To provide valuable advice to clients in the construction industry, lawyers need an integrated understanding of the legal and technical aspects of this specialised area of practice. This subject is designed to build such an understanding and to expose students to a wide range of construction law-related topics in an interdisciplinary mode. Students will learn about the key legal principles that are specific to construction law (from project inception through to dispute avoidance and resolution) and their interaction with the technical underpinnings of construction practice. In addition to classroom discussion, students have the opportunity to see principles put into practice through construction site visits and detailed case studies.

The subject lecturers bring to the classroom a combined, multi-disciplinary experience of decades in advising clients in the construction industry

A range of topics is covered in an interdisciplinary mode, integrating a detailed case study and site visit. Such topics may include:

• Setting up the project: delivery methods, standard forms, subcontracting, costing, risk mitigation (including insurance and performance security)
• Key technical principles: construction technology, engineering services and structures, geotechnical engineering (including the legal treatment of latent conditions), sustainability and building information modelling
• During the project: contract administration, time and programming, payment, variations, major plant deployment, cost control, dispute avoidance and resolution.

This subject is designed for construction law students without prior legal training (Construction Law is for students who have a law degree). It provides an overview of the broad spread of the construction law curriculum, from the statutory and common law landscape through legal aspects of project procurement and contracting to dispute avoidance and resolution options. This subject also provides detailed treatment of legal issues specific to construction law such as variations, quality, time and payment. The seminar format is supplemented by exercises to develop students’ skills in contract preparation and writing legal hypotheticals, and includes sessions on construction law research tools and techniques.

Principal topics include:

• Overview of the regulatory regime for construction contracting
• Causes of action in construction disputes
• Contracting methodologies
• Contract administration: standard forms of contract, tendering, contract preparation and minimising legal exposure
• Role and liability of superintendents
• Issues relating to sub-contracts
• Variations
• Quality of work
• Latent conditions
• Time, programming and liquidated damages
• Contractual mechanisms for payment and security of payment legislation
• Security for performance
• Insurance
• Dispute avoidance procedures and alternative dispute resolution
• Construction litigation and arbitration (domestic and international).

This subject develops advanced skills in the drafting and analysis of construction contracts. It covers several standard forms of construction contract, including a Standards Australia contract and an International Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC) contract.  The subject teaches best practice in plain English drafting techniques and provides ample opportunity for students to exercise and be tested on their drafting skills. Students will be given individual comments on their work during the subject.

The subject lecturer and highly respected guest lecturers bring to the classroom extensive practising and academic experience in construction contracts.

This subject is designed to give students a sound understanding of the law concerning express and implied terms and the interpretation of contracts. It is also designed to develop and enhance students’ abilities to draft, analyse and administer construction contracts at an advanced level. Close study and comparison of standard forms of construction contract is a major feature of the subject. So too is the development of individual drafting skills.

Principal topics include:

• Techniques for contract drafting
• Express and implied contractual terms
• Contract interpretation and analysis
• The ongoing debate within the industry as to the role and utility of standard-form contracts.

Risk and insurance are at the heart of all construction projects, yet their role and detailed provisions are often misunderstood, leading to significant losses and disputation. The already-sophisticated contracting landscape has, in recent years, been made significantly more complicated by the introduction of proportionate liability reforms. This subject will examine these issues with particular emphasis on how risk can be managed to minimise losses.

The lecturers are expert navigators in relation to these complex issues. They have leading-edge expertise in advising on risk, security for performance and insurance in the construction context.

Principal topics include:

• Identifying risk in a construction project and how various industry participants (including principals, contractors, designers, professional advisers, insurers, security providers, and statutory and government authorities) may bear responsibility
• Philosophies and commercial drivers affecting risk allocation in construction contracts and consultancy agreements, and how these are reflected in standard forms
• Security for performance mechanisms, including cash retentions, unconditional undertakings, parent guarantees, insurance bonds, adjudication bonds and other instruments
• Insurance products available to the construction industry (including public liability, works insurance, professional indemnity workers’ compensation and domestic building insurance) and the law relating to them, including regulation by legislation, common law principles and treatment under standard-form construction contracts and consultancy agreements
• Proportionate liability regimes (including Part IVAA of the Wrongs Act 1958 (Vic)) and their impact on contract risk allocation.

Payment has always been at the heart of construction contracting, and payment disputes have been—and remain—at the centre of construction law case law. This subject aims to provide students with a detailed understanding of the contractual procedures for payment and associated issues such as set-off. Its major focus is upon the ‘security of payment’ reforms of recent years. This state and territory-based legislation was designed to simplify the payment stream and disputation yet, in practice, has spawned hundreds of court cases, further complicating the contracting landscape for construction projects. The lecturers are based in the two states that have been at the forefront of the reforms—Queensland and New South Wales—and are therefore well-placed to guide students through this area of law.

Principal topics include:

• Payment processes under construction contracts, including treatment under standard forms and the impact of the security of payment legislation enacted in various jurisdictions
• History and policy underpinnings of the security of payment legislation, including comparison of the regimes in Australia, the United Kingdom and New Zealand
• Processes to resolve payment disputes, including those under security of payment legislation (with detailed consideration of bases for judicial review of such processes)
• Associated issues, including set-off, securing payment to workers and subcontractors, and means of dealing with the consequences of late payment.

Construction projects produce difficult legal issues. Practitioners need to be confident in their understanding of the remedies available under various causes of action. Construction law requires a sound knowledge of relevant case law and legislation concerning diverse matters, such as damages in contract, recovery in tort for pure economic loss, penalties (including liquidated damages), quantum meruit, remedies under the Australian Consumer Law and the grant of interlocutory injunctions.

In addition to the primary lecturer, this subject harnesses the specialist expertise of guest lecturers, including leading academic lawyers, legal practitioners and judges. Their combined experience draws not only on their rigorous understanding of black letter law, but also on extensive practising careers.

Principal topics include:

• Damages for breach of contract
• Penalties (including liquidated damages)
• Equitable remedies for breach of fiduciary duty
• Proportionate liability
• Temporary injunctions
• Recovery in tort for pure economic loss
• Remedies under the Australian Consumer Law
• Quantum meruit claims

The delivery of major energy and resources projects is an organic process which involves multifaceted interactions with the law. In this subject, students will gain insights into the way that advising on such projects involves navigating an often-challenging intersection of construction and regulatory systems, drawing on aspects of property law, environmental law, native title, finance, banking and commercial law.

Students will also engage with the need for reform in major project delivery, with the cost of project delivery in Australia already prohibitive and globally uncompetitive.

The subject will examine how major energy and resources projects are defined, designed, structured and developed, the pressure points for successful and cost-efficient project delivery in Australia, and the areas where conflicts and disputes emerge and how they are managed.

