Shuaiqi/CLSum huggingface dataset:
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA 27 May 2004 COMMISSIONER OF TAXATION v TRUDY AMANDA HART AND RICHARD MERALLES HART Splitting a loan in two did not permit a tax deduction for compounding interest on the part used to pay off an investment property, the High Court of Australia held today. It unanimously allowed the Tax Commissioner’s appeal and held that anti-avoidance provisions of Part IVA of the Income Tax Assessment Act enabled the disallowance of the Harts’ additional tax benefit. In 1996 Mr and Mrs Hart borrowed money to buy a house in Canberra and to pay off a mortgage on their existing home near Queanbeyan to keep it as an investment property. They obtained finance through a mortgage broker, Austral Mortgage, which promoted a loan arrangement called a wealth optimiser, designed to maximise tax benefits. The loan was $298,000, with $202,888 to buy the new house and $95,112 to discharge the mortgage on the old house which was then let. All repayments went to the first part of the loan, which the Harts paid off faster than they otherwise would. Compound interest accordingly accrued on the second part. The Harts claimed deductions for the unpaid interest in 1997 and 1998 but in 1999 the Tax Commissioner issued amended assessments for 1997 and 1998 disallowing the deductions for the interest which would not have accrued had the monthly repayments been spread between the two loan accounts. When the Commissioner rejected the Harts’ objections the Harts appealed to the Federal Court. The Court held that Part IVA applied to disallow the deductions. The Harts successfully appealed to the Full Court of the Federal Court, which held that Part IVA did not apply. The Commissioner then appealed to the High Court. He argued that the matters required by section 177D to be considered in determining whether someone had entered into a scheme to obtain a disallowable tax benefit led to the conclusion that split loans were a tax-avoidance scheme prohibited under Part IVA. The High Court held that this was such a scheme. But for the wealth optimiser structure, the Harts would have borrowed on the basis that they would have made monthly repayments of principal and interest so that interest would have been spread over the total loan in the same proportion that the money was used to buy the new home and to refinance the old house. The structure depended upon tax benefits generated by arrangements between the borrowers and the lender. The Court held that the dominant purpose of entering into what was identified as the scheme was not the borrowing of money to buy a new home and refinance what was to become a rental property. The Court held that consideration of the eight criteria in section 177D supported the Commissioner’s conclusion that the dominant purpose of the Harts entering into the scheme was to obtain a tax benefit. The Commissioner had agreed to pay the Harts’ costs in the High Court whatever the outcome.
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA 14 March 2013 YATES v THE QUEEN [2013] HCA 8 Today the High Court allowed an appeal by a man with an intellectual disability from a decision of the Court of Criminal Appeal of the Supreme Court of Western Australia which upheld an order that he be detained in prison indefinitely. In March 1987, the applicant was convicted of one count of aggravated sexual assault and one count of deprivation of liberty. He was sentenced to a maximum of seven years' imprisonment for those offences. The sentencing judge made an order under s 662 of the Criminal Code (WA) directing that on the expiration of the term of his imprisonment the applicant should be detained "during the Governor's pleasure in a prison". The applicant's term of imprisonment expired in June 1993. He has remained in prison since that date pursuant to the s 662 order and has been in prison for six years longer than the maximum sentence that could have been imposed for the offence of aggravated sexual assault. In July 1987, a majority of the Court of Criminal Appeal dismissed an appeal from the making of the s 662 order, but reduced the maximum sentence to six years and three months to account for a period of pre-sentence custody. On 20 June 2012, the applicant sought special leave to appeal to the High Court from the Court of Criminal Appeal's decision. The High Court unanimously allowed the appeal. The Court held that the evidence before the sentencing judge was not capable of supporting the making of an order for the applicant's indefinite detention and that the interests of justice required that leave to appeal be granted out of time.
