Parton v Milk Board (Vic)

Parton v Milk Board (Vic)
Court High Court of Australia
Full case name Parton v Milk Board (Vic)
Decided 21 December 1949
Citation(s) (1949) 80 CLR 229
Case history
Prior action(s) none
Subsequent action(s) none
Case opinions
(3:2) The broad approach to excise in section 90 is to be taken (per Rich, Dixon & Williams JJ; Latham CJ & McTiernan J dissenting)
Court membership
Judge(s) sitting Latham CJ, Rich, Dixon, McTiernan and Williams JJ

Parton v Milk Board (Vic) (1949) 80 CLR 229 is a High Court of Australia case that dealt with the meaning of excise in relation to section 90 of the Australian Constitution.

In this case, the tax was calculated as a fixed amount per gallon of milk, and imposed on retailers, instead of at the production phase; this was held to be invalid as imposing a duty of excise. This heralded in the broad approach to section 92 - where a "tax upon a commodity at any point in the course of distribution before it reaches the consumer produces the same effect as a tax upon its manufacture or production" (per Dixon J). Rich and Williams JJ agreed with Dixon J, stating that a tax at a later stage in the handling of a good is in effect a tax on the production or manufacture of the good.

Latham CJ dissented, using Peterswald v Bartley, and McTiernan J felt that it should be employed in a narrower sense, to make it fit within what he perceived to be the object of the section, which was to promote a "uniform fiscal policy for the Commonwealth".

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