Xiao v ACT Commercial Builders Pty Ltd
[2023] ACTSC 44
•14 March 2023
SUPREME COURT OF THE AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY
Case Title: | Xiao v ACT Commercial Builders Pty Ltd |
Citation: | [2023] ACTSC 44 |
Hearing Date: | 2 June 2022 |
DecisionDate: | 14 March 2023 |
Before: | McCallum CJ |
Decision: | Appeal dismissed with costs. |
Catchwords: | CONTRACTS – Construction – Identification of parties – Objective theory of contract APPEALS – where parties provided statement of agreed facts to Magistrate including agreement that a contract was signed by a director on behalf of a company – whether Magistrate erred in departing from agreed fact |
Legislation Cited: | Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) ss 127, 471B Court Procedures Rules 2006 (ACT) r 6906 Magistrates Court Act 1930 (ACT) s 274 |
Cases Cited: | ACT Commercial Builders Pty Ltd and Anor v BBSJ Partners Pty Ltd and Anor (No 2) [2021] ACTMC 17 Ariadne Steamship Co v James McKelvie & Co [1922] 1 KB 518 Ryledar Pty Ltd & Anor v Euphoric Pty Ltd [2007] NSWCA 65; 69 NSWLR 603 |
Texts Cited: | J D Heydon, Heydon on Contract (Thomson Reuters (Professional) Australia Limited, 2019) |
Parties: | Qian Xiao (Appellant) ACT Commercial Builders Pty Ltd (First Respondent) Ian Hoare (Second Respondent) |
Representation: | Counsel J Moffett (Appellant) D Robens (Respondents) |
| Solicitors McInnes Wilson Lawyers (Appellant) Harrington Hall Lawyers (Respondents) | |
File Number: | SCA 2 of 2022 |
Decision under appeal: | Court: Magistrates Court Before: Magistrate Stewart Date of Decision: 16 December 2021 Case Title: ACT Commercial Builders Pty Ltd v BBSJ Partners Pty Ltd Citation: [2021] ACTMC 17 Court File Number: CS 43 of 2019 |
McCALLUM CJ:
Mr Qian Xiao appeals from a decision of the Magistrates Court (Magistrate Stewart) holding him liable for a debt to a builder retained to supply the fit-out of a restaurant. There is no longer any dispute as to the amount owed to the builder. The central question raised by the appeal is whether the Magistrate erred in finding that Mr Xiao was the party liable for the debt. Mr Xiao contends that the contract bound a company of which he was a director, BBSJ Partners Pty Ltd, but did not bind him personally.
I have concluded that, while aspects of the Magistrate’s reasoning may have entailed error, the conclusion that Mr Xiao was bound as a party to the contract was correct and that the appeal must accordingly be dismissed. My reasons are as follows.
Circumstances in which the dispute arose
The execution of the building contract followed upon the provision of two quotes sent on 1 February 2016 by Mr Ian Hoare, the second respondent and sole director of the first respondent, ACT Commercial Builders Pty Ltd. Both emails were sent to an email address in the name of Yiwei Xu (also known as Loki Xu) which included “bbsjpartners” as part of the email address. Mr Hoare had previously received floor plans for the premises from Loki Xu sent from the same email address.
On 2 February 2016, Mr Hoare sent the standard form New South Wales Commercial Building Contract approved by the Master Builders Association to Loki Xu’s email address. In his covering email, Mr Hoare explained:
I have attached an exact copy of the building contract, It is a basic Lump sum contract and is MBA approved. Please let me know if you have any questions regarding this or any issues with the clauses. Contracts are aimed at ensuring both parties hold up their responsibilities to each other mine being delivering a high quality of work in the agreed timeline and yours being to ensure payments are made as agreed.
On 3 February 2016, the contract was signed at a meeting at which both Mr Xiao and Mr Hoare were present. The contract included a page headed “the agreement and particulars of contract” which included blank spaces for completion by the parties including requiring identification of the “Owner” and the “Builder” as he parties to the contract. That part was completed in handwriting. The section to be completed by the “Owner” identified the “Owner” as Qian Xiao, the “Address” as Mr Xiao’s personal address (which was also the registered address of BBSJ Partners Pty Ltd) and the “ABN No” as the ABN of BBSJ Partners Pty Ltd (not Mr Xiao’s personal ABN). The section to be completed by the “Builder” identified Ian Hoare as the “Builder” and provided the ACN for ACT Commercial Builders Pty Ltd in place of the ABN.