Principal topics include:

• Project scoping from feasibility to design, including examination of recent studies on procurement practices and a simulated workshop on feasibility models, risk analysis and front-end engineering and design (FEED)
• Overview of regulatory approval frameworks for major project delivery in the energy and resources sector, including a case study-based discussion of the interaction of such frameworks with construction document development and management
• Project delivery models and frameworks in the energy and resources sector
• Examination of leading causes of project stress and failure, including the need for proactive forensic planning
• Interactive case study where students collaboratively examine particular aspects of project design and execution
• Current approaches to dispute management in major project delivery, including exercises examining common problems encountered in drafting dispute resolution clauses in project documentation, as well as a discussion of contemporary and innovative approaches to dispute management and avoidance in major projects.

Construction industry personnel and their lawyers are increasingly aware of the need to anticipate the legal implications of communication and ‘issue management’ throughout the project life cycle. Therefore, this subject aims to equip industry professionals and lawyers with the skills necessary to identify and proactively manage legal risk during the procurement and delivery phases. Complementing other subjects within Melbourne Law School’s construction law program that examine legal risks and their management, this subject provides practical insights into key aspects of the legal/project interface, including tendering and contract preparation procedures that efficiently ‘document the deal’ and contract administration techniques that minimise disputation.

The subject lecturers are practising lawyers who have substantial expertise and experience in advising during the various phases of a project, enabling students to develop an advanced and critical understanding of this specialised area of law.

Principal topics include:

• An exploration of the concept of legal risk and how it manifests in construction projects
• Project inception, including project feasibility and financing
• Procurement model selection and alternative contracting models and an analysis of the pillars of success in relation to each of the procurement models
• An analysis of pre-tender documentation, including consortium and joint venture agreements; an analysis of tender documentation including expressions of interest and requests for tender; and an analysis of the considerations when responding to a request for tender
• Legal risks to be managed during the pre-tender and tendering phase
• Analysis of the key project risks and their allocation and adoption between a contractor and client under a construction contract, as well as an introduction to qualitative and quantitative risk assessment
• Analysis of the key features of a construction contract and the negotiation positions available to a contractor and client in negotiating a construction contract (this will include consideration of alternative approaches and legal risks to be considered by contractors and clients in the negotiation of these obligations)
• The interface between the project management and legal disciplines, including a consideration of the ethical dilemmas that confront construction professionals
• Risk identification and mitigation strategies employed during the delivery phase and their role in avoiding unnecessary disputation
• Administering (making and assessing) claims for time and cost under construction contracts
• Managing sub-contract and interface risk (including a consideration of building information modelling (BIM))
• Managing the ‘paper war’ during the delivery phase: gaining, keeping, sharing and losing privilege in communications on and off site
• Managing defects to the works: reaching completion and post-completion issues
• A consideration of the practicalities of construction dispute resolution.

The concepts of urban sustainability are driving the regulation of the built form of our increasingly large, complex and smart cities. The global sustainable development goals have also led urban regulators to embrace more participatory and innovative forms of governance for our society and economy.

This subject explores how those concepts apply in the regulation of planning and construction and the framework and governance for the development of smart, resilient and sustainable cities. In particular, it will focus on the role of municipal and state laws in achieving liveable communities.

The subject will cover the Environmentally Sustainable Development (ESD) Local Planning Policies and consider whether planning regulation in Victoria incorporates best practice in environmental assessment. It will explore the interesting tension between building and planning law and the respective contribution of each in driving sustainable outcomes.

Another component of this subject will follow the introduction of building information modelling (BIM) arising out of the architecture, engineering and construction management sectors. This topic offers a further but alternate perspective of shifting regulatory dynamics that pitch towards sustainability objectives, whether on built environment projects or across broad-scaled applications.

This subject has been designed for those interested in the intersection between planning and construction law and environmental law. The course includes guest lectures, visiting some of Melbourne’s iconic green buildings and assessing urban planning initiatives, such as the Queen Victoria Market Redevelopment, for their contribution to the development of Melbourne as a sustainable city.

Principal topics include:

• Sustainability in the city; exploring new ideas on what sustainable development means in an urban setting, policy priorities for sustainability, ideas of new governance for sustainability, and new economic and legal models to achieve sustainability outcomes
• Green building and climate change developments, directions and policy, including resilience and risk
• Urban planning and sustainability, including the use and role of land-use planning laws and local governance to achieve improved sustainability features in the built urban environment, focusing on Victorian laws
• The broad regulatory setting for green buildings and urban sustainability, including a sustainability analysis of the National Construction Code
• Sustainability rating tools for energy efficiency and the regulation of green buildings, through voluntary and mandatory schemes, including GreenStar and BASIX, and a comparison of green rating and standard tools in Australia (NABERS), the United States (LEED) and the United Kingdom and Europe (BREEAM)
• An introduction to building information modelling (BIM) relative to sustainability opportunities and challenges, from construction projects and local and international policy perspectives
• An applied case study analysis of how integrated sustainable urban construction law works in practice.

Private sector involvement in the financing, delivery and operation of public infrastructure is nothing new; it is, however, constantly evolving. The public appetite for social and economic infrastructure is insatiable, yet must constantly be tempered by economic constraints. Alongside the increasingly sophisticated and internationalised market for funding and technical capacity, there has been in recent years a renewed focus upon the policy bases for public private partnerships (PPPs) by governments and the broader community. Navigating all this in its legal context is one of the great ongoing challenges faced by the construction industry and its legal advisers. This subject, taught by two leaders in the field who bring a wealth of experience to the classroom, is designed to equip students to respond to this challenge.

Principal topics include:

• Historical perspectives on private involvement in the delivery of public infrastructure, how it has changed over time and lessons learnt
• Approaches to the categorising of PPP projects, including the broad distinction between ‘economic’ and ‘social’ infrastructure
• The dynamics of financing versus the fiscal responsibility of repayments and funding
• Features specific to the structuring and procurement of projects within each of these categories, including fundamental aspects such as the need to secure an income stream in relation to economic infrastructure and the relevance of the distinction, in relation to social infrastructure, between delivery of physical infrastructure and delivery of services
• Features specific to particular sectors within each of these categories (eg toll roads, power stations, water, health care, education and corrections)
• The various policy frameworks in place in Australia (and leading international agencies) for evaluation and engagement of private sector involvement in public infrastructure delivery
• Drivers that underpin the structuring, negotiation and delivery of PPP projects, including financing, probity and value for money (including public sector comparator mechanisms), competition, tax (including issues derived from Australia‘s federal structure as opposed to unitary systems in other countries) and construction risk.

