Committee of Direction of Fruit Marketing v Collins [1925] HCA 25

410 HIGH COURT ig

[HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA.)

THE COMMITTEE OF DIRECTION OF ) , ; FRUIT MARKETING . ... . ) DerenDANt?,

AND

COLLINS AND ANOTHER... 5 5 REsPONDENTS. PLAINTIFYS,

ON APPEAL FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF QUEENSLAND.

H.C. or A, Fruit Marketing—Powers of Committee of Direction of Fruit Marketing—" Take 1925. control of " marketing of fruit—Power to engage in marketing—Interference with Sa 'inter-State trade—Punctuation in Acts—Fruit Marketing Organization Act 1923

MetBourne, —_(Q.) (14 Geo. V. No. 39), secs. 2, 6, 7, 8 (2), 10 (1), 12, 15. -

Ey 9, Held, by Isuacs, Higgins, Rich and Starke JJ. (Knox C.J. dissenting), that eS sec. 7 of the Fruit Marketing Organization Act of 1923 (Q.), which provides June 30. that the Committee of Direction of Fruit Marketing "shall take control of the marketing of all frait that is, all fruit grown in Queensland—does not Tskee Higgins, give that Committee a right itself to market such fruit, but gives it only a jet right to regulate and supervise the marketing of all such fruit by other persons.

Per Higgins and Rich JJ.: Although the Committee has not power, directly or through agents, to sell fruit, growers and produce agents, as such, have ~ no right to prevent the Committee from selling.

Per Isaacs J.: The declaration claimed by the respondents on behalf of themselves and other growers and agents that the Committee had not such power should be made in respect of the respondents only and as to them should be limited to restraining respective individual wrong.

Observations by Isaacs J. as to the effect of punctuation in construing statutes.

Decision of the Supreme Court of Queensland (Macnaughton J.) affirmed with a variation.

OF AUSTRALIA.

Bs action was brought in the Supreme Court against the Com- \ittee of Direction of Fruit Marketing, by Henry William Collins, a ywer of Queensland-grown fruit, on behalf of himself and all other