Underneath the details of the “Owner” and the “Builder, the contract provided:
The above parties agree that:
(a)the Builder will, subject to the Conditions of Contract, execute and complete the work.
(b)the Owner will pay the contract price referred to in Schedule 2 or such other sum which becomes payable under the Conditions of Contract at the times and in the manner stated.
(Emphasis omitted.)
There was provision for each party to sign “to confirm their agreement” in the presence of a witness.
It was plain from those provisions that the party identified as the “Owner” under the contract was liable to pay the “Builder” the contract price or other sum payable in accordance with the terms of the contract. So much is accepted by Mr Xiao, the only dispute being whether the “Owner” was him or the company.
The contract is undated but it was common ground at the hearing that it was signed by Mr Xiao and Mr Hoare in each other’s presence at the meeting on 3 February 2016. Each signature was witnessed by a third party, as contemplated by the standard form contract. Mr Xiao’s signature is illegible but there is no suggestion that it is not his personal signature. He used no words to indicate that he was signing in the capacity of a director or on behalf of a company. No other director signed the contract: cf s 127 of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth). The contract does not name BBSJ Partners Pty Ltd as the “Owner” (or indeed ACT Commercial Builders Pty Ltd as the “Builder”). The only hint as to the involvement of a company by the name of BBSJ Partners Pty Ltd on the face of the contract was the email address nominated for the “Owner”, which was the email address for Loki Xu to which I have already referred. In an earlier email to Mr Hoare, Loki Xu had referred to Mr Xiao as his “business partner”.
The contract price specified for the work was $232,924. Upon what was claimed by Mr Hoare to be the point of practical completion, he issued a final invoice in the sum of $82,098.20. That was not paid and in due course proceedings were commenced in the Magistrates Court claiming the outstanding sum specified in the final invoice plus interest.
Proceedings in the Magistrates Court
Notwithstanding the matters set out above, the proceedings were commenced by ACT Commercial Builders Pty Ltd as the only plaintiff and named BBSJ Partners Pty Ltd as the only defendant. Paragraph 5 of the statement of claim alleged that the plaintiff and the defendant entered the contract. BBSJ Partners Pty Ltd did not admit that allegation and pleaded the following matters:
(a)neither the plaintiff nor the defendant are named as parties to the Contract;
(b)the named parties to the Contract are “Qian Xiao” and “Ian Hoare”.
That was literally correct.
BBSJ Partners Pty Ltd having taken the point, ACT Commercial Builders Pty Ltd filed an amended statement of claim joining Mr Hoare as the second plaintiff and Mr Xiao as the second defendant. Paragraph 10 of the amended pleading alleged that Mr Xiao signed the contract as the director of BBSJ Partners Pty Ltd “to bind that company as the Owner” or, in the alternative, “in his personal capacity to bind himself as the Owner”. Somewhat perversely (having raised the issue), the defendants in their amended defence admitted the first allegation and denied the second.
The issue of the identity of the parties to the contract was further addressed in a statement of agreed facts provided to the Magistrate by the parties and in their written submissions. It will be necessary to return to the detail of those documents. For present purposes, it is enough to observe that, by the time the hearing concluded, it appears to have been common ground as between the plaintiffs and the defendants that the parties to the contract were the two corporate entities, not the individuals.
However, in his judgment, the Magistrate did not grapple with that distinction. The issue was addressed only at the outset of the judgment and there only in passing. It is convenient to set out the first four paragraphs of the judgment in full:
1.The plaintiff is a company contracted by the defendant company to complete a fit-out of commercial premises to create a ‘Pepper Lunch’ franchise restaurant. The plaintiff is operated by its director Ian Hoare who is the second Plaintiff (hereinafter referred to as ‘the builder’). The defendant company is operated by the second defendant Qian Xiao and three other directors Yiwei ‘Loki’ Xu, Zhongyang ‘Mike’ Luo and Qianfan ‘Stephen’ Han (hereinafter referred to as ‘the owners’).
2. It is agreed that one of the owners provided a preliminary plan to the builder and sought a quote on 13 November 2015.
3. Two quotes were provided by the builder on 01 February 2016 – one for $201,113.86 and a further quote of $232,924 that included costs for signage and dining tables.