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA 26 May 2004 INSURANCE COMMISSION OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA v CONTAINER HANDLERS PTY LTD, UNION DES ASSURANCES DE PARIS AND ASHLEY ROBERT SUTTON The High Court of Australia today held that a third-party vehicle insurance policy issued under West Australian law did not cover injuries caused while undertaking urgent roadside repairs. In March 1998 Mr Sutton, then aged 23, was travelling in a prime mover driven by Jason Reibel. He was a crane operator for Brambles Australia Ltd. After leaving a crane at the Nifty Strikes copper mine Mr Sutton was being transported back to Port Hedland when the injury occurred. During the journey, smoke was seen coming from a rear wheel hub of the prime mover’s low loader. Mr Reibel set out to remove both wheels on that axle and to chain it up. While Mr Sutton was assisting, the axle slipped and jammed his left hand against the chassis, injuring it badly. Mr Sutton sued Container Handlers, Mr Reibel’s employer and owner of the prime mover, in the WA District Court which awarded him $926,043.36 and found that the company should have equipped its vehicles to carry out emergency roadside repairs to wheels and axles. Container Handlers also brought third-party claims against the Insurance Commission and Union des Assurances de Paris (UAP) under policies issued by those entities. Both claims failed at first instance but the Full Court of the WA Supreme Court upheld the claim against the Insurance Commission. The Insurance Commission appealed to the High Court against the Full Court’s orders to indemnify Container Handlers for the damages payable to Mr Sutton. It joined UAP and Mr Sutton as the second and third respondents but at the conclusion of argument in the High Court it discontinued its appeal against Mr Sutton. The issue in the appeal was the extent to which the Insurance Commission’s insurance policies for the prime mover and low loader applied to Mr Sutton’s injury. Under the Motor Vehicle (Third Party) Insurance Act, the policies would only apply if the injury was “directly caused by, or by the driving of, the motor vehicle”. The High Court held that the policies did not apply in the circumstances in which Mr Sutton received his injury. Mr Sutton’s injury was not directly caused by the driving of the prime mover and low loader and was not caused by the vehicles running out of control. Mr Reibel was not driving the prime mover and low loader but was preparing them for driving. A mere connection between the injury and the vehicles was insufficient for a successful claim against the Insurance Commission. To come within the indemnity given by a policy, a causal connection between the injury and the driving of a motor vehicle was required. The Court unanimously allowed the Commission’s appeal.
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA 5 December 2012 COMMISSIONER OF TAXATION v CONSOLIDATED MEDIA HOLDINGS LTD [2012] HCA 55 Today the High Court unanimously allowed an appeal from a decision of the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia and upheld an assessment by the Commissioner of Taxation ("the Commissioner") that Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd ("PBL") (later called "Consolidated Media Holdings Ltd") made a capital gain when shares it held in Crown Ltd ("Crown") were bought back by Crown in an off-market share buy-back. PBL owned all of the ordinary shares in Crown. On 28 June 2002, PBL and Crown entered into an agreement for PBL to sell some of its shares back to Crown for $1 billion. Crown recorded a debit of $1 billion in a new account labelled "Share Buy-Back Reserve Account". It also maintained a "Shareholders Equity Account", which had a credit balance and in which no entry was recorded in relation to the share buy-back. In an off-market share buy-back, the difference between the purchase price and any part of the purchase price that is debited against amounts standing to the credit of the company's "share capital account" is treated for income taxation purposes as a dividend paid by the company. At the relevant time, "share capital account" was defined in s 6D of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 (Cth) ("the ITAA 1936"). The Commissioner took the view that the $1 billion purchase price was debited against amounts standing to the credit of Crown's "share capital account", so that no part of the purchase price was to be taken to be a dividend. The Commissioner therefore assessed PBL to have made a capital gain on the sale of its Crown shares. PBL objected to the Commissioner's assessment and the Commissioner disallowed the objection. PBL appealed to the Federal Court against the disallowance of its objection. The primary judge dismissed the appeal on the basis that Crown's "share capital account" comprised both its Shareholders Equity Account and its Share Buy-Back Reserve Account. The Full Court of the Federal Court allowed an appeal, holding that Crown's "share capital account" did not include its Share Buy-Back Reserve Account. The High Court held that an account that is a record of a transaction into which a company has entered in relation to its share capital, or that is a record of a company's financial position in relation to its share capital, is a "share capital account" within the meaning of s 6D(1) of the ITAA 1936. It also held that s 6D(2) required all share capital accounts to be treated as a combined "share capital account". Accordingly, the $1 billion consideration PBL received under the share buy-back agreement was debited against amounts standing to the credit of Crown's "share capital account" and the Commissioner was correct to have assessed PBL as having made a capital gain.
