Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I speak in support of the Judiciary Amendment Bill 2008. It is a bill in response to the High Court decision known as British American Tobacco v Western Australia (2003), a decision handed down by the High Court of Australia on 2 September 2003. The decision caused a problem, and it caused a problem for our state governments. The case related to proceedings in federal jurisdiction for invalid tax recovery under the law of Western Australia. The decision was handed down, as I said, on 2 September 2003 and, contrary to what the member for Sturt said, the Howard government really made no clear legislative attempt to remedy this decision in the third and fourth terms of its government.

Decisions of the High Court of Australia have often caused significant impact upon our polity, our economy and our society, and some of those constitutional cases have been welcomed and taken us forward. I think of decisions like the engineers’ case in the 1920s, where ‘plain and simple meaning’ of the Constitution with respect to the exercise of Commonwealth power was used and adopted, and thenceforth great changes were made to constitutional law in this country. Uniform taxation cases in the 1940s, of course, made a big impact and led to the nonimposition of state income tax in this country, and that is a good thing. All those of us who come from Queensland certainly think so. I would also argue that the Franklin Dam case in the 1980s also made a great impact: the Commonwealth government’s power to legislate with respect to foreign affairs power after treaty signature in areas of traditional state domain also advanced the law reform in this country and also the protection of the environment—certainly in Tasmania. The Franklin area is a great place and I would encourage all members to go and have a look at it.

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