Every year, about half of the value of construction activity in Australia relates to the building, conversion and renovation of dwellings. The law relating to this activity is complex and multi-layered, involving difficult policy questions and significant statutory and regulatory intervention impacting on millions of people throughout the community. Despite this, residential construction law has, until recently, received relatively little attention from the majority of construction law practitioners, and not just in Australia. This innovative subject, taught by Matthew Bell and Suzanne Kirton, seeks to address this deficiency and introduce students to an evolving area of construction law in a comparative context, with material from Australasia (including Victoria) and from other members of the common law family of legal systems. Practitioners will make a significant contribution as guest lecturers.

Principal topics include:

• Legislation specifically applicable to residential construction
• Legal protection for ‘consumers’ in relation to residential construction
• Legal obligations undertaken by the seller in relation to the quality of a new residential building
• Means by which an off-plan buyer of a new residential house or unit may be protected against the financial failure of a project party
• Remedies in relation to defects in the structure or common parts of multi-unit developments
• Rights of successors in title to enjoy the remedies against the developer or any other project party responsible for defects
• The impact of limitation periods upon remedies for different categories of defects
• The role of insurance in protecting home-owners against the costs of repairs or defects claims
• The impact of mandatory or voluntary registration or accreditation systems for residential developers and suppliers of construction services

While ‘Construct Only’ and ‘Design and Construct’ delivery methodologies remain the most common form of construction procurement, principals and contractors increasingly are delivering construction projects via innovative procurement methodologies. This subject—designed to complement the existing infrastructure delivery subjects already offered within our program—provides students with a detailed knowledge of tendering, specialised forms of construction procurement and other key contract forms currently in use in the Australian construction and infrastructure market. This subject also provides an overview of the key legal and commercial issues affecting these procurement methods and specialised construction contracts.

The lecturer, Richard Wilkinson, is a construction lawyer and alumnus of the Master of Construction Law. In addition to bringing to the classroom his own extensive experience in construction procurement law, Richard harnesses the specialist expertise of leading construction practitioners as guest lecturers.

Principal topics include:

• Invitations to tender
• Unsolicited proposals
• Collaborative contracting
• Managing contractor agreements
• Engineering, procurement and construction agreements and engineering, procurement and construction management agreements
• Consultancy agreements
• ‘Design and construct’ joint venture agreements
• Consortium agreements
• Contracting arrangements in the renewables sector
• Design-build-operate agreements and design-build-operate-maintain agreements.

This subject provides a detailed overview of construction law, projects and practice in five representative Asian jurisdictions: the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong SAR, Singapore and South Korea. Through detailed explanation, analysis and case studies, students will gain an integrated and advanced understanding of the key features of each jurisdiction, both in isolation and in a comparative context. Students will develop their capacity to operate and advise in and across these jurisdictions as well as deriving lessons for application in their home jurisdiction.

Dr Arthur McInnis is the principal subject lecturer. He is the former head of the Construction Practice Group at Clifford Chance in Hong Kong. He has published extensively and lectured widely on construction topics throughout Asia

The subject provides a detailed introduction to construction law, projects and practice in five Asian jurisdictions, with reference to:

• The size and importance of opportunities and trends in their construction sectors
• Their key legal and regulatory frameworks, tender practices and project management norms
• The principal standard forms of contract in use
• Recent build-own-transfer, build-lease-transfer and design-build-finance-operate projects, and planned public-private partnerships in economic and social infrastructure
• Their resource management, financing, innovation and competitiveness on a comparative basis in the development of their construction sectors in the wider Australasian building and projects market
• Detailed case studies on construction, currently planned to include: the Beijing Metro No 4 Line and Mass Transit Railway (MTR) international projects; planning, financing, construction and appraisal of the Anhwa school project in Korea; recent NEC-procured pilot projects in Hong Kong; tendering, construction, operation and issues surrounding the Taiwan High Speed Rail project; and tendering, financing, construction and operation of the Singapore Sports Hub.

Cross-border construction contracting, and the avoidance and conduct of disputes, has a distinctive character and content. Lawyers and industry professionals need to be familiar with the differences between legal systems and the impact of statutory law, the key issues in the international financing and procurement of projects, the range of standard form international contracts available for various delivery methodologies, and the options for, and methods of dealing with, dispute resolution, along with the intricacies associated with those processes in an international context.

Principal topics include:

• Discussion of the key differences between common law and civil law, and how they impact on the practice of construction law in different jurisdictions
• The role of statute law applicable to the construction site, such as security of payment and mechanics’ lien legislation
• Key issues in the financing and delivery of international construction projects, including alternative financing such as PPP
• Standard-form contracts for international construction projects (including the International Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC) suite and variants promulgated by multilateral development banks)
• The main distinctions of principle and practice between the prosecution, determination or resolution of construction disputes in different jurisdictions
• An examination of international bodies dealing with the determination or resolution of international construction disputes
• An introduction to the jurisdictional, applicable law and procedural framework for the prosecution, determination and enforcement of construction disputes through international arbitration
• Identification and consideration of contractual and extra-contractual alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and dispute avoidance procedures (DAPs) in the context of international construction.

Advanced Construction Law is designed as a capstone subject, explicitly aimed at enhancing students’ ability to make a significant contribution to the ongoing development of construction law in Australia and overseas. The emphasis is on analysing and testing cutting-edge case law, commentary and other legal developments in the classroom and via research papers.

In addition to the core areas of time (including delay claims methodologies), workscope/variations, defective work and security, detailed treatment is given to extra-contractual remedies such as those under the Australian Consumer Law and those based on unjust enrichment and negligence.

Principal topics include claims in the following categories:

• Time: risk allocation, delay, liability for delay, extensions of time
• Methods for assessment of delay
• Concurrency, causation, damages and additional cost, assessment and analysis
• Prevention and liquidated damages: recent developments
• Scope of work: variations, adjustments under the contract
• Quality: measure of quality, identification and breach of required standard
• Assessment of quality and damages
• Security: for performance and for payment, access to security
• Australian Consumer Law: application in construction, tender documents
• Passing on of misleading and deceptive documents, unconscionable conduct, remedies
• Interpretation of contracts
• Equitable remedies
• Restitution: unjust enrichment, statutory exclusion, quantum meruit
• Payment: progress payments—certification and adjudication
• Negligence in construction.

Dispute resolution and problem-solving lie at the core of modern professional life for lawyers, business people and anyone who works with more than one other person. This subject provides an overview of the range of dispute resolution techniques used internationally. This subject differentiates the most prominent dispute resolution methods, including traditional litigation, arbitration (in its many forms, including international commercial arbitration negotiation) and mediation (also in its many forms, including partnering, mini-trials and dispute resolution coordinators). It also includes skills training in negotiation and mediation, designed to increase effectiveness in both resolving disputes and enhancing problem-solving abilities.

