Bell J
60.
Though variously expressed, the tobacco companies submitted that the TPP Act gives the Commonwealth the use of, or control over, tobacco packaging because the Commonwealth or the TPP Act (the submissions did not clearly identify which) required certain things to be done or not done on the packaging. But the requirements of the TPP Act are no different in kind from any legislation that requires labels that warn against the use or misuse of a product, or tell the reader who to call or what to do if there has been a dangerous use of a product. Legislation that requires warning labels to be placed on products, even warning labels as extensive as those required by the TPP Act, effects no acquisition of property.
When the seller or the maker of a product puts a warning on the packaging, the seller or maker cannot "exploit" that part of the packaging by putting something else where the warning appears. And as the tobacco companies pointed out, the TPP Act greatly restricts, even eliminates, their ability to use their packaging as they would wish. In the terms the tobacco companies used, they cannot exploit their packaging. But contrary to the central proposition that underpinned these arguments, no-one other than the tobacco company that is making or selling the product obtains any use of or control over the packaging. The tobacco companies use the packaging to sell the product; they own the packaging; they decide what the packaging will look like. Of course their choice about appearance is determined by the need to obey the law. But no-one other than the tobacco company makes the decision to sell and to sell in accordance with law.
By prescribing what can and cannot appear on retail packaging the TPP Act affects that packaging and those who produce and sell the tobacco products. But to characterise this effect as "control" diverts attention from the fundamental question: does the TPP Act give the Commonwealth a legal interest in the packaging or create a legal relation between the Commonwealth and the packaging that the law describes as "property"? Compliance with the TPP Act creates no proprietary interest.
The submissions about "use" of, or "control" over, retail packaging to disseminate or promote the Commonwealth's health "message" recognised that what will appear on retail packaging of tobacco products will convey information (a "message") to those who see the packaging. But the submissions then assumed (wrongly) that the author or sponsor of that "message" can be personified as "the Commonwealth". It cannot.
Like "the Crown"[1], "the Commonwealth" is a term that can be used in different senses. It is greatly to be doubted that the tobacco companies sought to
- ↑ Sue v Hill (1999) 199 CLR 462 at 497–503 [83]–[94]; [1999] HCA 30.
