Grasstree Poultry Enterprises Pty Ltd v Bycroft [1969] HCA 57

High Court of Australia Barwick C.J. Kitto, Menzies, Windeyer, Owen and Walsh JJ. Grasstree Poultry Enterprises Pty Ltd v Bycroft [1969] HCA 57

ORDER Appeal dismissed. With the exception of the added expense involved in the hearing of the case in Sydney rather than Brisbane, the applicant will pay the costs and as to those added costs the respondent will pay the costs of both parties in that respect.

The following judgments were delivered:—

Barwick C.J.

The appellant was convicted by a stipendiary magistrate in Queensland, acting under The Justices Acts of that State upon a complaint of an officer of the State Department of Primary Industry that it had failed to furnish information required under the Poultry Industry Levy Collection Regulations as to the number of female domesticated fowls not less than six months old kept by it in Queensland for commercial purposes on 11th July 1968.

All the facts necessary to satisfy the elements of the complaint were established. But the appellant raises two objections which it claims should result in its acquittal of the alleged offence.

The first point submitted is that reg. 4 of the said Regulations depends for its validity on the existence of a levy under the Poultry Industry Levy Act 1965-1966 Cth, and that for reasons now to be expressed there was no such valid levy operative on 11th July 1968, the date to which or fourteen days from which the charge relates.

The reasons for invalidity of the levy proffered by counsel are that the evidence before the magistrate warranted the conclusion that the executive government of the Commonwealth, as it was said, and the relevant Minister of the State of Queensland had an understanding or arrangement, ante -dating the said 11th July that the whole or substantially the whole of any money paid by poultry farmers in North Queensland by way of levy under the Poultry Industry Levy Act should be refunded to those growers.