The Court of Appeal held that the Full Bench of the Industrial Relations Commission did not deny procedural fairness by adopting a 'reasonable grounds' standard when reviewing the Police Commissioner's removal decision under s 181F of the Police Act 1990 (NSW), because the statute itself required the Commission to consider the Commissioner's reasons (including the standard of proof adopted therein) as its first duty, and the approach was in any event flagged during the hearing. The Court further held that s 191(3) of the Industrial Relations Act 1996 (NSW) does not require the Full Bench to find that a factual finding was 'not reasonably open' before intervening on appeal; rather, s 191(3) only confirms that House v The King principles apply to appeals from discretionary decisions, and does not displace the general Warren v Coombes appellate function for non-discretionary findings. The Court left expressly unresolved whether the 'significantly offensive' gloss on the definition of 'child abuse material' in s 91FB of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW), derived from Monis v R, is correct.
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