Principal topics include:

• The nature and varieties of disputes, how they arise and how they are avoided
• The options for resolving disputes: litigation, arbitration, negotiation, mediation and conciliation
• Factors considered by people when they choose a dispute resolution method, including social, cultural and economic factors
• Relevant law reform initiatives, with an emphasis on Australia, other common law countries and selected Asian countries
• Cross-cultural issues in the dispute resolution process
• The roles of judges, lawyers and the courts in the alternative dispute resolution process
• An analysis and comparison of the dispute resolution processes in environmental and native land title disputes, with an emphasis on Australia, Canada and the United States
• Basic skills for successful negotiation and mediation, including theory and practical exercises.

.

Australia has a detailed and comprehensive consumer protection regime dealing with the supply of goods and services, including financial products, to consumers. Primary legislation is the Australian Consumer Law (ACL), found in Schedule 2 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth); equivalent provisions in the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001 (Cth) (ASIC Act) applying to financial services and products; and, for consumer credit, the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 (NCCP Act). This subject provides students with a detailed knowledge of key features of the Australian Consumer Law and of the common law principles and policy imperatives that underpin it. The lecturers include one of the Law School’s private lawyers with specialist expertise in consumer law, and a leading practitioner in this field of law.

Principal topics include:

• Purposes of consumer protection law
• The regulatory toolkit
• Common law doctrines underlying the legislative regime
• Enforcement and remedial strategies.
• Key consumer protection regimes under the ACL, ASIC Act and NCCP Act:
  • Misleading or deceptive conduct
  • Unconscionable conduct
  • Interest rate caps and responsible lending
  • Consumer guarantees and implied terms
  • Unfair contract terms.

This subject investigates the legal regulation of workplace bargaining in Australia. With the requirement that bargaining be conducted in ‘good faith’ under the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth), this has become one of the most contested areas of federal labour regulation. The subject is informed by the historical, political and economic factors that have shaped the development of the law, as well as relevant international legal principles. While the focus of the subject is on the system regulating workplace bargaining under the Fair Work Act, other relevant areas of law are analysed, including the common law regulation of strikes and industrial action and the contract of employment. The special regulation of bargaining and industrial action in the building and construction industry is also examined.

Principal topics include:

• The historical development of the law relating to workplace bargaining
• Relevant international legal principles and Australia’s obligations in this respect
• Common law regulation of strikes and industrial action
• The system regulating workplace bargaining under the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth), including the conduct of bargaining and the taking of protected industrial action, and the role of trade unions
• The form, function and content of registered workplace agreements
• The relationship of workplace agreements to other means of regulating working conditions, including the contract of employment
• The ‘general protections’ under the Fair Work Act for freedom of association and the exercise of ‘workplace rights’ in relation to bargaining
• Special regulation of bargaining and industrial action in the building and construction industry.

This subject focuses on skills and strategies that are key to negotiating, swaying and influencing counterparties in business negotiations and deal-making. In this subject, skills will be developed by constantly improving as business negotiators by asking the right questions, framing issues, gaining lessons learned, defining success metrics and negotiating with others with different skill-sets, perceptions and backgrounds. The subject will have a particular focus on negotiations in cross-border settings. The teacher is a leading expert in negotiation training, having taught and researched at prestigious institutions such as Berkeley, Stanford and Harvard, and trained executives at some of the world’s largest companies. He will draw on both real-world transactional and academic experience in leading the subject.

Principal topics and skills include the following:

• Understand why conflict arises between people and business organisations, within both a domestic and international context
• Assess and apply various strategic frameworks in diverse settings (business-to-business, private-public sector, etc)
• Define specific success metrics within diverse teams and groups before, during and after business negotiations and deal-making settings
• Apply and leverage the main conceptual frameworks related to transaction planning and conflict resolution within diverse environments - including distributive, integrative, and mixed motive negotiation styles (among others)
• Analyse and synthesise business negotiation theories, skill-sets and studies as current or future business negotiation professionals
• Recognise implicit and explicit biases and nudges that may hinder or help business negotiations, while developing strategies on how to bridge and create value from such gaps
• Develop, and learn how to continually develop, a value-added business negotiation toolbox and confidence as business negotiators and deal-makers
• Understand key contractual terms that may pivot business negotiators and negotiations
• Enhance effective communication skill-sets, both verbal and nonverbal, and develop an empathetic understanding of how and why counterparties may see things differently from you and your business unit
• Possess an overall understanding of the nature of disputes and conflict resolution, including ethical, cultural, economic, psychological and emotional factors.

This subject provides an outline of the UNCITRAL Model Law legislation and the LEADR & IAMA Rules and a detailed analysis of the procedures involved in the conduct of domestic commercial arbitration proceedings. It will provide lawyers involved in the conduct of such proceedings and practising arbitrators with an opportunity to develop a comprehensive understanding of all elements of the process. The subject includes consideration of the principles of procedural fairness, the law of evidence and their application to commercial arbitration proceedings. The subject will also include written exercises intended to develop skill in the process of decision-making and the writing of decisions and awards in arbitrations.

Principal topics include:

• An introduction to the UNCITRAL Model Law legislation
• A detailed analysis of procedural rules and their use in the course of proceedings
• Identification of issues, pleadings and issues statements
• Evidence, documents, statements of evidence and admissibility generally
• Expert evidence, identification of issues, adoption of rules and procedural control
• Procedural fairness and its application in practice
• Procedural efficiency and control of the process
• The process of analysis of evidence and reasoning
• Award writing.

The law of contract interpretation is one of the most practically important areas of commercial law. In recent years, interpretation disputes have come to dominate contract litigation. Because views can differ as to basic questions — such as whether particular words have a plain meaning, and what ‘commercial sense’ dictates in a given situation — the outcome of these cases is often difficult to predict. This subject will study the core principles of contract interpretation in Australian and English law. It will also examine the closely related principles concerning implied terms, rectification and estoppel by convention. Current issues and controversies will be considered. The common law approach to contract interpretation will be compared with those adopted in important international instruments such as the United Nations (UN) Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. The lecturer is a former commercial practitioner who has taught contract law for many years and has published widely on relevant topics.

This subject will examine the principles governing the interpretation of commercial contracts, and the closely related principles concerning implied terms, rectification and estoppel by convention.

Principal topics include:

• The place of interpretation in the law of contract
• The modern approach to interpretation
• The core principles of interpretation
• The availability and relevance of extrinsic evidence
• The identification of implied terms
• The equitable remedy of rectification
• Estoppel by convention
• A comparison between the common law principles of contract interpretation and those of international instruments such as the United Nations (UN) Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods, the Unidroit Principles of International Commercial Contracts and the Principles of European Contract Law.