4. On 03 February 2016 the owners accepted the contract for $232,924 (including GST) and it was executed by the second defendant on behalf of the owners.
It is not clear from the first paragraph whether his Honour was defining the term “the builder” to refer only to Mr Hoare or jointly to Mr Hoare and ACT Commercial Builders Pty Ltd.
Further, the approach of referring to the four directors of BBSJ Partners Pty Ltd as “the owners” was, with respect, apt to confuse. The term “owner” was used in the contract to denote the party liable to pay the contract price. It had not been suggested by any party to the proceedings that any of the directors other than Mr Xiao were the “owner” within the meaning of the contract. Nor is it accurate to refer to the directors of a company as the owners of either the company or its assets.
The proceedings involved numerous competing claims of the kind familiar in building disputes. The plaintiffs’ claim included amounts for alleged variations to the contract; the defendants disputed those claims and brought a counterclaim for liquidated damages for delay in the completion of the works. The hearing was not completed within the 4-day estimate given by the parties and had to be stood over part-heard for two further hearing days later in the year. The length and expense of the hearing were not due to any failing on the part of the Magistrate, whose stern warning at the outset of the hearing as to the risk that the quantum in dispute would be “chewed up in legal expenses by the end of the week” evidently went unheard.
In a meticulous judgment, the Magistrate addressed every disputed claim and counterclaim. His Honour allowed most of the plaintiffs’ claims and dismissed the defendants’ counterclaims. The plaintiffs’ claims were quantified in the sum of $107,030.72: ACT Commercial Builders Pty Ltd and Anor v BBSJ Partners Pty Ltd and Anor (No 2) [2021] ACTMC 17. None of those individual determinations is challenged in the appeal.
Unfortunately, however, the confusion identified above found its way into the Magistrate’s orders. Instead of referring to the parties by reference to their role as such in the proceedings (first plaintiff, second plaintiff and so on), the orders used the terms “builder” and “owner”. The obvious inference would be that those terms were being used in the sense in which they had been defined at the outset of the judgment in the paragraphs set out above. The orders were framed as follows:
(1)I allow the builders claims in the sum of $107,030.72 as follows: [an itemisation followed].
(2)I dismiss each of the owners defences and counter claims.
The difficulty is that the term “the owners” as defined at the outset of the judgment included persons who were not parties to the proceedings. The confusion was compounded by the absence of apostrophes in the orders. It was not possible to tell whether the orders were intended to enter judgment in favour of one or both plaintiffs, or whether against one or both defendants. With respect, it would have been preferable for the orders to be framed in conventional terms identifying the parties directly, for example, “that the first and second defendants pay to the first and second plaintiffs damages in the sum of $107,030.72.”
The defendants sought to resolve the ambiguity by inviting the Magistrate to make a correction under r 6906 of the Court Procedures Rules 2006 (ACT) (commonly referred to as “the slip rule”). The rule permits the Court to correct a mistake or error in a record of the Court’s order if the mistake or error resulted from an accidental slip or omission. The Magistrate addressed that invitation in open court, stating:
If there is any lack of clarity, the decision should be taken to be a finding in favour of both plaintiffs and judgment against both defendants per [r]ule 1615, lest there be any further need for clarity, the counterclaims for both defendants are dismissed.
Both defendants appealed from his Honour’s orders. However, the first defendant is now in liquidation and so cannot prosecute the appeal without leave under s 471B of the Corporations Act. No such leave has been sought and accordingly Mr Xiao is the only active appellant.
The Appeal
Mr Xiao does not seek further to agitate any of the many small disputes as to delays and variations carefully determined by the Magistrate. As already explained, the single issue raised by the appeal is the identity of the party liable as “Owner” under the building contract.
The appeal is brought as of right pursuant to s 274 of the Magistrates Court Act 1930 (ACT). As the amount involved is more than $2000, there is no requirement for leave. However, contrary to a submission put on behalf of Mr Xiao, it does not follow that there is no requirement to establish error on the part of the Magistrate.
Section 274 provides:
(1)An appeal may be brought only with the leave of the Supreme Court.
