Decision
37 Sections 113, 114 and 115 of the Act provided for a procedure to be followed, from the making of an application for a licence to the issue or refusal of the licence. They did not specifically refer to refusal, which was left as the result of non-issue. The procedure involved opinions of the appellant along the way to issue or non-issue. The first opinion was whether the bore was or would be an artesian bore or the circumstances warranted advertisement. If that opinion was formed, there had to be advertisement. After advertisement came the second opinion, whether the circumstances warranted a public inquiry. If that opinion was formed, there had to be a public inquiry.
38 Absence of the opinions took dealing with the application for a licence down one or another of different paths. If followed to the end, a non-advertisement path led (adopting the appellant's view) to issue of the licence. If followed to the end, an advertisement and non-public inquiry path led to issue or non-issue of the licence according to the appellant's decision. There was no reason, as a matter of sensible bureaucratic action, for the appellant to be irrevocably committed to either path. It was still required to investigate and consider the application, or to decide whether or not to issue the licence. In the investigation and consideration and the consideration of the decision, it could well come to one or both of the opinions where it had initially not done so. Any opinion initially formed would have been with less than complete investigation and consideration of the application or the decision whether or not to issue the licence, with the possibility of error and the prospect of better understanding leading to a different opinion.
39 It would unduly hamper the discharge of its functions in dealing with an application for a licence if the appellant were unable to change its opinions, so that a different and more appropriate path were followed. It could become apparent that an initial opinion that the bore was or would not be an artesian bore was incorrect. In the investigation and consideration, the appellant could come to the opinion that the circumstances warranted advertisement, perhaps in contemplation of a public inquiry depending on the information received. Indeed, it could be that dealing with the application for a licence went down the non-advertisement path because the appellant erroneously failed to address whether or not the bore was or would be an artesian bore or the circumstances warranted advertisement. The appellant must have been able to correct that error.
40 The ability to change the opinion better fulfilled the purpose of the licensing provisions. The legislature must have considered that there should be advertisement if the bore was or would be an artesian bore because of the interest of other landowners in taking water from the artesian resource. If an opinion initially formed, or erroneous failure to form an opinion, could not be corrected, the interests of other landowners would be affected in the manner the legislature had thought called for the opportunity for them to be involved in the decision-making process, but they could not have an involvement.
41 In Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs v Kurtovic (1990) 21 FCR 193 Gummow J said at 211 -
"There was 'an inconvenient common law doctrine of somewhat uncertain extent to the effect that a power conferred by statute was exhausted by its first exercise' Halsbury's Laws of England (1st ed), Vol 27, p 131. However, s 33(1) of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 (Cth) (which was modelled upon s 32(1) of the Interpretation Act 1889 (UK)) provides that where an Act confers a power or imposes a duty, then unless the contrary intention appears, the power may be exercised and the duty shall be performed 'from time to time as occasion requires'. But in any given case, a discretionary power reposed by statute in the decision maker may, upon a proper construction, be of such a character that it is not exercisable from time to time and it will be spent by the taking of the steps or the making of the statements or representations in question, treating them as a substantive exercise of the power. The result is that when the decision maker attempts to resile from his earlier position, he is prevented from doing so not from any doctrine of estoppel, but because his power to do so is spent and the proposed second decision would be ultra vires. The matter is one of interpretation of the statute conferring the particular power in issue."
42 The equivalent to s 33(1) of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 (Cth) is s 48(1) of the Interpretation Act 1987 (NSW). See also Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs v Bhardwaj (2002) 209 CLR 597, somewhat remote from the present case but supporting that whether a decision-maker can reconsider its decision depends on whether the statute under which the decision is made "manifests an intention to permit or prohibit reconsideration in the circumstances that have arisen" (per Gleeson CJ at [8]).
43 On the interpretation of the Act, I do not think that forming an opinion that an application should not be advertised pursuant to s 113(2) was the exercise of a power which, once exercised, was spent. The statutory power was to issue a licence on limitations and conditions. The opinion was an administrative step in directing the dealing with the application down a non-advertisement path. The formation of the opinion was not required to be communicated to the applicant (and the formation of the opinion in the present case was not communicated to the respondent). Under the legislative scheme, whether there should be advertisement giving notice of an application so that other landowners could become involved, and whether the involvement would be by a public inquiry, was left to the opinions of the appellant, but there was nothing in the nature of the decisions entrusted to the appellant by which a decision of non-advertisement or non-public inquiry was final and precluded a change of opinion. There was sound reason why change of mind should have been possible, in the interests of proper sharing of the groundwater resource.
44 Section 115(1) of the Act did not require that the appellant be committed to an initial opinion that a bore would be an artesian bore and the circumstances did not warrant advertisement, or to the absence of an opinion on those matters. The words "[i]n any case where an application has not been advertised pursuant to section 113(2)" did not have that effect. They looked to the end of the dealing with the application, after the investigation and consideration - nothing in s 115(1) required the non-event to precede embarking on investigation and consideration. It was only at the end of the consideration, with maintenance of any initial opinion, that it could be said that the application had not been advertised.
45 It may be that in the present case the change of opinion was not because the appellant came to the view that the bores would be artesian bores or that, other than as a prerequisite to refusal of the applications, it came to the view that the circumstances warranted advertisement. That has not been investigated, and for present purposes it does not matter. The appellant was not precluded by formation of its initial opinion from subsequently forming the opinion to advertise the applications pursuant to s 113(2) of the Act, and s 115(1) did not operate to require it to issue the licences.
46 This result is not overcome by attack on procedural fairness grounds upon the decision to advertise the applications. If it were necessary to afford procedural fairness and there was failure to do so, the result would not be that the initial words in s 115(1) were fulfilled so that the licences had to be issued. The result would be that advertisement of the applications had to be reconsidered, with the process of dealing with the applications still not at an end. But I can see no sufficient reason why it was necessary to give the respondent notice of a possible opinion that the applications should be advertised and the opportunity to be heard. The respondent submitted that he should have had that opportunity because advertisement would take away a vested right, the right by the operation of s 115(1) to have the licences issued. That begged the question. Section 115(1) did not operate in his favour if there was advertisement.