ABSTRACT
The Australia Courts Act 1828 (UK) provided that all the appropriate laws and statutes which were in force in England on 25 July 1828 should be applied in the administration of justice in the courts of New South Wales. This Act and the subsequent Colonial Laws Validity Act 1865 (UK), which applied British statutes by ‘paramount force’, meant that there was a wide divergence between land law in England and Australia from then onwards.
