Case: Williams v Melbourne Corporation [1933] HCA 56 ; (1933) 49 CLR 142
Outcome: cited
CJ said, at [130]: With respect to a power to make a plan of the character under consideration in the present case, I find particularly helpful the formulation of Sir Owen Dixon in Williams v Melbourne Corporation [1933] HCA 56 ; (1933) 49 CLR 142 at 155: To determine whether the bylaw is an exercise of a power, it is not always enough to ascertain the subject matter of the power and consider whether the bylaw appears on its face to relate to that subject. The true nature and purpose of the power must be determined and it must often be necessary to examine the operation of the bylaw in the local circumstances to which it is intended to apply. Notwithstanding that ex facie there seemed a sufficient connection between the subject of the power and that of the bylaw, the true character of the bylaw may then appear to be such that it could not reasonably have been adopted as a means of attaining the ends of the power. In such a case the bylaw will be invalid, not because it is inexpedient or misguided, but because it is not a real exercise of the power. Spigelman CJ adopted the words of Dixon J, as he then was, in Williams v Melbourne Corporation , which involved a power to regulate traffic. Dixon J said, at 156: ... The ultimate question in the present case appears to me to be whether, when applied to the conditions of Melbourne, the bylaw involves such an actual suppression of the use of the streets for the purposes of the necessary transit of an important and ordinary commodity as to go beyond any restraint which could be reasonably adopted for the purpose of preserving the safety, convenience and proper facility of traffic in general. Spigelman CJ made the important observation, at [139]: It is always necessary to commence with the identification of the particular statutory power, understood in its context, and to assess the exercise of that power against the high standard of unreasonableness or of irrationality which the outcome must reach before the Court can legitimately infer that the legal limits to the exercise of the power have not been observed so that, to adopt the formulation from Williams v Melbourne Corporation quoted above, the Plan "could not reasonably have been adopted as a means of attaining the ends of the power" and, therefore, "is not a real exercise of the power". Spigelman CJ said, at [144]: Inevitably, when significant changes are made to an established regulatory regimes, there will be winners and losers. Considerations of equity are quintessentially matters for political decision-making. I am not satisfied that anything in the nature, scope and purpose of the Act prevents the Minister from implementing a scheme which operates to the detriment of some persons and to the advantage of others, in a manner not determined by availability of water but by broader considerations of what the Minister regards as equitable. And, at [152]: ... What is fair or unfair in such a context is a matter on which reasonable minds can differ. In view of the conflicting interests involved, a broad brush approach of general application is not, in my opinion, irrational.