(2)However, an appeal may be brought as of right from a judgment or order—
(a) for, or for the payment of, an amount of $2 000 or more; or
(b) in a proceeding in the Magistrates Court—
(i)in which the matter in issue amounts to, or is of the value of, $2 000 or more; or
(ii)that involves directly or indirectly a claim, demand or question to or in relation to any property or any civil right amounting to, or of the value of, $2 000 or more.
It is established that an appeal under s 274 is by way of rehearing: see Limelight Cinemas Pty Ltd v Beatty [2018] ACTSC 18 at [41]-[42] (McWilliam AsJ) and the authorities there cited. The respondents placed considerable emphasis in their written submissions on the importance of bearing in mind the advantage enjoyed by the Magistrate in having seen and heard the witnesses. In my respectful opinion, that is a consideration of little weight in the present case having regard to the fact that the single issue raised in the appeal falls to be determined by the application of an objective test. The important principle for present purposes is that I am required to undertake a real review of the evidence and the reasons of the Magistrate with a view to determining whether the Magistrate’s decision ought to be reversed.
Identification of the directors of BBSJ Partners Pty Ltd as “the owners”
Ground (a) concerns the Magistrate’s apparent treatment of the three directors of BBSJ Partners Pty Ltd other than Mr Xiao as parties to the contract. The ground is unhappily wordy:
(a)His Honour erred in finding, at paragraph [4] of the reasons for decision, that the ‘owners’ (defined as the First Appellant, the Second Appellant, Yiwei Xu, Zhongyang Luo, and Qianfan Han) accepted the contract dated 3 February 2016 (Contract) and that it was executed by the Second Appellant on behalf of the ‘owners’ in circumstances where:
(i)the evidence indicated that the Contract was signed by the Second Respondent on behalf of the First Respondent, and by the Second Appellant on behalf of the First Appellant;
(ii)it was an agreed fact, pursuant to the statement of agreed facts filed on 12 April 2021 (Statement of Agreed Facts), that the Contract was signed by the Second Respondent on behalf of the First Respondent, and by the Second Appellant on behalf of the First Appellant and thus that the contract was between the First Respondent and First Appellant;
(iii)the submissions of the Respondents indicated (at paragraphs 43 and 45-54) that the Contract was signed by the Second Respondent on behalf of the First Respondent, and by the Second Appellant on behalf of the First Appellant and thus that the contract was between the First Respondent and First Appellant; and
(iv)the submissions of the Appellants indicated (at paragraphs 2-3) that the Contract was signed by the Second Appellant on behalf of the First Appellant and that the contract was between the First Respondent and First Appellant.
This ground of appeal may be addressed briefly. In short, the point made is that the Magistrate appears to have found that the three directors of BBSJ Partners Pty Ltd other than Mr Xiao were parties to the contract. As already explained, the judgment is confusing in that respect. It may be accepted that, read literally, the judgment is capable of being understood to hold that Mr Xiao signed the contract on behalf of all four directors of BBSJ Partners Pty Ltd, to whom his Honour referred in the judgment as “the owners”. If that is what the Magistrate indeed held, it was plainly wrong. There was no allegation by the plaintiffs that any director other than Mr Xiao was a party to the contract and there was no claim in the proceedings by or against any director other than Mr Xiao (who was alleged to have signed the contract in his own right and was also a party to the counterclaim).
Reading the judgment fairly as a whole, I doubt whether his Honour intended to make such a finding. It seems more likely that his Honour simply spoke loosely when he defined the four directors as “the owners”, taking them to be a proxy for the corporate entity. Certainly, it is clear enough that order 2 (“I dismiss each of the owners defences and counter claims”) was intended to refer to the defences and counterclaims filed by the defendants. That understanding of the intended effect of the order was confirmed when his Honour declined to vary the orders under the slip rule.
