High Court Decision
An amazing read but ultimately boiled down to this:
ORDER
In each matter:
1. The defendant’s demurrer to the statement of claim is allowed.
2. Judgment for the defendant with costs.
For an entertaining read refer to the dissenting judgement of Kirby (and agreed with by Callinan).
A needless exercise? If s 51(xx) of the Constitution now provides a legitimate source for a comprehensive federal law with respect to industrial disputes, by inference it always did. All those hard-fought decisions of this Court and the earnest presentation of cases, the advocacy and the judicial analysis and elaboration within them concerning the ambit of s 51(xxxv) of the Constitution, were (virtually without exception) a complete waste of this Court’s time and energies.
And later.
The Commonwealth’s demurrer to the plaintiffs’ statements of claim in each action should be overruled. There should be judgment in each action for the plaintiffs. This Court should declare the Workplace Relations Amendment (Work Choices) Act 2005 (Cth) invalid in its entirety under the Constitution. The Commonwealth should pay the costs of the plaintiffs in each action.
jason wrote:
A comment made to me by a colleague who is not registered:
the court is a political creature. i understand that. I understand why Kirby ruled against it. But Kirby has always been an expansionist and always supported the expansion of commonwealth power. workchoices is just a logical conclusion to the path put in place by other high courts. kirby, if you seperate the politics should have ruled in favour of it. Callinan on the other hand has always been pro states rights and so he stuck with his ideology. they both came to the same conclusion but for very different reasons in my view. nevertheless, the conservatives have established the power now. its up to us to use it.
Liam wrote:
Interesting comment.
That’s right, I’ve always thought that the centralising tendencies of the Howard era show a curious disregard for the thought that someday they’re going to lose office. All of the Ministerial and Commonwealth powers can be used just as easily by the tax-eating central-planning apparatchiki of the ALP as by the cynical stormtroopers of PM&C these days.
Bring on 2008 and a Labor ‘Fair Pay Commissioner’, and then we’ll see some interesting use of the Commonwealth.
lynn white wrote:
Indeed, but Labor has to win office first. I can’t help but feel that this issue is starting to fizzle out.
However I did have a nice fantasy this morning that Greg Combet will announce tomorrow that he’s taking the fight directly to Howard, via a safe ALP seat in Sydney’s west, which will be magically vacated … and we will storm to victory with a new, very good looking, incredibly inspiring leader who is free from the opprobrium swirling around state governments and will storm home to victory … ?
jason wrote:
I hope it is a seat where the right have the numbers and not one where the Left control the votes if only a rank and file were allowed…
lynn white wrote:
there are no safe left seats in Sydney’s west!
lynn white wrote:
oh, hang on, there is Reid …
jason wrote:
The key part was “where the Left control the votes if only a rank and file were allowed”
That brings two more safe seats into the equation, plus another marginal one.
arleeshar wrote:
slightly off the western sydney seats topic,
I am hoping someone can give me a primer in the political leanings/ideals of the various justices on the court (or link to someone else’s primer). It’s something I’ve never gotten around to following (apart from Kirby, have to admit I’m predictably on top of that).
Don’t leave me dangling…
Liam wrote:
Yes, I think if they sold season tickets to the public gallery of the High Court, most of the public following would be for Kirby J. He’s the Manchester United of the Australian judicial system.
Oh, you’d like a serious, considered comment about the legal backgrounds of the High Court that doesn’t take the form of a football analogy? I’m not sure that’ll be possible.
Mack wrote:
I don’t think such a list exists. However if you would like to look at a Kirby equivalent in the Federal Court, I really like Justice North… (especially some of the rulings in relation to the MUA dispute, and some refugee/migration issues)
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