This is the third series in the annual Menzies Lecture series. The lectures were delivered at the University of Virginia and at William and Mary College Williamsburg on 8 and 12 October 1987.

The proper approach to constitutional interpretation, and the role of the High Court in that interpretation, have recently begun to be widely debated, not just in legal circles but also in the wider community. This debate has been stimulated in part by significant decisions like the Franklin Dam case, and proposals to give judges jurisdiction to interpret a Bill of Rights. In the United States a never ending debate continues on the question of judicial review of the Constitution without any consensus being apparent on what is the proper role of the Supreme Court. Nor should one expect any similar debate in Australia necessarily to lead to agreement on what is a proper approach to constitutional interpretation.

As part of the debate, a study of the approach taken by individual judges can, it is suggested, help to illuminate recurring issues, illustrate an approach that has in fact been followed and provide a contrast with the approach of other present or past judges.

A re-examination of the application and effect of s 79 of the Judiciary Act 1903 (Cth) — that “tangled and technical” topic — is called for by three developments: the institution, in 1976, of the procedure which the High Court has used to remit all diversity suits to other courts; the establishment of the seat of the High Court in the Australian Capital Territory; and the enactment of cross-vesting legislation in all Australian jurisdictions.

Those events have raised problems as to the law applicable when a court is exercising federal jurisdiction. A related question, to which no consistently satisfactory answer has been given, is: which is the most appropriate court to which to remit any particular case? That problem will be discussed below, although it is likely to arise less frequently with the coming into force of the new legislation on the cross-vesting of jurisdiction.

The campaign being waged by the Government of the Northern Territory to have the Territory granted statehood, if successful, should result in the first use of s 121 of the Australian Constitution. The section reads:

It is a real pleasure for Mrs Seitz and me to come to Melbourne, one of the truly great cities of the world. I am especially gratified to be speaking in the city where Prime Minister Robert Menzies resided.

I express my gratitude to the University of Virginia for affording me the opportunity and honour of delivering the first Menzies lectures in Australia. By the same token, I thank the Australian National University and the Sir Robert Menzies Memorial Trust for their support of a lecture program designed to further enhance the understanding of our legal systems.

I have read a good deal of material about your country over the past few months. Much of it stressed that we share the English language. That is certainly true but, if Australia is anything like the United States, while we share the same general vocabulary, the younger generation has its own unique language. Fortunately, our legal language is largely interchangeable.

Amongst the nations of the South Pacific only Australia and New Zealand have no constitutionally entrenched Bills of Rights. New Zealand has no written Constitution at all, whilst in the Australian Constitution there are a number of provisions which have the potential to guarantee some civil and political rights.

The founding fathers of the Australian Constitution were pragmatic people. Almost all of them were parliamentarians and many of them either were, or had been, Premiers or senior Ministers in the governments of the various Australian colonies. They were not leisured gentlemen who took time to consider philosophy, let alone write any of their own. They were not concerned about the rights of humankind, nor did they see their role as one of creating an Australian federal parliament and a government that was required to guarantee, uphold and preserve the rights of the people. On the contrary their aim was to achieve some hard, practical, political goals.

It is a great privilege for me to be here today at this College, which had become distinguished as a seat of learning long before my own country had first been settled by English-speaking people. The occasion for my presence is to deliver one of a series of lectures given in honour of Sir Robert Gordon Menzies, who was Prime Minister of Australia from 1949 to 1966 and who, more relevantly for today’s occasion, was both a distinguished constitutional lawyer and a lover of Virginia.

The theory of Montesquieu, that to secure liberty it is necessary to separate the three main functions of the state — the legislative, the executive and the judicial — has had a profound and lasting influence on political thought. James Madison, who expounded the theory with such effect in No. 47 of The Federalist papers, regarded the separation of powers as the most sacred principle of the United States Constitution.

In 1971, FA Trindade argued that the doctrine of extraterritorial legislative incompetence (hereafter the doctrine of extraterritoriality) no longer applied to Australian State Parliaments. His general thesis was that the doctrine no longer applied, either because it had virtually ceased to exist at common law after the Privy Council decision in Croft v Dunphy in 1933, or because the doctrine had been impliedly repealed so far as the States were concerned by s 5 of the Colonial Laws Validity Act 1865 (UK) (CLVA). Since 1971, the High Court of Australia has had occasion to consider the extraterritoriality rule several times, and now the topic has received express legislative provision in the Australian Commonwealth and United Kingdom statutes that are collectively known as the Australia Acts 1986. The overall purpose of these statutes is to eliminate any residual legislative, executive, or judicial authority of the United Kingdom over Australia and its States. Part of this legislative plan involves the extraterritoriality doctrine as it applied to the Australian States. It is the aim of this article to examine the impact of the Australia Acts upon the extraterritoriality principle.

The High Court . . . is properly termed the “keystone of the federal arch”.

— Alfred Deakin

take it as an incontrovertible axiom that responsible government is to be the keystone of this federal arch.

— Isaac Isaacs

Subject to this Act, the registration of a trade mark in Part A or Part B of the register, if valid, gives to the registered proprietor of the trade mark the right to exclusive use of the trade mark in relation to the goods or services in respect of which the trade mark is registered and to obtain relief in respect of infringement of the trade mark in the manner provided by this Act.

The Australian scheme of Intellectual Property Law includes the registration and protection of trade marks pursuant to the Trade Marks Act I955 (Cth) (the Act).

Section 58(1) of the Act, reproduced above, grants the right to exclusive use of the registered trade mark to the registered proprietor. Section 62(1) deems that such a trade mark is infringed as follows:

Pirrie v McFarlane remains an enigmatic case. Decided a few years after the landmark decision of Engineers it reflected an application of the reciprocal nature of the principle applied in that case. The thrust of the decision in Engineers was that the Commonwealth Parliament had power under s 51(xxxv) to make laws binding on the States. In the course of judgment the majority judges had also observed as follows:

Coming so soon after Engineers, the decision in Pirrie v McFarlane is clearly consistent with this observation of the majority judges. However, given the subsequent developments in cases such as Cigamatic and Bogle, the authority of Pirrie v McFarlane has been questioned.

From the time a Federal Court was first proposed, questions about its jurisdiction, and its relationship with state courts have dominated discussion. While it is not proposed to review this extensive literature in detail, it is apposite to draw on some insights from an article by Sir Garfield Barwick published in 1964 at an early stage of this debate. First, it was suggested that the matters in which a Federal Court should have jurisdiction be in some way special. This special element could, it was said, consist of either a distinctive and separate body of law, a desire for uniformity in the interpretation of Commonwealth law, or the character of a party involved in a matter (eg the Commonwealth or a State). Secondly, and of major importance to the present consideration of the exclusive jurisdiction of Federal Courts, Barwick stated: