Qube Ports v CFMEU [2024] FCA 132
The issue in this fair work case was whether an enterprise agreement could be varied retroactively to remove ambiguity on application of an employer who was no longer ‘covered by the agreement’12.
Wheelahan J (at [73]) said interpretation ‘requires more than matching up statutory text against pronouncements in books on grammar or English usage’13. Legal meaning often reflects grammatical usage ‘but not always’14. Powers to vary instruments in this way go back over a century and are remedial15. It was held that the power to vary the agreements was retroactive, and that it did not matter that the employer was no longer ‘covered by the agreement’.
This principle is from Episode 114 of interpretation NOW!
Footnotes:
12 s 217 Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth).
13 Cunard SS (1922) 284 F 890 (894), Weiss [2005] HCA 81 [10] cited.
14 ENT19 [2023] HCA 18 [86], Project Blue Sky [1998] HCA 28 [78] quoted.
15 George Hudson (1923) 32 CLR 413 (435-436), cf Pearce 10th edition [10.22].