COMMONWEALTH DAIRY PRODUCE EQUALISATION COMMITTEE LTD V. GOULBURN DISTRICT CO-OPERATIVE DAIRY SOCIETY LTD 58/1934

eS

\

wee Lic

x COMMONWEALTH DAIRY PRODUCE EQUALISATION COMMITTEE LTD

GOULBURN DISTRICT CO-OPERATIVE DAIRY SOCIETY LTD

This application relates to a special case stated in an actior pending in the Supreme Court of New South Wales. - The action is for the recovery of levies made by the plaintiff company upon the defendant under an agreement under seal. The agreement is one of many in the same form made with cheese and butter manufacturers as

é part of the plan for stabilizing the domestic price of the commodities and equalizing the returns from overseas and domestic

sales. Apparently, if the agreement is enforceable according to its

tenor,the defendant has no answer. But the contention of the defendant is that,as a direct xmsuxt or indirect result of sec.92 of the Constitution,the agreement is inoperative or has been discharged. It is said that the foundation of the agreement is the assumed validity of the Commonwealth Dairy Produce Act 1933-1935 and of the State Dairy Products Act 1933. If these Acts are invalid,the defendant says that the agreement is discharged on the ground of frustration or by reason of some resolutive condition which the defendant seeks to imply in the agreement.

The plaintiff does not support the validity of the Commonwealt

Act which apparently is regarded as destroyed by the decision of the Privy Council in James v Commonwealth ig sb Se EL R/

On the other hand the plaintiff does not admit that the State Act is invalid. But,on the assumption that both Acts are invalid,the plaintiff nevertheless contends that their invalidity is irrelevant to the obligation of the agreement and that it remains in full force and effect.

The defendant has an argument that sec.92 strikes directly at the agreement independently of any consequential effect upon it that might be thought to ensue from the invalidity of the statutes or either of them.