Limitlessness in Australian Constitutional Legal Narrative: The memory of Black's Address in the Tasmanian Dam Case

Given that clashes of federalism and the interpretation of powers are often the predominant themes in Australian constitutional culture, an especially intriguing element in the address of Michael Black QC, representing the Tasmanian Wilderness Society, in the High Court Tasmanian Dam case is the idea that there was something evocative and poetic that was said in a constitutional setting. This article does not replicate Black's legal argument directly or in its entirety, but instead gives a close examination of the text, with a view to engaging with the performance, or the spirit and the emotion, that pervades the address and evokes a concept of limitlessness in connections between self and nature. In reading Black's address, the purpose of this article is to re-create and expand on three deliberate steps contained within the oratory, which lead to this experience of limitlessness.