Is the NSW Labor Government Retarded?

Three judges of the Federal Court of Australia have held that recent regulations intended to be used against NSW citizens by Morris Iemma's government were ultra vires, and therefore invalid. In Evans v State of New South Wales [2008] FCAFC 130 (15 July 2008) (http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/FCAFC/2008/130.html) the Court ordered that:

1. It be hereby declared that Clause 7(1)(b) of the World Youth Day Regulation 2008 is invalid, as beyond the regulation making power conferred by s 58 of the World Youth Day Act 2006 (NSW), to the extent that it purports to empower an authorised person to direct a person within a World Youth Day declared area to cease engaging in conduct that causes annoyance to participants in a World Youth Day event.

2. The application be otherwise dismissed.

Now, I've never drafted a regulation (although I wrote the first draft of a Supreme Court Practice Note), but you'd think either Parliamentary Counsel wrote this under duress, or just wasn't thinking.

Of course, this is just another episode in the story of the NSW Labor government giving the Police whatever they want, and removing the rights of NSW citizens. Gee, and all this in a month when five NSW police officers have been charged with assault...