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA 16 December 2021 MALCOLM LAURENCE ORREAL v THE QUEEN [2021] HCA 44 Today, the High Court unanimously allowed an appeal from a decision of the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Queensland. The appeal concerned whether, having found a miscarriage of justice, the Court of Appeal was correct to dismiss the appeal against conviction pursuant to s 668E(1A) of the Criminal Code (Qld) because "no substantial miscarriage of justice [had] actually occurred". The appellant was convicted by a jury of three counts of unlawfully and indecently dealing with a child under the age of 16 years and two counts of rape. Evidence was admitted at trial ("the impugned evidence") with the appellant's consent, the substance of which was that both the complainant and the appellant had tested positive for the presence of the herpes simplex virus type 1 ("HSV-1"). The jury were told that HSV-1 is commonly found as a genital infection and could have been transmitted to the complainant other than through the charged conduct. The Court of Appeal found that the impugned evidence was irrelevant and inadmissible, and there had been a miscarriage of justice because the trial judge failed to direct the jury that they were obliged to disregard the impugned evidence in its entirety. However, the majority of the Court of Appeal nevertheless dismissed the appeal pursuant to s 668E(1A) because it concluded that the impugned evidence could not have impacted on the credibility of the complainant or the reliability of her evidence. The High Court unanimously found that the Court of Appeal was wrong to dismiss the appeal. The High Court rejected the contention that the impugned evidence was neutral or incapable of affecting the jury's assessment of guilt. The prosecution's case at trial turned on issues of contested credibility and the prejudicial nature of the impugned evidence meant that it may well have been misused by the jury to support the complainant's evidence. The High Court found that, unless properly instructed, the jury may have reasoned that it was no coincidence that both the appellant and the complainant tested positive for HSV-1, which may have pointed to the complainant having contracted the virus from the appellant. Therefore, the Court of Appeal was unable to assess whether guilt was proved beyond reasonable doubt by the evidence properly admitted at trial. Accordingly, the High Court allowed the appeal, set aside the appellant's convictions and ordered a new trial be had.
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA 2 December 2015 [2015] HCA 44 Today the High Court unanimously dismissed an appeal from a decision of the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia. The High Court held that a former officer of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development ("the IBRD") was not entitled to an exemption from taxation in respect of monthly pension payments he had received. Section 6(1)(d)(i) of the International Organisations (Privileges and Immunities) Act 1963 (Cth) ("the IOPI Act") and reg 8(1) of the Specialized Agencies (Privileges and Immunities) Regulations (Cth) ("the SAPI Regulations") confer upon a person who holds an office in an international organisation to which the IOPI Act applies an exemption from taxation on salaries and emoluments received from the organisation. The exemption is set out in Item 2 of Pt 1 of the Fourth Schedule to the IOPI Act. The IBRD is an international organisation to which the IOPI Act applies. The appellant, Mr Macoun, a former sanitary engineer with the IBRD, received monthly pension payments from a Retirement Fund established under the IBRD's Staff Retirement Plan ("the SRP") in the 2009 and 2010 income years, when he no longer held an office in the IBRD. The respondent ("the Commissioner") included the monthly pension payments in Mr Macoun's assessable income for the 2009 and 2010 income years. Mr Macoun sought review of the Commissioner's decision in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal ("the AAT"). The AAT set aside the decision and substituted the decision that the monthly pension payments did not form part of Mr Macoun's assessable income and were exempt from Australian income tax. The Commissioner appealed to the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia. The Full Court allowed the appeal, holding that reg 8(1) of the SAPI Regulations confined the privileges specified in Pt 1 of the Fourth Schedule to the IOPI Act to persons currently holding an office in an international organisation to which the IOPI Act applied. As Mr Macoun did not hold such an office in the IBRD in the 2009 and 2010 income years, the exemption from taxation was not available to him. By grant of special leave, Mr Macoun appealed to the High Court. The High Court unanimously held that Mr Macoun was not entitled to an exemption from taxation for the relevant part of his monthly pension payments because he had ceased to hold an office in the IBRD when he received them, and because he received them from the Retirement Fund established under the SRP rather than from the IBRD. The High Court also held that Mr Macoun's monthly pension payments did not fall within the phrase "salaries and emoluments" in Item 2 of Pt 1 of the Fourth Schedule to the IOPI Act, and that Australia's international obligations did not require Australia to exempt the monthly pension payments from taxation.
