City of Munno Para v John Weeks Pty Ltd (trading as Bi-Lo) & Ors; Munno Para Shopping Centre Pty Ltd v City of Munno Para

The parties involved in these proceedings before the High Court of Australia were the City of Munno Para (applicant in one matter, respondent in the other) and John Weeks Pty Ltd (trading as Bi-Lo) and Bevton Pty Ltd, along with Munno Para Shopping Centre Pty Ltd. The dispute concerned the validity of a decision by the Munno Para City Council to grant consent for a shopping centre development. The applications were for special leave to appeal against a majority decision of a lower court that had quashed the Council's consent.

The central legal issue before the High Court was the interpretation and effect of section 47 of the South Australian Planning Act and its associated regulations, particularly the status of the development plan. Specifically, the court was required to determine whether the statutory requirement for a council, when considering a development application, to have regard to the provisions of the development plan and not to make a decision seriously at variance with those provisions, constituted a jurisdictional prerequisite for making a valid planning decision. Alternatively, the court had to consider whether this requirement was merely a directive for making a correct decision, with any contravention being subject to the appeal provisions within the legislation.

The High Court noted that the Full Court below had held, by a majority, that the requirement in section 47(9) did go to the jurisdiction of the planning authority. Counsel for the applicants argued that this decision was made reluctantly and was at odds with earlier High Court authority, specifically the *Burnside* case, where it was suggested that such issues might be matters of incorrect decision-making rather than jurisdictional error, and thus reviewable through the appeal process. The applicants contended that the legislation provided a comprehensive appeal code, implying that breaches of section 47 were not necessarily jurisdictional.