[P7_TOM]

Pete, short answer, we don’t really know.  There are a couple or three areas where, arguably, CASA have stretched the fabric of a law to the point of being unconstitutional; but the costs of mounting a challenge to say the Foreign AOC ‘law’ would far outweigh any benefit gained from ‘doing business’ and so the ‘law’ as CASA see and use it remains uncontested.  I forget who and when, but I believe there was a case run by Norton White which did successfully challenge a matter on constitutional grounds.  All I remember is that it was an expensive exercise.  FWIW the MoS is presented as a ‘Legislative Instrument’, grasping any more than that is way beyond our short legal reach and understanding of constitutional law.

LEGISLATIVE INSTRUMENTS ACT 2003 - SECT 5.

Definition--a legislative instrument
            (1)  Subject to sections 6, 7 and 9, a legislative instrument is an instrument in writing:

                    (a)  that is of a legislative character; and

                    (b)  that is or was made in the exercise of a power delegated by the Parliament.

            (2)  Without limiting the generality of subsection (1), an instrument is taken to be of a legislative character if:

                    (a)  it determines the law or alters the content of the law, rather than applying the law in a particular case; and

                    (b)  it has the direct or indirect effect of affecting a privilege or interest, imposing an obligation, creating a right, or varying or removing an obligation or right.

            (3)  An instrument that is registered is taken, by virtue of that registration and despite anything else in this Act, to be a legislative instrument.

            (4)  If some provisions of an instrument are of a legislative character and others are of an administrative character, the instrument is taken to be a legislative instrument for the purposes of this Act.