Contract is central to the legal regulation of most commercial and economic activity, and underlies many specialist areas of legal practice. As market costs and values move, many contracts become increasingly valuable to one party and burdensome to the other. One party’s ability to terminate, or to successfully resist the termination of, a commercial contract is frequently a matter of considerable financial importance. The complex interaction between common law termination rights and rights to terminate expressly conferred by clauses in the contract in question is seldom properly understood, as illustrated by many of the cases from which this subject is taught.

This subject is taught from selected cases rather than textbooks. Principal topics include:

• Breach of conditions, including what makes a promissory term a strict condition
• Non-fulfilment of conditions precedent, and associated promissory obligations
• Breaches of intermediate terms, and what makes them sufficiently serious to justify termination
• Repudiation in its different forms
• Breach of time obligations, and the use and consequences of Notices to Perform/Complete
• Express termination clauses—the different principles concerning their operation, and ‘compare and contrast’ the principles concerning termination at common law
• Possible limits on an aggrieved party’s right to terminate through:
  • Election/affirmation
  • Estoppel
  • Breach or an absence of readiness, willingness and ability to perform on his/her own part
  • Relief against forfeiture
• Remedies accompanying effective or attempted terminations, including:
  • Principles of quantifying expectation damages at common law
  • Limited rights to damages on termination pursuant to an express clause
  • Contractual rights to remuneration accrued due prior to the termination
  • Exceptional limitations on the recoverability of contractual remuneration.

Civil litigation is experiencing unprecedented levels of reform. Legislative changes, court decisions, changes to court rules and economic pressures are changing the way litigation is practised across the common law world. The proper roles of parties, lawyers, judges and courts are under scrutiny and discussion. The focus of this subject is current and significant issues in civil litigation, with an emphasis on new and emerging developments.

Andrew Higgins is an Associate Professor in Civil Procedure at the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, and a Fellow in Law at Mansfield College. He is also a practising barrister specialising in mass tort litigation and General Editor of Civil Justice Quarterly.

Bernie Quinn is a Queens Counsel at the Victorian Bar who practices in a wide range of areas including commercial law, public law and product liability law. He speaks Bahasa Indonesian and was an Associate to Justice Michael Kirby. The subject will include guest lecturers drawn from the judiciary and the profession.

Principal topics include:

• Significant procedural reforms in Australia and overseas
• Law reform proposals
• The role of the judge, including case management trends
• Principles of apprehended bias
• ‘Overarching’ obligations of participants in the civil justice system
• Summary and interim relief
• Discovery
• Client legal privilege
• Expert evidence
• Procedural issues in conflict of laws
• Procedural issues in collective redress
• Costs and funding rules
• Appeal processes
• Enforcement
• Alternative dispute resolution
• Online dispute resolution and its impact on civil procedure.

Negligence is one of the most heavily litigated causes of action in common law jurisdictions. It is of enormous practical importance in a very wide range of fact situations. It is also a dynamic area of law: the relevant principles are constantly being applied to new fact situations, and the courts are regularly forced to grapple with difficult questions about the scope of negligence liability. This subject examines key current issues and controversies in the law of negligence in the light of theoretical and comparative perspectives. The lecturers have both published widely on private law topics, including a range of issues in the law of negligence.

Principal topics include:

• An overview of the law of negligence, including theoretical and historical perspectives and the place of negligence in tort law and private law
• The duty of care requirement in general terms, including the distinction between duty in law and duty in fact, the approach to the duty question in novel situations and the role of public policy in duty decisions
• Liability for psychiatric injury
• Liability for pure economic loss
• Liability for omissions
• Liability of public authorities
• Current issues in the standard of care and its application, with particular reference to professional negligence cases
• The requirement of damage
• Factual causation, including recovery for loss of a chance
• Scope of liability (legal causation and remoteness)
• Defences (both common law and statutory).

The frequency and severity of ‘natural’ disasters, like flood, cyclone and bushfire, and longer term phenomena, such as drought and sea level rise, will increase as a result of climate change; posing major threats to settlements, infrastructure, natural resources and biodiversity. This subject covers the multi-scalar legal response to disasters involving international treaties and soft-law instruments, national and regional regulation, and private law (torts and contract), and encompassing climate change adaptation, emergency management, environmental liability, insurance and human rights. It will examine approaches to prepare for, avoid or minimise disaster impacts, and to respond effectively and equitably post-event. Relevant case studies are drawn from Australia and various comparative jurisdictions regionally and internationally.

This subject critically examines different legal approaches to avoid, mitigate and respond to natural disasters and relevant adaptation planning, emergency and natural resource management regimes.

Principal topics include:

• An overview of disasters and climate change impacts, focusing on predicted changes to the frequency, intensity and geographical occurrence of natural hazards, and impacts on human settlements
• Examination of the types of public and private planning and legal mechanisms at the local, state, national and international scale relevant to disaster management
• International agreements and soft law, with case studies of their application to recent disaster events (eg liability regimes for oil and gas disasters and mining incidents; funding mechanisms for disaster risk reduction; instruments for the protection of persons in disasters)
• Emergency management and adaptation planning in Australia, with selected case studies covering: coastal hazards: NSW coastal management and land-use planning regimes; bushfire: Victorian land-use planning, emergency management and recovery, and relevant compensation law for the 2009 bushfires and fires in open cut coal mines in the La Trobe valley in 2015; Flood: statutory planning and insurance regimes in Queensland, and the response to the 2011 floods; Drought: emergency water allocation management in urban and rural areas in south-eastern Australia
• Comparative case studies in developed and developing countries, evaluating the transferability of legal principles (eg responses to drought and water scarcity in the western United States and southern Africa; coastal adaptation planning instruments in the US and United Kingdom; and typhoon readiness in South East Asia).

Employment contracts have been a major source of litigation in recent years, with some cases leading to very large payouts. This subject examines the evolving law of employment contracts, and other related kinds of personal work contracts. Drawing on recent cases as well as leading articles by Australian and international scholars, the lecturers consider several key questions. These include determining and varying contract terms, employer and employee duties, non-compete clauses, termination and damages. The subject also looks at the interaction between employment contracts and major statutes, such as the Australian Consumer Law and the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth). The subject seeks to combine discussions of the practical realities of contracting with a broader analysis of the underlying assumptions in current law.

Principal topics include:

• The scope of employment regulation: which work relationships are covered?
• The regulation of independent contracting, such as agency relationships
• The content of the employment contract: express terms
• The content of the employment contract: implied terms
• Non-compete clauses and restraint of trade
• Employment, the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) and estoppel
• Variation and flexibility in the employment contract
• Termination and remedies at common law
• The relationship between contracts, awards and agreements.

