Strickland v Rocla Concrete Pipes Ltd
| Strickland v Rocla Concrete Pipes Ltd | |
|---|---|
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| Court | High Court of Australia |
| Full case name | Strickland v Rocla Concrete Pipes Ltd |
| Decided | 3 September 1971 |
| Citation(s) | (1971) 124 CLR 468 |
| Case history | |
| Prior action(s) | none |
| Subsequent action(s) | none |
| Case opinions | |
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(5:2) The Trade Practices Act 1965 was incapable of being read down to be within Commonwealth legislative power on the basis that s 7, the "reading down" provision, required the Court to legislate rather than read down the law. The Court unanimously agreed that the restrictions placed over Commonwealth power to regulate constitutional corporations, from Huddart, Parker & Co Pty Ltd v Moorehead (1909) 8 CLR 330, have been overturned, and the Commonwealth may regulate trading activities of trading corporations (per Barwick CJ, McTiernan, Menzies, Windeyer, Owen, Walsh & Gibbs JJ) |
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| Court membership | |
| Judge(s) sitting | Barwick CJ, McTiernan, Menzies, Windeyer, Owen, Walsh and Gibbs JJ |
(5:2) The Trade Practices Act 1965 was incapable of being read down to be within Commonwealth legislative power on the basis that s 7, the "reading down" provision, required the Court to legislate rather than read down the law.
Strickland v Rocla Concrete Pipes Ltd (1971) 124 CLR 468, also known as the Concrete Pipes Case, is a High Court of Australia case that discusses the scope of the corporations power in section 51(xx) of the Australian Constitution. This was an important case in Australian constitutional law because it overruled the decision in the earlier case of Huddart, Parker & Co Pty Ltd v Moorehead (1909) 8 CLR 330, which held that the corporations power only extended as far as the regulation of their conduct in relation to their transactions with or affecting the public. Since this case, the Commonwealth has had at least the ability to regulate the trading activities of trading corporations, thus opening the way for an expansion in Commonwealth power.
The width of this power was later considered again in the cases of Actors and Announcers Equity Association v Fontana Films (1982) 150 CLR 169, Commonwealth v Tasmania (the Tasmanian Dam Case) (1983) 158 CLR 1, Re Dingjan; Ex parte Wagner (1995) 183 CLR 323 and New South Wales v Commonwealth (the WorkChoices Case) (2006) 229 CLR 1.
Section 43 of the Trade Practices Act 1965-1969 (Cth) made certain agreements between competitors restricting competition "examinable", and the respondents in this case were charged with breaching that section. The agreements in question were exclusively related to trade in Queensland. Because this is purely intrastate trade, the respondents would not have fallen within the legislative power granted by section 51(i) of the Constitution. The Commonwealth Industrial Court, at first instance, rejected the charge, following Huddart, Parker & Co Pty Ltd v Moorehead, in which it was held that a law with respect to the trading activities of constitutional corporations was not within power.
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