Kingdom—whose ministers and public servants allegedly have a “passion for secrecy”—this was more than usually evident during 1967. Two pieces of legislation—namely, the Parliamentary Commissioner Act, 1967 (U.K.) and the Public Records Act, 1967 (Eng.)—represented a modest triumph for those who would wish to see more light shed upon the affairs of the nation. Elsewhere the picture was rather more familiar. The Security Commission recommended a further tightening of documentary security in the Cabinet Office; this followed upon the conviction under the Official Secrets Acts, 1911 to 1939 (U.K.) of a young typist in the Cabinet Office, “the first known occasion on which classified papers have been extracted from” this inner sanctum of government.

The previous Australian government's aim was to remove the hereditary office of the monarch with only minor changes to the Australian system of government. Former Prime Minister Paul Keating stated that the proposed “republican” changes would have limited implications for the design and operation of Australian democracy. But his quest, and the quest of those who support the republican movement, may represent a more momentous shift in Australian political values and political sensibility than is widely admitted. This shift might lead to the enhancement of democratic participation. Indeed, the debate surrounding the republican initiative has already caused both a revised understanding of Australian political philosophy and a renewed appreciation of certain strong democratic threads in the history of Australia as a nation.

Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation or SLAPPs are abusive lawsuits which have the purpose or effect of suppressing public participation. This Article considers the peculiarities of this form of “strategic litigation” and takes stock of developments in the European Union to combat SLAPPs, noting that while the adoption of an Anti-SLAPP Directive represents an example of effective legal mobilization and a major positive step towards safeguarding the rule of law in the EU, its limitations render it crucial that Member States treat the Directive as a foundation and build national legislation which is more robust in substance and more far-reaching in scope.

Mr Partlett is concerned to review the theoretical and practical place of government programs which positively discriminate in favour of groups on racial lines. He reviews the justification of this benign discrimination in relation to the notion of equality. He finds that the justification of benign discrimination depends upon its social realities. With reference to recent United States constitutional law developments he concludes that programs of benign discrimination must be closely justified to ensure that they do not trespass on certain fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual.

Australian government initiatives are then reviewed together with an appraisal of their legal standing under the various pieces of anti-discrimination legislation in Australia.

The author attempts to synthesise out of this discussion a strategy under which benign programs may be encouraged for the promotion of equality for aborigines, while at the same time the individual human rights of others are protected.