Case: Cooper Brookes (Wollongong) Pty Ltd v Federal Commissioner of Taxation [1981] HCA 26 ; (1981) 147 CLR 297
Outcome: considered
recently the High Court in Cooper Brookes (Wollongong) Pty Ltd v Federal Commissioner of Taxation [1981] HCA 26 ; (1981) 147 CLR 297 considered the risks in imputing meaning to a legislative provision, which meaning is not apparent on the face of the provision. As Gibbs CJ said (at 304-305): It is an elementary and fundamental principle that the object of the court, in interpreting a statute, "is to see what is the intention expressed by the words used": River Wear Commissioners v. Adamson (1877) 2 App Cas 743 , at p 763. It is only by considering the meaning of the words used by the legislature that the court can ascertain its intention. And it is not unduly pedantic to begin with the assumption that words mean what they say: cf. Cody v. J. H. Nelson Pty. Ltd . [1947] HCA 17 ; (1947) 74 CLR 629 , at p 648. Of course, no part of a statute can be considered in isolation from its context - the whole must be considered. If, when the section in question is read as part of the whole instrument, its meaning is clear and unambiguous, generally speaking "nothing remains but to give effect to the generally speaking "nothing remains but to give effect to the unqualified, words": Metropolitan Gas Co. v. Federated Gas Employees' Industrial Union [1925] HCA 5 ; (1925) 35 CLR 449 , at p 455 There are cases where the result of giving words their ordinary meaning may be so irrational that the court is forced to the conclusion that the draftsman has made a mistake, and the canons of construction are not so rigid as to prevent a realistic solution in such a case: see per Lord Reid in Connaught Fur Trimmings Ltd. v. Cramas Properties Ltd . [1965] 1 WLR 892 , at p 899; (1965) 2 ALL ER 382 , at p 386. Examples of that sort of case may be found in Maxwell on the Interpretation of Statutes , 12th ed., (1969), at p. 228 et seq., and Craies on Statute Law, 7th ed., (1971), at p. 520 et seq. However, if the language of a statutory provision is clear and unambiguous, and is consistent and harmonious with the other provisions of the enactment, and can be intelligibly applied to the subject matter with which it deals, it must be given its ordinary and grammatical meaning, even if it leads to a result that may seem inconvenient or unjust. To say this is not to insist on too literal an interpretation, or to deny that the court should seek the real intention of the legislature. The danger that lies in departing from the ordinary meaning of unambiguous provisions is that "it may degrade into mere judicial criticism of the propriety of the acts of the Legislature", as Lord Moulton said in Vacher &amp; Sons Ltd. v. London Society of Compositors [1912] UKHL 3 ; (1913) AC 107 , at p 130; it may lead judges to put their own ideas of justice or social policy in place of the words of the statute. On the other hand, if two constructions are open, the court will obviously prefer that which will avoid what it considers to be inconvenience or injustice. Since language, read in its context, very often proves to be ambiguous, this last mentioned rule is one that not infrequently falls to be applied.