Problem
Over the Summer Break, you were lucky enough to land a Business Cadetship with Krapston Blinds & Decor, a new Blinds, Shutters & Interior Decoration/Fitout company in Wollongong specializing in Interior Blinds and Décor. The business is taking off with many quotes being accepted. Your boss Lenny has just sent you an urgent memorandum as per below: From: Lenny Izzo To: Business Cadet Subject: Legal Research - Urgent Date: Thursday 30 March 2023 Re: FW: Legal Research Dear Business Cadet RE: LEGAL DISPUTE - NEED YOUR HELP! Our Interior Décor division has a legal problem, and before we outsource expensive lawyers, we are wondering what we can learn about the situation to try and resolve it before engaging lawyers. We understand that you are currently studying Law 101 at university and are in a position to assist us with some of the preliminary legal questions we have about the matter. The matter is this. Our Managing Director Bob is close friends with a prominent local property investment family, 'The Deforlters'. They needed some work done, and asked Bob to assist. Because they are friends and have known our director for a long time, they did not go through all the usual contract formalities, and we took the work on mutual trust. What a mistake that was! They now don't want to pay for the work done! Incredible! It was a whole lot of interior fit out in their residential development. This is a problem as it means we have had to pay contractors a lot of money and the company stands to lose out as a result. We need to protect our reputation. Our main shareholder Dennis is on our backs telling us 'we can't let this go - if you give in once in business, you will end up copping it again and again - we can't let these people off the hook ! " We really have to try and resolve this
So far, we understand we will need to look at the relevant building legislation that covers works of the kind that we do. We have found the Home Building Act 2015 (NSW) *, which contains relevant laws. We are not sure whether there is a Commonwealth equivalent or similar statute and are confused about this. We are unclear why legislation might either be produced at the Commonwealth level, and also the State of NSW level. Could you clarify and explain:
1. The concept of Australia being a federation?
2. The distinction between exclusive and concurrent powers under the Australian Constitution giving examples of each?