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Crennan J

Commonwealth and ICM Agriculture Pty Ltd v The Commonwealth. The provisions of the Packaging Act which affect the plaintiffs' property do not effect a transfer, to the Commonwealth or any other person, of the plaintiffs' rights in their trade marks, product get-up, or associated goodwill, rights (as chattel owners) to cigarette packets or cigarettes, or, in the BAT proceedings, rights in the copyright work, registered design or patent. The plaintiffs acknowledged that there was no formal deprivation of these rights but contended that they had been "in a real sense … stripped of the possession and control" of their property.

In Dalziel, reg 54 of the National Security (General) Regulations (Cth) gave the Minister an exclusive right to possess and use land for an indefinite period, if expedient to do so, for wartime purposes. The regulation was used to exclude the tenant of certain vacant land in Sydney, Mr Dalziel, and was found to contravene s 51(xxxi). In the Banking Case, provisions of the Banking Act 1947 (Cth) which authorised the Treasurer of the Commonwealth "to assume control of the business" of a private bank by appointing directors who were nominees of the Commonwealth were found to contravene s 51(xxxi) because, in the words of Dixon J, the scheme was "but a circuitous device to acquire indirectly the substance of a proprietary interest".

In Newcrest, proclamations made under provisions of the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act 1975 (Cth) were found to contravene s 51(xxxi). That Act prohibited mining in Kakadu National Park and vested Commonwealth interests in the Park, except for its interests in minerals, in the Director of National Parks and Wildlife. A proclamation under the Act which