Education

On 26 August 2025, Mabo Chambers hosted the CPD "Cryptocurrency: How does it work? How is it regulated?”. This CPD outlines how cryptocurrency works (and the maths underlying it) and identifies ways that it is currently the subject of arbitration and regulation in both Australia and APAC more generally, and ways that it may soon be.

You can watch the CPD in full by clicking here

On 21 August 2025, Mabo Chambers hosted the CPD "Cities as Foundation of Constitutional Order: Reflections on the English Devolution Bill 2025”. When we think about constitutions, and the political authority behind them, we naturally turn to the state. That is especially the case with a highly centralised polity like the UK, juridically constructed as it is around the totemic idea of a supposedly sovereign Parliament. But is it not also possible to see constitutional authority as a phenomenon that is as much bottom-up as it is top-down? As much about plural localities - cities, regions - as it is about the singular central. There seems good grounds for thinking so. Democratic politics, it might be said, both historically and normatively, grows out of cities.

To ground these reflections, Professor Thomas Poole (LSE) will turn to the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, currently making its way through the UK Parliament. While the Bill devolves power from the centre to various cities and region, there are hints in the Bill, and its supporting documents, of a recognition of the desirability, even the necessity, of reviving civic democracy across England. Prof. Poole will examine these localising elements, placing them in the wider historical and constitutional context, including existing - transformative - devolution to Scotland and Wales. Is it possible to ascribe genuine meaning to the ‘principle of constitutional autonomy and partnership’ that is supposed to animate the proposals in the Bill?

You can watch the CPD in full by clicking here

On 21 August 2025, Mabo Chambers hosted the CPD "AI & Legal Practice – Practicalities, Challenges & New Horizons”. ****All barristers will soon need to grapple with artificial intelligence and its impact on legal practice. Many already are. A range of AI tools are now available to assist barristers with tasks like legal research and document review. Courts and tribunals are increasingly looking to harness AI to help them operate more efficiently and effectively. And across government and the private sector, people are using AI to complement (and in some cases entirely replace) decision-making by humans.

You can watch the CPD in full by clicking here

On 9 October 2024, Mabo Chambers hosted the CPD "Government debt recovery post-robodebt”.

This session does two things:

1. Provides an overview of the history of the Robodebt scheme and the findings of the Royal Commission;

2. Identifies recent case law considering the legality of the ways that the Secretary for Social Services is attempting to recover debts.

You can watch the CPD in full by clicking here

On 22 August 2024, Kate Ottrey of Mabo Chambers chaired a CPD session hosted by the Commercial Bar Association, focusing on oral evidence in-chief under the revised Practice Note SC CC 1 from the Supreme Court's Commercial Court.

Including speakers, Fiona Ryan SC and Liz Ruddle KC, the session addressed the key requirements of paragraph 6.4 of the Practice Note, which calls on commercial barristers to quickly sharpen their skills in preparing and adducing oral evidence in-chief. Drawing on their extensive experience in common law and criminal advocacy, the speakers provided practical guidance to help commercial practitioners confidently approach this essential courtroom skill.

This This seminar is a component of the Victorian Bar CPD Program and carries 1 CPD point (Substantive Law).

You can watch the CPD in full by clicking here

On 28 March 2025, Mabo Chambers in connection with the Commercial Bar Association hosted the CPD ‘Constitutional Values: Political and Legal Constitutionalism’. The CPD was chaired by Emrys Nekvapil SC and featured speakers Professor Patrick Emerton (Deakin Law School) and Ahmed Terzic.

This seminar explored how the Australian Constitution establishes foundational values, how those values inform both political and legal argument, and the distinction between political and legal constitutionalism.

This seminar is a component of the Victorian Bar CPD Program and carries 1 CPD point (Substantive Law).

You can watch the CPD in full by clicking here

In 2024, Bryony Seignior of Mabo Chambers presented two CPD sessions as part of Greens List’s “Committal Essential Series”. 

The first session, presented with Ian Hill KC and Mitch Brogden, Committal Procedure – Setting the Stage for Success, explored the foundations of committal procedure in Victoria. You can watch the full CPD here and access the materials here.

