The decisions of the High Court in Brodie v Singleton Shire Council and Ghantous v Hawkesbury City Council in 2001 discarded an immunity from negligence suits long enjoyed by road authorities. Australian common law now approaches this subject using the time-honoured 'ordinary principles of negligence' rather than an approach that relies upon fine legal distinctions and technical exceptions. This paper describes the broad principles of the law of negligence, examines the nature of the former immunity, discusses the decisions of the High Court that changed the law , and makes a number of observations about the future for road authorities in defending negligence suits. It also considers the legislative response that has emerged from Victoria post-Brodie. It concludes that the new legal horizons, both common law and legislative, should not hold too many legal fears for those road authorities committed to adopting policies of risk management that are reasonable in all of the circumstances. (a).
Abstract