For the reasons given I answer question 1 in the affirmative as to all the lands referred to.

Questions 2 and 3. - As to the second and third questions, an entirely new view was debated, and this may be conveniently disposed of at once. At the original hearing the only question contended for was incidental to the first question, namely, whether the proper title to be registered in favour of the Commonwealth was, so to speak, a clean title free from all State "reservations," including in that term royal mines and powers to make highways, &c. On this occasion a much more radical question was propounded, namely, whether the Registrar-General, as a State officer acting under and by virtue of the State enactment - the Real Property Act, - could be called upon to register any devolutions of title other than those effected as that Act requires, that is, by State Crown grant in the first instance, and then by the various instruments prescribed by the statute as the Registrar's authority to register the new proprietorships. This question, in my opinion, so presented, admits of no doubt. The Commonwealth Parliament has, by sec. 20 of the Lands Acquisition Act 1906, purported to require the State Registrar to register a copy of the Governor-General's notification as if it were a grant or conveyance or memorandum or instrument of transfer duly executed under the laws in force in the State. Sec. 64 also declared that the acquisition under of the shall for the purposes of the Act be deemed an acquisition and vesting under the Act. But as to this there is not even a declaration that any document is to be regarded as a grant, &c., as in sec. 20, and I take this provision to be one for compensation in accordance with the , In any case sec. 20 of the Act, purporting to require the State officer to treat the copy notification as a State instrument, is invalid. It is, of course, not pretended that, unless expressly authorized, the Commonwealth Parliament can directly repeal or amend State legislation. Where competent, either by concurrent or exclusive powers, Commonwealth Acts repugnant to any State law prevail (see []). Sec. 20, however, is really an amendment of the Real Property Acts of the States, and is a command to a State official as such in the performance of his State functions to disregard the conditions of his statutory authority and to act in accordance with Commonwealth directions. His action is a State service, not an individual service. Sec. 20 attempts to create, not a new individual duty on the part of an inhabitant of the Commonwealth, but a new State governmental duty towards the Commonwealth. In the circumstances here appearing, that is not warranted by any provision of the , and the attempt fails. But I feel bound to point out that there is even a deeper fallacy underlying sec. 20 of the which is perhaps brought out, in the first instance, more vividly by reference to (I.) of the . (I.) is a transfer of property from State to Commonwealth, not by State law or State authority, but by Imperial statute enacting the . The conditioning facts are the transfer of a State Department and the exclusive use of the property in question. But, given these conditioning facts, the sub-section is the charter of Commonwealth ownership, complete in itself, independent of any grant, and superior to any State law to the contrary. The new source of title is entirely outside State law, and therefore outside any executive authority of the State. The land is no longer within the operation of the Act; it is no longer the subject of a State assurance of good title or the subject of possible error or unauthorized transfer to a bona fide purchaser for value without notice, leaving the rightful former owner - the Commonwealth in this instance - with a mere claim against the assurance fund. The Commonwealth title rests on a wholly inconsistent basis so far as sec. 85 (I.) is concerned. Sec. 85 (II.) is a statutory permission to the Executive to acquire property where one of the conditioning facts is changed, and what I am about to say with reference to the in this connection applies to the second sub-section of sec. 85. The Act of 1906 was passed under the power granted by (XXXI.) of the . It provides two distinct methods of acquisition - voluntary and compulsory. As this power of the Commonwealth is to with respect to the acquisition of property, legislation by the Commonwealth under an admitted power is not only independent of a State law but is superior to any State law, so long as it is confined to the ambit of the authority. The "acquisition" of property includes modes of acquisition, and the legislation may select the mode most convenient to the Commonwealth, unlimited by anything except the conditions prescribed by the . The compulsory method selected by the Act is "notification." That is quite apart from any State law or State mode of conveyance, and is as original a starting-point of title in the Commonwealth as the transfer by sec. 85. I say nothing about the voluntary method until a case arises calling for an opinion as to this. It may or may not be an adoption of the State grant and its subsequent devolutions according to State law. But the compulsory system, not only founded on an independent basis - the - but following an entirely independent route, is resultant in vesting the property in the Commonwealth entirely of its own force and outside the operation of State law, and therefore outside the operation of the . It is true that the Act provides very distinctly (sec. 45) for a conveyance to the Commonwealth by the claimant (whether State or individual) of the claimant's title or interest to the satisfaction of the Attorney-General. But that is not necessary for title, since the Act has already done all that and more (sec. 16). It is rather to record the transaction as an acknowledgment on the part of the claimant that he has no further claim in respect of the land.