The Fair Work Act defines a constitutional corporation as ‘a corporation to which paragraph 51(xx) of the Constitution applies’.[1]
The Australian Constitution defines constitutional corporations as ‘Foreign corporations, and trading or financial corporations formed within the limits of the Commonwealth’.[2]
This definition has two limbs that are ‘comprehensive alternatives’.[3] This means that constitutional corporations are either ‘foreign corporations’ or ‘trading or financial corporations formed within the limits of the Commonwealth’. Therefore, a foreign corporation does not need to be formed within the limits of the Commonwealth or be a trading or financial corporation to be classified as a constitutional corporation.[4]