The “natural persons order”
The critical question is that raised by ground (b), which concerns the correctness of the Magistrate’s conclusion that the two natural persons, Mr Hoare and Mr Xiao, were parties to the contract. As with ground (a), ground (b) is unhappily wordy:
(b)His Honour erred in allowing, at paragraph [217] of the reasons for decision and order 1 of the orders, the claims of the First Respondent against the Second Appellant and the Second Respondent against the First and Second Appellant in circumstances where:
(i) the Respondents claimed for a debt pursuant to the Contract;
(ii)the evidence indicated that the Contract was signed by the Second Respondent on behalf of the First Respondent, and by the Second Appellant on behalf of the First Appellant;
(iii)it was an agreed fact, pursuant to the Statement of Agreed Facts, that the Contract was signed by the Second Respondent on behalf of the First Respondent, and by the Second Appellant on behalf of the First Appellant and thus that the contract was between the First Respondent and First Appellant;
(iv)the submissions of the Respondents indicated (at paragraphs 43 and 45-54) that the Contract was signed by the Second Respondent on behalf of the First Respondent, and by the Second Appellant on behalf of the First Appellant and thus that the contract was between the First Respondent and First Appellant;
(v)the submissions of the Appellants indicated (at paragraphs 2-3) that the Contract was signed by the Second Appellant on behalf of the First Appellant and that the contract was between the First Respondent and First Appellant.
Mr Xiao’s first point is that “the evidence” indicated that the contract was signed by each man (Mr Hoare and Mr Xiao) on behalf of his respective company. In assessing that contention, it is necessary to be clear as to what evidence was admissible to prove the identity of the parties to the contract.
The evidence
The respondents relied in this context on the decision of the New South Wales Court of Appeal in Pethybridge v Stedikas Holdings Pty Ltd [2007] NSWCA 154 where the Court held at [54] (Campbell JA with Beazley and Basten JJA agreeing at [1] and [2] respectively) that the identification of the parties to the contract “must be made in accordance with the objective theory of contract”, citing Ryledar Pty Ltd v Euphoric Pty Ltd [2007] NSWCA 65 at [262]-[266].
Pethybridge is one of a number of decisions cited by J D Heydon in Heydon on Contract (Thomson Reuters (Professional) Australia Limited, 2019) at [12.110] as authority for the following proposition: “[w]hether a particular person is a party depends primarily on the objective construction of the contract.”
Mr Heydon notes that problems can arise in the application of that principle, relevantly including the question that arises here. The footnote to that discussion includes reference to the decision of the New South Wales Supreme Court in Padstow Corp Pty Ltd v Fleming (No 2) [2011] NSWSC 1572 at [3]-[30] (Gzell J) where there is a useful discussion of authorities that:
[M]ake clear that the question whether a person has signed in a personal capacity is to be determined in accordance with the construction of the document as a whole and on the basis of admissible surrounding circumstances known to the parties.
The principal difficulty for Mr Xiao in the present case is that he signed the contract in his own name, with no overt indication that he understood himself to be signing on behalf of a company in his capacity as a director of the company. The objective evidence was silent on that issue. Mr Xiao wrote nothing to indicate that, by signing the contract, he was doing other than assenting to a contract made with him: cf Ariadne Steamship Co v James McKelvie & Co [1922] 1 KB 518 at 535-536. He did not write that he was authorised to sign on behalf of another or invoke s 127 of the Corporations Act as his authority to sign. Another director of the company was present but did not add his signature to the contract, as would be expected if it was being signed on behalf of a company.
Mr Xiao’s submissions as to the evidence overlooked the objective theory of contract. The first matter relied upon was the fact that Mr Xiao gave evidence that, when he signed the contract, he understood that he was signing it on behalf of BBSJ Partners Pty Ltd. In fact, what he said was that he understood he was signing on behalf of “the business”, which is quite different. In any event, his understanding is irrelevant. The test is objective.
Secondly, Mr Xiao relied on the evidence of the other director present at the meeting, Mr Luo, that Mr Xiao signed on behalf of BBSJ Partners Pty Ltd. Again, the submission did not accurately record the evidence, which was that Mr Luo said Mr Xiao signed “on behalf of us”. In any event, Mr Luo’s understanding is no more admissible than Mr Xiao’s.
Thirdly, Mr Xiao relied on the fact that, although he wrote his own name and not that of the company in the section for details of the “Owner”, he also wrote additional information which would be understood to identify the company as the owner. The first matter was the address, which was the company’s address. However, it was also Mr Xiao’s personal address, so that fact is equivocal. Secondly, he wrote an ABN which is the ABN number of the company. However, in circumstances where he did not identify that number as the number of the company, or even name the company, that also is equivocal, applying an objective test. Thirdly, Mr Xiao relied on the fact that he wrote what was described in submissions as “the corporate email”, which was “bbsjpartners” followed by the domain name. The difficulty is that the email address gave no indication to Mr Hoare that he was dealing with a company. Indeed, it rather suggested that the “Owner” was a partnership.
