Grain Pool of Western Australia v Commonwealth

What happened?

Commonwealth legislation created rights in new plant varieties. The Grain Pool of Western Australia challenged the Plant Variety Rights Act 1987 and s 82 of the Plant Breeder's Rights Act 1994, arguing that s 51(xviii) — "copyrights, patents of inventions and designs, and trade marks" — could not reach a scheme requiring neither novelty nor inventiveness in the patent sense.

What did the Court decide?

Both provisions were valid. A power granted in 1900 is not confined to the instances known then, and plant variety rights answered the description of the subject matter.

Why does this case matter?

Characterisation is the step every Commonwealth-power question runs through, and it is the step most often skipped — an answer asserts a connection instead of demonstrating one. This case is where the method is set out as a settled sequence, which is why it is cited far more often than its plant-breeding subject matter would suggest.

It also marks a distinction worth holding precisely. The legislature's subjective motive does not bear on a non-purposive power. That is not the same as saying purpose never matters: an objectively discerned statutory purpose can still help establish an incidental connection to a subject-matter power.

Exam and application relevance

Set out the rights, powers, liabilities and duties the impugned provisions create before naming a head of power, and describe how they operate in practice as well as in law. Then say what about that operation answers the description in the section. "The law concerns trade, so s 51(i) applies" is the assertion this case exists to replace with an argument.

Check your understanding

A head of power was written in 1900. Why is it no answer that the technology the law regulates did not exist then?