Federal Constitutional Law Notes – Fully Updated for 2026 (All 10 Topics + 2025 High Court Cases)

Description

What’s in them - All 10 topics, in the same order as the 2026 Learning Guide (list below) - A step-by-step method for each topic. For example, the s 109 topic takes you through direct inconsistency, indirect inconsistency (covering the field) and operational inconsistency in the order you’d write them, with fill-in-the-facts prompts - Leading cases with pinpoints, and which judges said what - A full Race Power topic (s 51(xxvi)), which my earlier notes didn’t have What’s been updated - Metwally overruled. In G Global (2025) the High Court held that the Commonwealth can now retrospectively remove a s 109 inconsistency and revive a State law. Most notes on here still state the old rule - Excise is wider. Vanderstock (2023) held that a State tax on using or consuming goods (Victoria’s electric vehicle charge) can be an excise. Notes that stop at Ha v NSW are out of date - 2025 implied freedom cases: Babet (party deregistration) Ravbar (the CFMEU administration) Farmer (the Candace Owens visa case) The Court’s current split over structured proportionality, and how to handle it in an exam Other cases added: Palmer v WA (COVID border closure and s 92), Spence v Queensland, Brown v Tasmania, Outback Ballooning, Dickson, Strickland v Rocla and R v Barger Colour coded so you can find things fast in the exam - Plum italics = case names - Navy = legislation - Teal = key principles - Red = the things you can’t afford to get wrong Topics 1. Constitutional Interpretation, Characterisation and the Engineers Case; Trade and Commerce (s 51(i)) 2. Inconsistency (s 109) 3. External Affairs (s 51(xxix)) 4. Corporations (s 51(xx)) 5. Race (s 51(xxvi)) 6. Taxation (ss 51(ii), 55, 90), Excise and Grants (s 96) 7. Defence (s 51(vi)) and the Communist Party Case 8. Freedom of Interstate Trade and Intercourse (s 92) 9. Implied Freedom of Political Communication 10. Intergovernmental Immunities