Statutory interpretation is not (and has never been) about finding an old maxim in a textbook to support an outcome you think may be correct or desirable. An approach of this kind inverts the process and subverts the outcome1. Finding out what parliament meant by the words it used involves the application of a rational method by which text, context and purpose are all consulted to arrive at a robust answer2. That method presents as an amalgam of common law and statutory principles applied flexibly and objectively. Reaching in isolation for a maxim that ‘solves the problem’ is reckless and laden with risk. Constructional choices are to be made through the ‘application of [a] workaday interpretive methodology’3. It is the conscientious application of the text>context>purpose method4 which most reliably produces outcomes that withstand scrutiny.
Charlie Yu – tipstaff to Justice John Robson, Land and Environment Court of NSW
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Thanks – Charlie Yu, Agnes Liu, Mannat Mandhan & Patrick Boyd.
Footnotes:
1 cf Certain Lloyd’s [2012] HCA 56 [26], Deal [2016] HCA 31 [37].
2 CIC Insurance (1997) 187 CLR 384 (408), Jayasinghe [2016] FCAFC 79 [6-8].
3 Esso [2017] HCA 54 [71] Gageler J, Charles [2017] FCAFC 218 [51].
4 Qantas [2023] HCA 27 [47-56] illustrates, cf Episodes 66 & 100.