Mr Xiao also relied on the pre-contractual email correspondence sent to Mr Hoare by Loki Xu using “the corporate email”. Again, the email address itself is not obviously connected with a company as opposed to a business name or a partnership.
Finally, Mr Xiao relied on the manner in which Mr Hoare completed the contract, including the fact that he wrote his own name as “Builder” but wrote his company’s ACN. That is not logically relevant to the objective determination of the identity of the owner.
The Statement of Agreed Facts
The second matter relied upon by Mr Xiao is the fact that, in an agreed statement of facts provided to the Magistrate, at his Honour’s direction, the respondents agreed that the contract was signed by Mr Hoare on behalf of ACT Commercial Builders Pty Ltd and by Mr Xiao on behalf of BBSJ Partners Pty Ltd. Mr Xiao did not go so far as to suggest that the existence of an agreed fact tied the Court’s hand. He accepted that any agreement between the parties as to the facts is subject to the Court’s being “sufficiently persuaded of the accuracy of the parties’ agreement”, citing Australian Securities and Investment Commission v AMP Financial Planning Pty Ltd [2020] FCA 69; 377 ALR 55 at [99]-[100] (Lee J) (that decision in turn cited the decision of the High Court in Commonwealth v Director, Fair Work Building Industry Inspectorate [2015] HCA 46; 258 CLR 482 at 507 [57]-[58] (French CJ, Kiefel, Bell, Nettle and Gordon JJ) which, being a decision of the High Court, is the authority that should have been cited). However, Mr Xiao submitted that, before departing from an agreed fact, it is necessary for the Court to afford procedural fairness.
That submission rings hollow when it was BBSJ Partners Pty Ltd that first raised an issue on the pleadings as to whether it was liable as a party to the contract given that the only named “Owner” was Mr Xiao. It may nonetheless be accepted that the subsequent pleading (in which the defendants denied that Mr Xiao was a party) and the agreed fact would have created the expectation that the Court would not depart from that finding without giving the parties an opportunity to make further submissions. The difficulty for the appellant now is that an appeal by way of rehearing affords that opportunity. Accordingly, even if it is accepted that the Magistrate should not have departed from the agreed facts without affording the parties an opportunity to dissuade him from that course, the question at this stage is not whether the conclusion was by a fair process reached but whether it was right.
An assumption permeating Mr Xiao’s submissions on this issue was that the Court’s conclusion would necessarily be the same for both parties; that is, that if the “Builder” under the contract was Mr Hoare’s company (and not Mr Hoare), it would follow that the “Owner” would be BBSJ Partners Pty Ltd and not Mr Xiao. That assumption is unfounded. The evidence was different as to each party under the contract. All of Mr Hoare’s correspondence named both him and his company. Further, a reasonable observer would not expect him to conduct the business of a builder in his personal name. No such expectation attaches to ownership of land. So far as the documents drawn to my attention at the hearing reveal, there was little if anything in the contractual or pre-contractual correspondence to make it known to Mr Hoare that he was dealing with a company named “BBSJ Partners Pty Ltd”.
Submissions provided to the Magistrate
Finally, Mr Xiao relied on the fact that, in written submissions provided to the Magistrate, both parties submitted that the contract was between the companies, not the individuals. However, as noted on behalf of the respondents, the submissions tended at the same time to undermine that same point by referring throughout to “the Defendant-Owners” and “the Owners”. This point otherwise stands in the same category as the submissions concerning the statement of agreed facts. The ultimate question at this stage is not whether the Magistrate’s conclusion was reached fairly but whether it was right. In my view, the Magistrate was right to find that, by signing the contract in his own name without any overt indication that he was signing as agent for an unnamed company, Mr Xiao assumed personal liability for the debt.
As to the position of the respondents, while the finding in favour of “both plaintiffs” was included as an aspect of ground (b), little argument was directed to that issue. I am not persuaded that a basis has been shown for reversing that aspect of the Magistrate’s decision.
Conclusion
For those reasons, I make the following orders:
(a)That the appeal be dismissed.
(b)That the second appellant pay the first and second respondents’ costs.
| I certify that the preceding forty-seven [47] numbered paragraphs are a true copy of the Reasons for Judgment of her Honour Chief Justice McCallum Associate: Date: 14 March 2023 |
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