Air Caledonie International & Ors v The Commonwealth of Australia

The parties before the High Court of Australia were Air Caledonie International and thirty other respondents (plaintiffs) and the Commonwealth of Australia (defendant). The dispute concerned an application by the Commonwealth for an interlocutory injunction. The Commonwealth sought to enforce an obligation under section 34A of the *Migration Amendment Act 1987* (Cth), which had since been repealed.

The primary legal issue before the Court was the validity of the provisions of section 34A of the *Migration Amendment Act 1987*. This section imposed an obligation on the plaintiffs, as operators of airlines, to collect a prescribed fee of $5 from passengers over 12 years of age and to pay this amount to the Commonwealth. The plaintiffs had challenged the validity of this section, and the Commonwealth sought to recover the collected fees.

The Commonwealth's argument was that, absent the question of validity, the plaintiffs were clearly indebted to the Commonwealth for the fees collected under section 34A. The legislation provided that the collected fees constituted a debt due to the Commonwealth, recoverable in a court of competent jurisdiction. The Commonwealth contended that the plaintiffs had admitted in their amended defence to the counter-claim that moneys payable under section 34A had not been paid over, although some had been collected. The Court was asked to consider the inherent jurisdiction of the Court under section 31 of the *Judiciary Act 1903* (Cth) to order interlocutory injunctions.