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Heydon J

"is not to be confined pedantically to the taking of title … to some specific estate or interest in land recognized at law or in equity … but … extends to innominate and anomalous interests and includes the assumption and indefinite continuance of exclusive possession and control for the purposes of the Commonwealth of any subject of property." (emphasis added)

Deane J also stated that Dixon J had been "at pains to emphasize that the Constitution did not permit the Parliament to achieve by indirect or devious means what s 51 did not allow to be done directly." His Honour gave a key example :

"if the Parliament were to make a law prohibiting any presence upon land within a radius of 1 kilometre of any point on the boundary of a particular defence establishment and thereby obtain the benefit of a buffer zone, there would … be an effective confiscation or acquisition of the benefit of use of the land in its unoccupied state notwithstanding that neither the owner nor the Commonwealth possessed any right to go upon or actively to use the land affected."

In due course, Deane J reached the following conclusion :

"the Commonwealth has, under Commonwealth Act and Regulations, obtained the benefit of a prohibition, which the Commonwealth alone can lift, of the doing of the specified acts upon the H.E.C. land. The range of the prohibited acts is such that the practical effect of the benefit obtained by the Commonwealth is that the Commonwealth can ensure, by proceedings for penalties and injunctive relief if necessary, that the land remains in the condition which the Commonwealth, for its own purposes, desires to have conserved. In these circumstances, the obtaining by the Commonwealth of the benefit acquired under the Regulations is properly to be seen as a purported acquisition of property for a purpose in respect of which the Parliament has power to make laws. The 'property' purportedly acquired consists of the benefit of the prohibition of the exercise of the rights of use and development of the land which would be involved in the doing of any of the specified acts." (emphasis added)