Adequate, reliable and sustainable supplies of energy are crucial to modern societies, and their assurance demands the close and continuous involvement of governments. This subject explains the challenges—affordability, security of supply, safety, control of monopoly, sustainability in an age of global warming—that the economic and technical characteristics of different energy sources present to governments in Australia, and analyses the regulatory tools that they have at their disposal for responding to such challenges. It shows how the law can function both as an essential vehicle for such regulation and as a constraint on its content. The lecturer is a leading international authority on oil and gas law and has published extensively in the field of regulation.

Principal topics include:

• The nature of regulation, its development in Australia and its relationship with law
• General explanations and justifications for regulation
• The techniques of regulation
• Regulatory issues posed by the supply of different types of energy:
  • Mineral energies: coal, petroleum and uranium
  • Network energies: electricity, gas
  • Renewable energies
• The Australian federal environment for energy regulation. Two or more case studies of Australian energy regulation:
  • Electricity and gas: from state monopolies to regulated national markets
  • Mined energies: securing effective exploitation, managing resource conflicts
  • Renewable energies: regulatory incentives
• Cross-cutting issues in energy regulation:
  • Regulatory authorities
  • Forms of regulation: prescription versus goal-based regulation; discretion versus rules; legislation versus contract
  • Regulatory review and evaluation.

This subject provides an introduction to the global law relating to international commercial contracts. A major focus will be on contracts of sales, as codified by the Vienna Convention on the International Sale of Goods (CISG). However, some issues of the general law of contract will also be covered in detail (eg formation, interpretation, third party rights, the duty of good faith and fair dealing). The treatment of some of these topics will be based on an examination of the 2016 UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts (PICC). The approach is comparative. Examples will be drawn from the decisions of national courts as well as arbitral awards.

Principal topics include:

• Global commercial contracts
• Applicability and application of the CISG and the PICC
• Interpretation and supplementation of the CISG and the PICC
• Contract formation
• Interpretation of international commercial contracts
• Third party rights
• Obligations of sellers and buyers
• Contractual remedies
• Good faith and fair dealing
• Transnational commercial dispute resolution.

International commercial arbitration is the most important method globally for resolving cross-border commercial disputes. The focus of this subject is on the basic principles of international commercial arbitration law and is taught from the perspective of both the practitioner advising clients and the scholar interested in advanced research. There will be a particular focus on the desirability of arbitration compared with other dispute resolution methods, the relationships between the courts and arbitrators, drafting techniques and developments in Australia and other countries.

Principal topics include:

• The nature of international arbitration
• Applicable law in international arbitration
• The Australian procedural regime and an introduction to the UNCITRAL Model Law
• Enforcing international arbitration agreements
• Appointment and qualifications of arbitrators
• Misconduct of arbitrators
• Privacy and confidentiality
• Enforcement and challenge of awards.

This subject addresses the relevant provisions of the key federal statute governing minimum employment standards in Australia, the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth), which is the centrepiece of Commonwealth statutory regulation of working conditions. The subject examines the mechanisms by which minimum wages, working hours regulation and leave entitlements are set and reviewed, as well as the function and content of these standards. This subject also addresses the important topic of how compliance with labour standards can be enforced and considers issues such as the role of the Fair Work Ombudsman, and the challenge of enforcement in the context of different business models, such as franchise networks.

This subject covers federal statutory regulation of minimum employment conditions in Australia. It addresses the relevant provisions of the key federal statute, the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth).

Principal topics include:

• The scope of the national system of labour regulation
• The institutions that regulate labour standards and working conditions, including the Fair Work Commission and the Fair Work Ombudsman
• The role and content of the National Employment Standards (NES) as a means of maintaining a safety net of fair working conditions
• The form, function and content of modern awards as a mechanism for setting further minimum labour standards at an industry and sectoral level
• The relationship of modern awards and the NES to other means of regulating working conditions, including the contract of employment and enterprise agreements
• The legal mechanisms and sanctions relating to enforcement of minimum labour standards and working conditions by employees, unions and the Fair Work Ombudsman
• The administrative sanctions available to the Fair Work Ombudsman
• Emerging issues and innovative approaches in regulating and enforcing labour standards and working conditions, including protection of vulnerable workers such as interns, casual and part-time workers and outworkers, extra-territorial coverage of labour standards, and regulation of work/life balance.

Insurance is a cornerstone of effective risk transfer. It is often critical to the viability of commercial enterprises and transactions. However, insurance contracts and arrangements have become increasingly complex, and specialised knowledge is required to understand their operation and limitations. This subject will provide an in-depth understanding of liability insurance, which indemnifies insureds against liability to third parties, and comprises a large part of the insurance market. It will examine the roles and obligations of participants in the insurance industry, different types of liability insurance, key principles of the common law regarding insurance, and legislative intervention, especially the Insurance Contracts Act 1984 (Cth), including recent amendments to the Act. The lecturers are barristers specialising in insurance law, who for many years have represented and advised both Australian and overseas insurers.

Principal topics include:

• The structure and operation of contracts of liability insurance, and the main forms of liability insurance, including professional indemnity insurance public and products liability insurance, and directors’ and officers’ insurance
• The operation of the insurance industry and the roles of various insurance industry participants, such as underwriters (including Lloyd's syndicates), excess insurers, co-insurers, reinsurers, captives, underwriting agents, claims officers, lawyers, insurance brokers and loss adjusters
• An overview of the legislative and regulatory framework for the Australian insurance industry
• The construction of insuring clauses and extensions
• The construction of exclusion clauses and conditions, including cross-liability, severability and non-imputation clauses
• The operation and effect of the Insurance Contracts Act 1984 (Cth) and its interplay with the laws of contract, equity and tort, and with the Australian Consumer Law,on matters including:
  • The duty of utmost good faith
  • Misrepresentation and non-disclosure
  • Notification of claims and circumstances
  • Section 54 of the Insurance Contracts Act 1984 (Cth) and remedies for breach of insurance contracts
  • Cancellation of insurance contracts
  • Rights of third party beneficiaries
  • Subrogation
• Double insurance
• An analysis of issues requiring further legislative reform.

With a primary focus on experiential learning and interactive discussion, this subject will provide a practical guide to the use of mediation in resolving disputes and to the legal environment in which mediation takes place. The objectives of this subject are to identify where mediation sits among available dispute resolution processes; its distinguishing characteristics and advantages; the applicable legal environment; to learn to apply mediation principles and techniques in the resolution of disputes; and to explore topical issues in mediation, including different regimes applicable to the admissibility of evidence of communications within mediation.

The lecturers are lawyers who have led and been at the cutting-edge of developing mediation and other ADR techniques. They are nationally accredited mediators and also have substantial experience in teaching and training in this field.

Principal topics include:

• Identifying the characteristics of different dispute resolution methods
• The roles of facilitative and evaluative techniques in mediation
• Practising mediation techniques in mediation scenarios
• The legislative environment in which mediation takes place
• Case law and guidelines for lawyers applicable to mediation.

