Queensland v The Commonwealth [1988] HCA 1

High Court of Australia Mason CJ Queensland v The Commonwealth [1988] HCA 1

ORDER Summons dismissed with costs; interlocutory injunctions refused.

Judgment reserved

8 January 1988 Mason CJ.

The State of Queensland and its Attorney-General commenced an action in this court seeking permanent injunctions against the Commonwealth and its Minister for the Environment and the Arts restraining them from taking certain steps in connection with the proposed listing with the World Heritage Committee (the committee) of an area in Queensland described as the Wet Tropical Rainforest of North-East Queensland. On 24 December 1987 I refused the plaintiffs' application for interlocutory relief, indicating that I would publish my reasons for that decision at a later date.

The plaintiffs sought the following interlocutory injunctions:

(1) an order restraining the defendants from submitting to the committee a proposal that the area is suitable for inclusion in the World Heritage List referred to in art 11 of the Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (the convention) or from taking any steps to prosecute, support, pursue or promote such a submission;

(2) an order restraining the defendants from taking any steps to procure the making of a regulation pursuant to the World Heritage Properties Conservation Act 1983 Cth (the Act) declaring that the area or any part of it forms part of the cultural or natural heritage; and

(3) an order restraining the defendants from taking any steps to procure the making of a proclamation pursuant to s 6(3) or s 7 of the Act in respect of the area or any part of it.

The defendants admitted that they were seeking to have the area entered by the committee in the World Heritage List. Indeed, the Solicitor-General for the Commonwealth, who appeared for the defendants, stated that Australia had on 18 December 1987 lodged with the committee a submission that the area should be entered in the list, but this submission was not in the prescribed form. The Solicitor-General further stated that a formal submission in the prescribed form had then been prepared and was to be lodged with the committee shortly thereafter and certainly by 1 January 1988 so that it could be considered by the committee in the course of 1988 and determined not earlier than December 1988. Under the operational guidelines adopted by the committee, if the nomination were delayed beyond 1 January 1988, it would not be processed and considered until 1989, the process culminating in a final decision in December 1989.