Australian Legal Citation Benchmark

Latest run

Per-question results

The question set (35 questions)

Fixed across runs so results are comparable over time. Expected citations are substring targets, not exhaustive authority lists.

• au-hca-negligence

  Negligence — duty of care (HCA)

  What is the High Court of Australia’s approach to establishing a duty of care in novel negligence cases after Sullivan v Moody?

• au-evidence-act-hearsay

  Evidence Act — hearsay

  Under the uniform Evidence Acts, when is hearsay evidence admissible and what is the relationship to the common law rule?

• au-contract-consideration

  Contract — consideration

  Does Australian contract law require consideration for a simple contract, and how do the High Court and classic authorities treat past consideration?

• au-admin-jurisdictional-error

  Administrative law — jurisdictional error

  Explain jurisdictional error in Australian administrative law after Craig and Kirk, with reference to High Court authority.

• au-criminal-mens-rea

  Criminal law — mens rea / He Kaw Teh

  How does He Kaw Teh v The Queen guide interpretation of mens rea in Commonwealth offence provisions?

• au-corporations-directors-duties

  Corporations — directors’ duties

  Summarise the statutory and general law duties of directors under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), citing key sections and leading cases.

• au-constitutional-characterisation

  Constitutional law — characterisation

  How does the High Court approach characterisation of a Commonwealth law under a head of power, with reference to Engineers and later authority?

• au-property-indefeasibility

  Property — Torrens indefeasibility

  Explain immediate indefeasibility under the Torrens system in Australia and the fraud / in personam exceptions, citing High Court authority.

• au-civil-liability-act-breach

  Negligence — breach under the Civil Liability Acts

  How is breach of duty determined under the Civil Liability Act 2002 (NSW), and how do the statutory considerations interact with the common law?

• au-negligence-pure-economic-loss

  Negligence — pure economic loss

  When can a plaintiff recover for pure economic loss in Australian negligence law, and how did Perre v Apand change the approach?

• au-vicarious-liability

  Tort — vicarious liability

  What is the test for vicarious liability in Australia, and how does it apply to intentional wrongdoing by an employee?

• au-defamation-serious-harm

  Defamation — serious harm and defences

  What must a plaintiff establish to succeed in defamation in Australia after the 2021 amendments, and what are the main defences?

• au-native-title-extinguishment

  Native title — extinguishment

  How does the Native Title Act 1993 (Cth) deal with extinguishment of native title, and what did Wik decide about pastoral leases?

• au-contract-estoppel

  Equity — promissory estoppel

  What are the elements of promissory estoppel in Australian law, and how did Waltons Stores v Maher depart from the English approach?

• au-contract-good-faith

  Contract — good faith

  Is there an implied duty of good faith in Australian contract law, and what is the current state of authority?

• au-acl-misleading-conduct

  Consumer law — misleading or deceptive conduct

  What is required to establish misleading or deceptive conduct under s 18 of the Australian Consumer Law?

• au-acl-unconscionable

  Consumer law — unconscionable conduct

  How do the courts distinguish unconscionable conduct under the Australian Consumer Law from the equitable doctrine of unconscionable dealing?

• au-evidence-tendency-coincidence

  Evidence — tendency and coincidence

  What must be shown before tendency or coincidence evidence is admissible under the uniform Evidence Acts, and how did Hughes v The Queen apply the test?

• au-evidence-client-legal-privilege

  Evidence — client legal privilege

  When does client legal privilege apply under the Evidence Act 1995 (Cth), and when can it be waived?

• au-statutory-interpretation-purpose

  Statutory interpretation — purposive approach

  How do Australian courts approach statutory interpretation, and what role does s 15AA of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 (Cth) play?

• au-admin-procedural-fairness

  Administrative law — procedural fairness

  What does procedural fairness require of a decision-maker, and how has Kioa v West shaped the doctrine?

• au-admin-legal-unreasonableness

  Administrative law — legal unreasonableness

  What is legal unreasonableness in Australian administrative law, and how did Minister for Immigration v Li restate the test?

• au-admin-privative-clause

  Administrative law — privative clauses

  How effective are privative clauses in ousting judicial review in Australia after Plaintiff S157/2002 v Commonwealth?

• au-constitutional-implied-freedom

  Constitutional law — implied freedom of political communication

  What is the current test for the implied freedom of political communication, and how was it applied in McCloy v New South Wales?

• au-constitutional-external-affairs

  Constitutional law — external affairs power

  How has the High Court interpreted s 51(xxix) of the Constitution, and what did Commonwealth v Tasmania establish?

• au-corporations-insolvent-trading

  Corporations — insolvent trading

  What are the elements of insolvent trading under s 588G of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), and what defences are available?

• au-corporations-care-skill

  Corporations — duty of care and diligence

  What standard of care and diligence does s 180 of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) require of directors, and how was it applied in ASIC v Healey?

• au-criminal-provocation

  Criminal law — provocation

  What is the test for provocation in Australian criminal law, and how does it reduce murder to manslaughter?

• au-criminal-complicity

  Criminal law — complicity

  How does Australian law distinguish joint criminal enterprise from accessorial liability, and what did McAuliffe v The Queen establish?

• au-sentencing-principles

  Sentencing — instinctive synthesis

  How do Australian courts approach sentencing, and what is meant by instinctive synthesis after Markarian v The Queen?

• au-sentencing-bugmy

  Sentencing — Bugmy principles

  What did Bugmy v The Queen decide about the relevance of an offender's deprived background to sentencing?

• au-family-property-settlement

  Family law — property settlement

  What principles govern property settlement under s 79 of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth), and what did Stanford v Stanford require?

• au-equity-fiduciary-duties

  Equity — fiduciary duties

  When does a fiduciary relationship arise, and what duties follow? Consider Hospital Products v United States Surgical Corporation.

• au-trusts-resulting-trust

  Trusts — resulting trusts

  When will a presumption of resulting trust arise, and how did Calverley v Green approach contribution to purchase price?

• au-employment-unfair-dismissal

  Employment — unfair dismissal

  What must an applicant establish for an unfair dismissal claim under the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth), and what remedies are available?

How the score is calculated

Heuristic evaluation of Australian legal research answers for AGLC-style citations, pinpoints, and suspected invented authorities. Not a substitute for lawyer review.

Limitations

• Does not verify that a cited case exists or stands for the proposition claimed.
• AGLC matching is pattern-based and may miss valid uncommon forms.
• Each figure comes from a single run. Answers are generated by a language model, so scores move between runs — per-question results have varied by up to 30 points on identical inputs. Treat the figure as one sample, not a stable property.
• Intended for regression evals and public methodology transparency, not certification.
• Format is not substance. A response can cite the right authority in perfect AGLC4 form and still misstate what it held. This benchmark cannot detect that, and no automated score can.
• Citation counts reward longer answers. A short, correct answer can score below a long, citation-dense one.
• The question set is small and curated. It is a regression check, not a survey of Australian law.