Federal Commissioner of Taxation v Rickard [1952] HCA 24

H. C. or A.

1952. Se

THE QUEEN v BLACKBURN ; Ex PARTE TRANSPORT WORKERS' Union OF AUSTRALIA,

Dixon C.J. McTiernan J. Williams J. Webb J. Kitto J.

HIGH COURT [1952.

to be an imperative limitation upon the power of a conciliation commissioner to proceed with a matter which a party alleges falls outside his authority. He may proceed according to the course laid down by the amended s. 16.

Then do the amendments apply to the two applications pending before the commissioners at the time when the amending Act

came into operation? There is nothing in Act No. 34 of 1952 or.

in the language of the amendments or of the provisions as amended to confine the operation of the provisions to cases first arising before a commissioner after the commencement of Act No. 34 of 1952. But it is said that the amendments are of a kind that should be understood, subject to any express indications to the contrary, as meaning to leave any pending matter unaffected. Reliance was placed, in support of this contention, upon s. 8 (c) and (e) of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901-1950. What is relied upon is so much of the provision as says that, unless a contrary intention appears, a repeal shall not affect any right privilege or liability acquired accrued or incurred under the Act so repealed or any investigation legal proceeding or remedy in respect of any such right privilege or liability as aforesaid and that such investigation legal proceeding or remedy may be continued as if the repealing Act had not been passed. It was contended that upon the applications for a variation being instituted the parties, or at all events the prosecutor as a respondent to the applications, had a right, or if you like a privilege, in respect of the applications as being incompetent because, on the hypothesis accepted for the purposes of the argument, they infringed s. 13 in fact and in law. Perhaps an alternative suggestion may be that the prosecutor was "liable" to the consequences of the action of the Arbitration Court as competent to make the variation and the other party, being the applicant for the variation, was " liable" to the conse- quences of the want of competence to make it in a commissioner. Such a conception of the "right" or " privilege " or " liability " to which s. 8 (c) and (e) relates goes outside the meaning of the provision.