The second session, presented with Justin Hannebery KC and Deanna Caruso, Committals – Tips and Techniques, explored effective preparation strategies, cross-examination techniques, the committal test, discharge applications, and post-committal events. The full CPD recording is available here, and materials can be accessed here.

Each CPD carries 1 CPD point (substantive law).

Watch the CPD recordings below:

• Part 1

• Part2

On 09 October 2024, Mabo Chambers hosted the CPD ‘Government debt recovery post-robodebt’ hosted by the Pro Bono Committee. You can watch the CPD in full by clicking here.

The CPD was chaired by Kateena O’Gorman SC and featured speakers Dr Lucinda O’Brien (Post Doctoral Fellow at the University of Melbourne), Tim Farhall (Barrister), and Dr Laura Hilly (Barrister).

This seminar is a component of the Victorian Bar CPD Program and carries 1 CPD point (substantive law).

In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. ___ (2024), the US Supreme Court overruled the long-standing rule named after Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837 (1984), under which US courts would (if certain conditions were met), when construing a statute administered by a government agency, “defer” to that agency’s interpretation, provided it was a “permissible” interpretation.

The majority opinion referred to Marshall CJ’s famous declaration in Marbury v Madison 1 Cranch 137 (1803) that “[i]t is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is”. Interestingly, the Australian High Court referred to Marbury when it rejected Chevron deference as forming any part of Australian administrative law 24 years ago, in Corporation of the City of Enfield v Development Assessment Commission (2000) 199 CLR 135.

However, while Chevron deference has always struck most Australian public lawyers as odd, it has formed a bedrock rule of US administrative law for 40 years, and some have viewed the US Supreme Court’s decision to overrule it as shifting the balance of power towards undermining executive agencies’ abilities to pursue executive policy. For example, a White House press statement said “this decision undermines the ability of federal agencies to use their expertise as Congress intended to make government work for the people”.

In Save the Children Australia v Minister for Home Affairs [2024] FCAFC 81, Save the Children Australia appealed from a decision refusing to issue a writ of habeas corpus, to require the Australian government to bring before the Federal Court, in Australia, Australian-citizen women and their children who are presently detained, in camps in North-East Syria, by the Autonomous Administration of North-East Syria.

Habeas corpus usually issues against a person (often exercising governmental authority), who is directly detaining someone, to test the legality of that detention. However, in three UK cases —  Barnardo v Ford [1892] AC 326; R v Secretary of State for Home Affairs; ex parte O’Brien [1923] 2 KB 361; and Rahmatullah v Secretary of State for Defence [2013] 1 AC 614 — the courts issued the writ where there was a doubt whether the recipient, though not the detainer, had control over the detention. In O’Brien, doubt as to control arose from an oral agreement between the governments of Britain and the Irish Free State. In Rahmatullah, doubt as to control arose from a memorandum of understanding between the governments of Britain and the US.

Save the Children contended that the writ should be given the same extraterritorial operation under Australian law. They said the evidence showed an arrangement or understanding between the Australian government and the Autonomous Administration of North-East Syria, on which the Australian government could call to have the women and children released from detention into the hands of Australian officials, who could then repatriate them to Australia, thus complying with the writ. In a unanimous judgment, Mortimer CJ, Kennett and Horan JJ dismissed the appeal, finding on the evidence that the existence of an agreement or arrangement was nothing more than conjecture, and therefore did not give rise to sufficient doubt as to control.

On 28 May 2024, Mabo Chambers hosted the CPD “Victorian Treaty Act and Framework” organised by the Indigenous Justice Committee of the Victorian Bar. You can watch the CPD in full by clicking here.

The CPD was chaired by Cal Viney, and featured speakers Rueben Berg (Co-Chair of the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria), Jidah Clark (Chair of the Treaty Authority) and Serena Armstrong (Barrister).

This Seminar is a component of the Victorian Bar CPD Program and carries 1 CPD point (substantive law). Slides from the seminar are available for download here.