Mediation has become the likely forum for the resolution of most disputes – whether convened voluntarily, by contract, statute or court order – but its inherent confidentially makes it hard for outsiders to understand fully.

This subject will cover the majority of the material required for Accreditation under the National Mediator Accreditation Scheme (NMAS), but also recognise that mediation needs to be understood by all involved, not just future mediators.  In light of this, it will examine the roles of solicitors and barristers, other advisers and experts, and the parties themselves. It will do this through teaching by Andrew Moffat, who regularly mediates commercial disputes in Melbourne and Sydney, supplemented by guest lecturers who fill these roles in mediations.

It also recognises that mediation is – and must maintain – a uniquely flexible process capable of very different approaches based on the context of the dispute. Guest lecturers who are expert practitioners in other dispute contexts will share their insights.

Students will develop a sophisticated understanding of current mediation theory and practice, and learn to put this learning into practice as mediators and mediation participants, through extensive involvement in simulations. Finally, students will learn about the mediation industry and the business and career elements of developing a mediation practice.

Successful completion of this subject, and a complete attendance record to all sessions, is expected to be credited for 60 per cent of National Mediator Accreditation Scheme training, under the auspices of the Resolution Institute, which will offer students the opportunity to study the remaining 40 per cent required for NMAS accreditation.

Principal topics include:

• Mediation within the broader context of dispute resolution
• Moving from positions to interests
• Standard NMAS mediation model
• Key concepts – voluntariness and empowerment
• Triggers for mediation – optimising timing where possible
• Mediator skills and when and how to intervene
• Changing dynamics in joint sessions
• Mandatory mediation as public policy
• Typical participants and their roles
• Alternatives and options in private sessions
• NMAS Approval and Practice Standards
• Setting the scene – the opening statement
• Mediation challenges – complexity and ethical issues
• Optimising mediation in cross-cultural disputes
• Mediation as a career.

Mineral and petroleum resources have shaped Australia’s history, economy, society and environment for more than 150 years and continue to do so. The exploitation of these resources involves governments as proprietors and regulators, together with private enterprise as explorers and developers. The complex relationship between governments and private enterprise provides the central theme of the subject. Australia’s federal system of government adds to the complexity of that relationship. The subject begins by identifying fundamental legal issues that occur in most countries in the exploration for and production of mineral and petroleum resources. It then examines the ways in which these issues are resolved in Australia, using statutory title regimes and government agreements. The effectiveness of the Australian approach to these matters is examined in the international context of legal arrangements employed for management of mineral and petroleum resources elsewhere in the world.

Principal topics include:

• Terminology: the meaning of ‘mineral’ and ‘petroleum’
• Jurisdiction over mineral and petroleum resources
• Property in mineral and petroleum resources
• Statutory exploration and production titles
• Government royalties
• Petroleum production controls and unit development
• Dealings and registration
• Private royalties
• Access to land
• Environmental controls
• State agreements
• Unconventional gas
• Underground storage
• Greenhouse gas storage
• Uranium
• Case study 1: Mineral Resources (Sustainable Development) Act 1990 (Vic)
• Case study 2: Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act 2006 (Cth).

This highly interactive subject will give students practice-relevant skills for negotiation and dispute resolution. Negotiating effectively involves being able to change the conversation, shifting from adversarial to collaborative approaches. The best negotiators are also skilled at structuring processes and listening beneath what is said. This program will introduce a proven framework for creating value and resolving disputes, informed by recent research and extensive practice. Using experiential approaches, case studies and simulations, participants will deepen their abilities to represent clients and negotiate across a range of practice contexts. Participants will have multiple opportunities to refine their negotiation and dispute management skills, and will leave with a series of practical tools for dealing with difficult negotiation behaviours and hard bargaining tactics in diverse settings. This subject will be useful for those working on a wide range of complex issues in a range of contexts including commercial, environmental, public policy and human rights.

Drawing on current interdisciplinary literature and case examples from practice, students will:

• Learn a proven framework for dispute analysis and negotiation to address a range of disputes
• Understand the dynamics of intractable disputes and a range of tools to address them
• Heighten their awareness of personal strengths and weaknesses as a negotiator
• Gain problem-solving techniques to enhance possible solutions in complex negotiations
• Acquire skills for choosing the right process to craft durable outcomes
• Heighten their abilities to work across diverse contexts
• Practice and refine negotiation and dispute management skills toward more successful outcomes

Successful completion of the subject will expand participants’ abilities for complex issue analysis, intervention and follow-up as negotiators, representatives and facilitators in negotiation and dispute resolution processes. Students will learn valuable skills of integrative thinking and creativity through experiential exercises and their final papers.

Irrespective of their speciality, lawyers must negotiate. Litigators resolve far more disputes through negotiation than by trial. Business lawyers in every domain negotiate on behalf of their clients. Public interest lawyers, in-house counsel, government lawyers, criminal lawyers, tort lawyers and commercial litigators all share the need to be effective negotiators. However few lawyers have any systematic understanding of why negotiations often fail or have suboptimal results, the dilemmas inherent in negotiations, or the characteristics of effective negotiators.

By combining theory and practice, this subject should improve students’ understanding of negotiation and effectiveness as negotiators. This subject should improve their ability to prepare for a negotiation, to engage others in joint problem-solving, and to select appropriate strategies when negotiations don’t go well. Above all, this subject will equip students to continue refining their skills as they gain more experience.

Florrie Darwin has taught negotiation skills to students, as well as a broad range of professionals, around the world.

Principal topics include:

• Introduction to negotiation principles
• Basic framework for preparing, conducting and reviewing a negotiation
• Giving and receiving feedback
• Creating value in negotiations
• The challenge of distribution
• Effective listening
• Managing interpersonal differences
• Negotiating via email
• Effective responses to difficult negotiation tactics
• Dealing with structural complexity in negotiation/multi-party negotiations.

Project finance is the financing of major projects. It often takes the form of a financing arrangement under which the monies raised for a project are repaid primarily from the project’s cash flow, with the project’s assets held as collateral. It enables the sponsor of a project to arrange financing with no recourse, or limited recourse, to the sponsor’s balance sheet. Project finance is complex in view of the number of parties involved, the security that is taken over the project’s cash flow and assets, the nature of the rights that are exercised by the lenders in respect of the project generally and the cross-border character of stakeholders. Project finance lawyers need to have an in-depth understanding of both the legal issues that arise as well as the commercial and operational aspects of the project.

The lecturers are leading practitioners in this area and they introduce students to the key legal, contractual and structural issues concerning major projects and project finance, and analyse these issues in the context of a number of case studies in the mineral, energy and infrastructure sectors.

