In 1998, the constitutionality of the 'open standing' provisions contained in the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth) was directly challenged in the High Court for the first time since their enactment.

This issue came to a head in 1998, when a community group, Truth About Motorways (TAM), brought suit under the TPA against Macquarie Infrastructure Investment Management Ltd (MIIM). TAM was concerned about the publication and distribution of a prospectus produced by MIIM in order to attract investor for units in an investment trust proposing to invest in the construction and private ownership of a toll road in Sydney. TAM alleged that claims made in the prospectus about anticipated volumes of traffic on the road constituted misleading conduct within the meaning of section 52 of the TPA. Significantly, TAM neither claimed a special interest in the subject matter of the dispute nor that it had suffered any loss or damage on account of MIIM's conduct. It relied instead exclusively on the open standing provisions contained in sections 80 and 163A of the TPA. MIIM filed a defence pleading that TAM had no standing to maintain an action against it. MIIM argued that so far as §§ 80 and 163A of the TPA purported to confer standing on TAM they were constitutionally invalid.

In March 2000, the Australian High Court considered MIIM's constitutional claim. The detail of MIIM's argument was succinctly summarized by Chief Justice Gleeson and Justice McHugh in a joint judgment.

An organized collection of references to pre-1993 primary and secondary sources and authority of International Environmental Law. 20 Chapters, 790 pages.

Increased pressure to implement timely and effective responses to mitigate global warming - arising from the 4th Assessment Report of the IPCC - has underlined the importance of reviewing laws for the deployment of renewable energy (RE). Although debate in Australia has recently advanced towards adoption of more ambitious targets for RE generation, it has focussed largely on laws that create a market in renewable energy certificates (RECS). The Commonwealth mandatory renewable energy target legislation is discussed in light of commitments to expand it to reach a target of 20% of Australia's electricity by 2020. Recent European experience suggests that a commitment to this single strategy could limit the development of the RE industry.

This paper reviews the alternative of Feed-in Tariff (FIT) laws, which require utilities to purchase at a set price the electricity generated by RE generators. In Australia the option of FIT laws has been largely overlooked, with the exception of SA, and with some steps also taken in the ACT, Victoria and Queensland. Yet FIT laws have been adopted by preference in more than 41 jurisdictions overseas. The SA law and the ACT Bill are at threat from promises to "cut red tape" and bring State based targets within a single national scheme.

Review of the European experience suggests that FIT laws have been more effective than RECs laws in three respects: capacity deployment, industry development, and in some cases, price reductions. This suggests that FIT laws should be considered as potentially a more effective means to expand RE generation capacity in Australia.

Given present Federal proposals for the national harmonisation of renewable energy laws, review of the international literature about the comparative effectiveness of various legislative models is vital. State targets are likely to be replaced with a single Commonwealth renewable energy target.

Arguments concerning the compatibility of renewable energy laws with the operation of a national emissions trading system effective from 2010 are considered. It is concluded that RE legislation will be necessary until 2025, contingent on the effectiveness of the carbon trading legislation. Arguments running counter to the proposal by the PM's Task Group on Emissions Trading (2007), that all RE legislation be repealed at Commonwealth and State level are also examined.

This paper focuses on the construction of merit as the key selection criterion for judging. It will show how merit has been masculinised within the social script so as to militate against the acceptance of women as judges. The social construction of the feminine in terms of disorder in the public sphere fans doubts that women are appointable - certainly not in significant numbers to the most senior levels of the bench. It is argued that merit, far from being an objective criterion, operates as a rhetorical device shaped by power. The paper will draw on media representations of women judges in three recent Australian scenarios: an appointment to the High Court; the appointment of almost 50 percent women to Victorian benches; and the scapegoating of a female chief magistrate (resulting in imprisonment) in Queensland.

