Commonwealth Freighters Pty Ltd v Sneddon [1959] HCA 11

High Court of Australia Dixon C.J. McTiernan, Fullagar, Kitto, Taylor, Menzies and Windeyer JJ. Commonwealth Freighters Pty Ltd v Sneddon [1959] HCA 11

ORDER Order in each appeal:—Appeal dismissed with costs.

Cur. adv. vult.

The following written judgments were delivered:—

Mar. 13, 1959 Dixon C.J.

Commonwealth Freighters Pty. Ltd. v. Sneddon.

This appeal raises for consideration the question whether the Road Maintenance (Contribution) Act 1958 N.S.W. validly applies to commercial goods vehicles engaged in inter-State trade. The appeal comes directly from a conviction of the appellant by a court of petty sessions exercising federal jurisdiction. The conviction was for an offence against s. 10 (1) (d) of the Act, a provision making it an offence for a person to fail to deliver to the Commissioner for Motor Transport a record which by the Act the appellant company was required to keep. Section 6 of the Act requires the owner of a commercial goods vehicle to keep (in or to the effect of a scheduled form) an accurate daily record of all journeys of the vehicle along public streets in New South Wales. This was the record the company failed to deliver. Section (5) (1) provides that the owner of every commercial goods vehicle shall pay to the Commissioner towards compensation for wear and tear caused thereby to public streets in New South Wales a charge at the rate prescribed in the first schedule to the Act. By sub-s. (2) it is provided that the charge shall become due at the time of the use of a public street; if it is not paid then it is to be paid and be recoverable as the Act provides. Sub-section (3) makes it a civil debt due to the Commissioner by the owner and recoverable in any court of competent jurisdiction. The rate prescribed by the first schedule is a mileage rate for every mile of public street along which the vehicle travels in New South Wales. It is one-third of a penny per ton of the sum of (a) the tare weight of the vehicle and (b) forty per centum of the load capacity of the vehicle. The purpose of the record which the owner is required by s. 6 to keep and by s. 10 (1) (d) to deliver to the Commissioner is, plainly enough, to ensure that a proper accounting basis exists for the calculation and enforcement of the charge. Any motor vehicle and, if it has a trailer, the trailer is a commercial goods vehicle for the purpose of the charge if it is used or intended to be used for carrying goods for hire or reward or for any consideration or in the course of any trade or business: s. 3 (1). The owner who is made liable is the person in whose name the vehicle is registered but it also includes the real owner and every joint owner or part owner, and a person using it under a hire purchase agreement but it excludes a vendor under a hire purchase agreement: s. 3 (1). The tare weight and the load capacity of the vehicles which form basal integers for calculating the charge are elaborately defined. Prima facie they are governed by what is shown by the certificate of registration. In default of that directions are given for ascertaining the tare weight and the load capacity of a vehicle. But the Act does not apply at all with respect to any vehicle the load capacity of which (together with any trailer for the time being attached thereto) is not more than four tons. The answer upon which the appellant relies to the charge is that the vehicle for which no record was delivered to the Commissioner in pursuance of s. 10 (1) (d) was during the relevant period exclusively engaged in inter-State trade. That appears to have been the fact.