Principal topics include:

• Characteristics of suitable projects
• Characteristics of project financing in Australia
• Project financing techniques
• Identification of risk and techniques for allocation of risk
• Structuring financing requirements for a project
• Contractual arrangements
• Project financing default and remedies
• Case studies of project financing in mineral, energy and infrastructure sectors.

Regulation has become a permanent feature of the way in which contemporary democratic economies, including Australia, are governed. There are few spheres of economic activity that are not subject to some form of regulatory oversight and control. Daily news programs rarely pass without some mention of a significant regulatory decision, proposed regulatory reform or allegations of some regulatory failure or scandal. For lawyers, dealings with regulators and regulatory regimes have become part of the staple diet of their work. Yet the practice of regulation is far from straightforward. Regulatory policy and practice has evolved considerably from its traditional origins in the form of ‘command and control’, accompanied by the growth of specific terminology and concepts that are likely to be unfamiliar to those other than regulatory technocrats. This subject provides an opportunity for students to develop an understanding of, and critically to evaluate, the basic tools, techniques and decision-making methodologies that are employed in regulatory design and practice. It will be of interest to both private and public sector lawyers who practise in regulated sectors of the economy, enhancing their understanding of how regulators go about the business of regulatory decision-making.

Principal topics include:

• Introduction: What is ‘regulation’ and ‘governance’?; the regulatory agency: institutional features, strengths and shortcomings; the rise of the ‘regulatory state’; regulatory regimes and the role of non-state actors
• Tools, techniques and instruments of regulation: command—traditional legal prohibitions backed by sanctions; competition—market based approaches; communication—information disclosure and publicity-based approaches; consensus (including self-regulation); code architecture and the use of ‘nudge’ techniques
• ‘New governance’ approaches to regulation: choice of Instrument; ‘hybrid’ approaches to regulation; responsive regulation, ‘smart regulation’ and its variants (including meta-regulation); cost-benefit analysis and regulatory impact assessment and ‘better regulation’
• Enforcement and compliance: problems with rules; principles-based regulation; the role of the criminal and civil law; punitive civil sanctions (the Macrory Review); regulatory enforcement styles; national styles of regulation; private enforcement, third party monitoring and certification systems
• Appraising Regulation: regulatory accountability; regulatory legitimacy: between democracy and expertise.

The exploitation of mineral and petroleum resources involves substantial risk. The resources joint venture provides a commercial opportunity to manage this risk. It is a particular legal relationship: an association of persons (natural or corporate) to engage in a common undertaking to generate a product to be shared among the participants. Management of the undertaking is divided: the participants determine some matters by agreement at the outset of the relationship; the power to determine other matters is vested in a committee on which the participants are represented and entitled to vote; a manager (or operator) is appointed by the participants to conduct agreed activities, on their behalf, within the scope of the common undertaking (exploration, development production). This subject examines the legal issues involved in this complex relationship, together with ancillary transactions (such as farmouts). In doing so, it considers the capacity of the common law to respond to commercial imperatives. It also evaluates the effectiveness of legal documentation employed in establishing the joint venture relationship.

The lecturer, a former Dean of Melbourne Law School, has published extensively in the fields of energy and resources law and served as President of the Australian Mineral and Petroleum Law Association.

Principal topics include:

• Statutory titles, government agreements and production-sharing agreements
• Farmouts
• Joint ventures and operations
• Unit development
• The operator/manager
• Fundamentals of contract law and property law
• Assignment
• Liability
• Default
• Disclosure and confidentiality
• Sole risk
• Termination
• Codification.

In the first half of the 20th century most civil actions were for causes of action not much affected by statute: trespass, negligence, libel and slander, breach of contract and the various forms of equitable suit. Most criminal prosecutions were for offences created by statute but whose elements were treated as identified largely by judge-made law. There were great codifying acts; intellectual property acts, facultative acts, and regulatory statutes, but judge-made law was of central and dominating importance. The second half of the 20th century saw the statutory cause of action emerge to prominence, the enactment of laws permitting modification of privately-made agreements, the creation of new rights and obligations and novel forms of criminal offence. Statute became the central and dominating form of regulation of rights and obligations. The proper construction and application of statutes always has been, but now more than ever is, an essential legal skill. This subject seeks to develop and refine those skills.

Principal topics include:

• Construction—a text-based activity but involving more than a dictionary in one hand and the text in the other
• The importance of the constitutional framework and other basic assumptions
• The search for meaning and the metaphor of intention
• The place of Interpretation legislation, including rights Acts
• The canons of construction, their use and abuse ('canons to the right of them; canons to the left of them; on into the valley of death')
• Ambiguity and its resolution, including the use of extrinsic materials
• Inconsistencies, repeals, amendment, consolidation and retrospectivity
• The legislative misfire
• Special rules for special areas
• Rules and regulations—power to make, construction and use in construing the legislation
• Overarching theories and descriptions of the construction process.

Contemporary governments use contracts as a key tool of governance. Outsourcing of public services is commonplace. But should we regulate the use of such tools by means of public administrative law, or through private law, or a mixture of both?  Is there an accountability deficit? What are the advantages and risks of contracting out, and how can and should the law respond?

Professor Janet McLean brings both public law and private law perspectives to bear on the subject of public contracting drawing on Australian, New Zealand and United Kingdom examples.

Principal topics include:

• The distinctive normative bases of private and private law and their implications for government contracts
• The decision to outsource
• The reach of judicial review, freedom of information and human rights law, and financial reporting rules, into the realm of contract law
• Implied terms, procedural requirements and interpretative methods in contract law
• Procurement rules and other internal government guidance
• Public private financing initiatives and other examples of government contracting
• The auditor-general and the role of private auditors.

In 2010 all Australian governments publicly committed to implementing nationally uniform laws about workplace health and safety. This development is bringing to fruition a process that began 30 years ago. However, Victoria is one of two states that have not implemented the agreed national laws. Therefore this subject examines in detail the content of Victorian law, as well as the new national laws.

By referring to the existing state, territory and commonwealth body of law, this subject considers the operation of Victorian workplace health and safety law in its historical and industrial setting as well as the likely practical operation of the new regulatory regime. The lecturer is a barrister with extensive practical experience in running cases under workplace health and safety laws.

Principal topics include:

• The problem of work-related injury and disease
• The history of the legal regulation of health and safety at work
• Nationally uniform workplace health and safety laws
• Standard-setting under the Australian workplace health and safety statutes
• State enforcement of the workplace health and safety legislation
• Workers’ rights under the Australian workplace health and safety statutes
• The anti-bullying jurisdiction of the Fair Work Commission
• Workers’ compensation schemes in Australia
• The rehabilitation of injured workers
• The role and impact of the common law duty to provide a safe workplace.