Gageler CJ beefing with Steward J

Daily wrap  

• Former CFMEU officials lose High Court bid to overturn federal government takeover, putting it into administration - ABC News
   

  • Judgment summary here.
     

  • Ravbar v Commonwealth of Australia [2025] HCA 25 (18 June 2025) - see Gageler CJ at [23] - [29] and Steward J from [272]. In particular the following from Gageler:

    [23] No party or intervener sought leave to reopen the unanimous decision in Lange v Australian Broadcasting Corporation which confirmed the implied freedom of political communication recognised in Nationwide News Pty Ltd v Wills and Australian Capital Television Pty Ltd v The Commonwealth. None sought leave to reopen any of the thirty decisions in which this Court has elaborated and applied the implied freedom of political communication in the nearly thirty years since Lange.

    [24] Any application to reopen Lange or any of its progeny, were it to be made, would be determined by the Court as a whole with the benefit of argument, taking account of the full range of considerations which have repeatedly been acknowledged to inform the application of the "strongly conservative cautionary principle, adopted in the interests of continuity and consistency in the law, that such a course should not lightly be taken".

    [25] Unless and until such an application is made, and if made is determined in favour of reopening and overruling, the duty of each member of this Court as constituted from time to time is to apply Lange and the decisions which have elaborated upon it, "not to be convinced by it". Respect for and fidelity to the past decisions of this Court must start with the individuals who are the current members of this Court. Observance of that individual constraint is an institutional imperative.

     

• Judgment summary - MDP v The King [2025] HCA 24
   

• Erin Patterson ‘not on trial for being a liar’, defence says, as jury asked to consider key questions | Victoria | The Guardian
   

• Ben Roberts-Smith takes legal battle to the High Court - ABC News
   

Editor’s picks

• NSW Attorney General announces multiple new appointments to Supreme Court, District and Coroners Court - Law Society Journal

  The NSW Attorney General Michael Daley has announced the appointment of Judge Paul McGuire SC and Dr Hayley Bennett SC to the Supreme Court of New South Wales.
   

• Strengthening advocacy skills with our Pacific neighbours - Vic Bar

  Seventeen senior lawyers from the Pacific region are taking part in an intensive “Train the Trainer” program, led by some of Victoria’s most experienced barristers.
   

• Jobson v Clarke [2021] QDC 320 (16 December 2021)

  [16] …It is inconsistent with the obligations in Rule 5 UCPR, and inconsistent with the obligation of parties to comply with orders of the Court, for parties to treat directions “more as guidelines than actual rules”.[7]

  Footnote [7] - Captain Barbosa to Ms Swan, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003).
   

• Elon Musk’s X sues New York over hate speech and disinformation law | Elon Musk | The Guardian
   

• Appeals court likely to keep Trump in control of national guard deployed in LA | Los Angeles Ice protests | The Guardian
   

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