In Australia, blind people are able to access texts in braille and books on tape, but the demand for these media is decreasing. Blind people today are increasingly reliant on texts in electronic form, and these are much less readily available in Australia. Electronic texts are more portable and less cumbersome than large braille volumes, and are much faster to navigate than audio recordings. However, in Australia it is difficult for blind people to get access to a wide range of electronic texts and there exists no scheme enabling such access. At the same time sighted people are using electronic text and other digital media at an ever-increasing rate. In order to approximate the same level of access as sighted people, blind people require access to accessible electronic versions of all published material.

The authors suggest that given the legal imperatives of Australia's domestic legislation, treaty obligations and social values, that there exists a moral imperative to create a scheme providing blind people with access to digital print media.

This paper examines the ambiguous relationship between feminism and the state through the lens of sex discrimination legislation. Particular attention will be paid to the changing nature of the state as manifested by its political trajectory from social liberalism to neoliberalism over the last few decades. As a creature of social liberalism, the passage of sex discrimination legislation was animated by notions of collective good and redistributive justice, but now that neoliberalism is in the ascendancy, we see a resiling from these values in favour of private good and promotion of the self through the market. This cluster of values associated with neoliberalism not only serves to reify the socially dominant strands of masculinity, it also goes hand-in-glove with neoconservatism, which is intent on restricting the inchoate freedoms of women. The erosion of social liberal measures has caused many feminists to feel more kindly disposed towards the liberal state. Some attempt to unravel the contradictions relating to feminism and the state with particular regard to the key discourses of equality of opportunity.

The author examines impartiality in cases of politically contentious decision making. Many jurisdictions delegate decisions over matters such as the establishment of fair election ground rules to independent bodies. Some of these bodies, including Canada's Federal Electoral Boundaries Commissions (FEBCs), attract widespread trust and are by most accounts substantially impartial. In contrast, commissions empanelled to draw electoral boundaries in the United States, and to a lesser extent in certain Canadian provinces, are often plagued by partisanship.

The author canvasses approaches to controlling partisanship, relying on a series of interviews conducted with boundaries commissioners and on interdisciplinary literature on trust and trustworthiness in governance. Commentators often favour bolstering formal constraints on FEBC discretion. However, the author concludes that traditional administrative law models favouring such constraints are often inadequate. In politically sensitive cases these methods frequently catalyze partisanship. Proposals for more nuanced design - design sensitive to the complex interactions between law and administrative culture in cases where the potential for partisanship is high - are better but rarer. The author focuses in particular on the use of ambiguity in legal and institutional design. Although this approach is counterintuitive in light of rule-of-law assumptions favouring clarity, it has nevertheless gained traction in commentary and has long been at work in practice. The author argues that extensively ambiguous design, as displayed by the complex federal readjustment processes in Canada, has helped to develop the widely admired impartial decision-making cultures of the FEBCs.

This chapter argues that differing views underpinning the debate about dual citizenship are mirrored in policy discourse about the place of multiculturalism in Australia. Globalization has and continues to have a substantial impact upon legal status and membership and identity in both the nation-state and in the international legal system. These legal changes reflect the shifting notions of membership both in the Australian domestic framework and in the international framework. Moreover, these changes must be taken into account in balancing rights and responsibilities in a diverse society, so that multiculturalism and cultural diversity continue to be affirmed within the legal framework and public policy in the same way dual citizenship has been accepted.

The High Court has yet to resolve a clash of paradigms pervading the reasoning in Street v Queensland Bar Association, the leading case on the Constitution's s 117 prohibition of interstate residence discrimination. Some among the seven separate judgments in that case view s 117 as a non-discrimination rule grounded in intrinsic concern for the individual. Others understand the provision in instrumental terms, viewing its protection of individuals as nothing more than a vehicle for securing federal-structural goals. Neither view clearly prevailed in Street or in subsequent cases. This article explains why a federal-structural understanding of s 117 should be favoured, for reasons of constitutional principle and of consistency with other areas of constitutional law. It also considers what that means for s 117's application in the future, as to the kinds of evidence, reasoning, and comparative guidance that will be most pertinent.