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA 14 December 2005 WAYNE EDWARD MANLEY v IAIN STEWART ALEXANDER A tow-truck driver had driven negligently when his attention was diverted for a couple of seconds by a drunk man lurching along the side of the road, the High Court of Australia held today. Mr Manley ran over Mr Alexander as Mr Alexander lay along the centre of Middleton Beach Road, Albany, Western Australia, at 4.15am on 7 October 2000. Mr Alexander and his housemate, Cameron Turner, were walking home after a night of heavy drinking when the accident happened. He said later he had drunk about 12 stubbies of beer. At the WA District Court trial of Mr Alexander’s claim for damages, Mr Manley gave the only account of what happened as Mr Alexander remembered nothing and Mr Turner had moved interstate and was not called as a witness. Mr Manley, then 24, said as he was driving home from a call-out he saw a man, understood to be Mr Turner, on the roadside. He kept his eye on Mr Turner and veered to the centre of the road as Mr Turner appeared about to walk on to the roadway. As he looked back at the road ahead he saw something on the road then felt the truck run over it. Mr Alexander, then 29, was lying parallel with the centre line and wearing dark clothing. He suffered serious injuries. Mr Manley admitted taking his eyes off the road for two or three seconds. Judge Denis O’Sullivan held that he was not negligent, as there was no evidence that Mr Manley was not keeping a proper lookout in the circumstances, and no evidence of excessive speed or of failing to handle the truck in a reasonable manner. Mr Alexander successfully appealed to the Full Court of the WA Supreme Court, which held that both men had been negligent. It held that it could be inferred that Mr Alexander was already on the roadway when Mr Manley saw Mr Turner beside the road. The Court held that having taken his eyes off the road for two to three seconds, Mr Manley had failed to take reasonable care in breach of his duty to other road users who might, however unexpectedly, happen to be on the road. The Court ordered that damages be assessed for Mr Alexander but reduced by 70 per cent for contributory negligence on his part. Mr Manley appealed to the High Court. He did not challenge the factual findings, but contended it was not open to the Full Court to conclude from those facts that he had failed to take reasonable care. Mr Alexander did not challenge the large discount the Full Court allowed for contributory negligence. The High Court, by a 3-2 majority, dismissed the appeal. It held that no error was shown in the Full Court’s reasoning and it was open to the Full Court to conclude that Mr Manley failed to exercise reasonable care. The Court held that driving with reasonable attention requires simultaneous attention to a number of different features of what may be in the vehicle’s path. While the possibility of someone lying on a roadway at 4am was remote, the reasonable care drivers must exercise requires that they control the speed and direction of the vehicle in such a way that they can take reasonable steps to react to such events.
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA Public Information Officer 15 November 2006 NBGM v MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION AND MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS A person could not remain a refugee under Australia’s protection once conditions in their former country had improved, the High Court of Australia held today. NBGM is a citizen of Afghanistan and a Shi’a Muslim of Hazara ethnicity. He arrived in Australia in October 1999 without a passport or visa and was granted a temporary protection visa in March 2000. His application for a permanent protection visa was refused. The Refugee Review Tribunal affirmed the decision in April 2004. It found that the Taliban had been removed from power in Afghanistan by November 2001 and no longer posed a threat to the civilian population as its targets were members of the government, security forces and international aid workers. The RRT found that the Taliban was unlikely to re-emerge as a viable political movement in the reasonably foreseeable future. It concluded that Article 1C(5) of the Refugees Convention applied to NBGM. This provides that the Convention shall cease to apply if the person refuses to avail themselves of the protection of their country of nationality when the circumstances in connection with which they had been recognised as a refugee have ceased to exist. The RRT held that, if Article 1C(5) was not applicable, section 36(3) of the Migration Act had the same effect and Australia had ceased to owe protection obligations to NBGM because of the changed circumstances in Afghanistan. The RRT also rejected claims that he feared persecution from other factions in Afghanistan as any discrimination against Hazara people fell short of persecution under the Convention and that the position of Shi’a Muslims was generally good. The Federal Court of Australia refused NBGM’s application to have the RRT decision quashed and held that it was open to the RRT to conclude that as at April 2004 NBGM did not have a well- founded fear of persecution if he returns to Afghanistan. After a three-member Full Court of the Federal Court had decided the appeal in QAAH of 2004 v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, a differently constituted five-member Full Court heard NBGM’s appeal. In a 3-2 decision, the Full Court dismissed the appeal and NBGM then sought special leave to appeal to the High Court. The special leave application was heard at the same time as the Minister’s appeal against the QAAH decision as they raised similar issues. The High Court’s QAAH judgment is also handed down today and the NBGM judgment should be read in conjunction with it. The Court unanimously granted the application for special leave to appeal but, by a 4-1 majority, dismissed the appeal. The majority held section 36 of the Migration Act makes clear that a protection visa offers no promise or obligation to continue to afford protection or to grant residence in the event that circumstances change in the country from which the applicant fled.
HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA 8 June 2016 ROBINSON HELICOPTER COMPANY INCORPORATED v GRAHAM JAMES MCDERMOTT & ORS [2016] HCA 22 Today the High Court unanimously allowed an appeal from a decision of the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Queensland. The High Court held that the majority of the Court of Appeal erred in overturning the primary judge's findings of fact concerning the cause of a helicopter crash. In May 2004, a helicopter manufactured by the appellant ("Robinson") crashed, resulting in the death of the pilot and the first respondent ("Mr McDermott") suffering serious injuries. The crash was caused by the failure of the helicopter's forward flex plate; one of the four bolts securing the flex plate ("Bolt 4") was incorrectly assembled and, when so assembled, was not tightened to the requisite degree ("the defect"). After reassembly, but before the crash, the flex plate had been subject to a number of routine inspections by pilots and engineers but the defect had not been detected. Mr McDermott, along with his wife and employer, brought proceedings against Robinson in the Supreme Court of Queensland in negligence and under the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth) ("the TPA"). The essential question at first instance and on appeal was whether the Maintenance Manual for the helicopter ("the Manual") provided an adequate inspection procedure for the detection of the defect. The primary judge dismissed Mr McDermott's claims, holding that the Manual provided adequate instructions to identify the defect. A majority of the Court of Appeal allowed Mr McDermott's appeal, holding that the Manual did not provide adequate instructions to detect the defect and, ultimately, that Robinson was liable either in negligence or under the TPA. In so doing the majority of the Court of Appeal came to a different conclusion from that reached by the primary judge regarding the likely appearance of Bolt 4 at the time of the relevant inspections. By grant of special leave, Robinson appealed to the High Court. The High Court unanimously allowed the appeal, holding that the primary judge's findings of fact accorded to the weight of lay and expert evidence and to the range of permissible inferences, and that the majority of the Court of Appeal should not have overturned them. Accordingly, the primary judge was right to hold that it was not shown that the contents of the Manual fell short of what was required to discharge Robinson's duty of care in the circumstances of this case. The High Court further held that, even if it were accepted that Robinson had breached its duty of care in the manner alleged by Mr McDermott, it could not be concluded that the breach of duty was causative of the crash.