Fortunes being made and lost as the world changes are very much front of mind today as AI continues its march. Yet, as Dr Lucie O’Brien tells Matthew Bell in this episode of Inside Commercial Law, financial precarity potentially leading to bankruptcy has a very long history in Australia. Giving a taste of her Rare Books Lecture at Melbourne Law School, she takes us back to the gold rush time in colonial Victoria through the lens of literary portrayals of bankruptcy; especially, the remarkable series of novels by Ethel (Henry Handel) Richardson collected as The Fortunes of Richard Mahony.

A recording of Lucie’s lecture (29 July 2026) is here: https://youtu.be/0bk2Vbpc8nE?si=kfBd3ohefiAwxR8w

Further information about the Melbourne Centre for Commercial Law can be found here: https://law.unimelb.edu.au/centres/mccl 

In this special crossover episode, we bring you a conversation from the new Asian Law Voices podcast hosted by our colleagues at the Asian Law Centre and the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society at Melbourne Law School, The University of Melbourne.

In this episode, the Asian Law Centre’s Director, Sarah Biddulph, talks to Ben Hopper about fan fiction and legal issues in China. They discuss: what is fan fiction; why fan fiction poses challenges for China’s copyright laws and laws protecting personality rights; China’s first (and thus far only) fan fiction copyright lawsuit between renowned Chinese action fantasy (wuxia) author, Jin Yong, and fan fiction writer, Jiang Nan; the “227” incident that broke out on February, 27 2020 in which a fan fiction writer posted a serialised novel that contained a fictionalised romance between two actors in the TV show, The Untamed. 

Ben would like to thank Jiacheng Gong, Tina Yao, and Alice Boer-Endacott for helpful discussions on fan fiction in the lead-up to the recording of this podcast. 

If you enjoyed this podcast, we encourage you to subscribe to Asian Law Voices wherever you get your podcasts.

Recommended further reading: 

• Gladys Mac, Chinese Fanfiction is Entering Into (and Upsetting) the Mainstream (Online article, 10 December 2020) <https://radii.co/article/chinese-fanfiction>, archived at <https://perma.cc/JR5P-R78B>. 

• Xu Xinming, Settlement Reached in Landmark “Jin Yong v. Jiang Nan Fanfiction Case” (Online article, 13 October 2025) <https://www.ciplawyer.com/articles/157722.html>, archived at <https://perma.cc/ZCS5-8M2D>. Note that this settlement took place, and this article was published, after this episode of Asian Law Voices was recorded. 

Asian Law Voices presents interviews with an array of expert voices on legal issues throughout Asia, covering the law and its myriad connections with politics, culture, art, society and the everyday.  

The theme music is by Melbourne Community Gamelan. 

We acknowledge the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Owners of the land on which we record, learn, and live. 

Construction law and the arbitration of construction disputes is now one of the most sophisticated areas of commercial legal practice in many places around the world. Yet, this development has only happened in the past few decades. In this episode, Matthew Bell speaks with three leaders in the global field of construction law and arbitration: Melbourne Law School Professorial Fellows Doug Jones AO and John Sharkey AM, and Professor Janet Walker CM of Osgoode Hall Law School. 

Our discussion covers the development of construction law as an area of practice, the importance of international professional associations including the International Bar Association, the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and the Societies of Construction Law. We also discuss the potential for a symbiotic relationship between the practice and scholarship of construction law and how that potential can be realised when universities are able effectively to harness the goodwill and expertise of practitioners as teachers and researchers. 

Further information about Doug’s Public Lecture at Melbourne Law School on 4 August 2026 can be found here.

Further information about the Melbourne Centre for Commercial Law can be found here.

In this episode, Matthew Bell is joined by Phillip Greenham and Rebecca Dickson. Phillip and Rebecca bring their wealth of experience in construction law practice and research to our Melbourne Law Masters classroom in the subject ‘Rethinking Construction Contracting Risk’. They give insights into how the subject offers construction professionals and lawyers the opportunity to step back from ‘business as usual’ practice to think about what our contracts should - and, should not - focus on. 

Information about the subject, and how you can join us for its next offering in June 2026: https://handbook.unimelb.edu.au/2026/subjects/laws90229

Melbourne Centre for Commercial Law: https://law.unimelb.edu.au/centres/mccl

In this episode, Matthew Bell speaks with Sharon Vogel and Shona Frame during their week at Melbourne Law School teaching ‘International Construction Law’ in the Melbourne Law Masters, with a special guest appearance by Dr Donald Charrett.

They cover a smorgasbord of topics, from Indigenous consultation to security of payment, standard forms to the elusive ‘lex constructionis’, and give tips, from their extensive experience in project procurement, dispute avoidance and resolution, to students and others thinking about a career in construction law around the world. 

Find out more:

Melbourne Centre for Commercial Law

Melbourne Master of Construction Law

In this episode, Professor Ali Noroozi gives insights from his decades of practice in tax law and policy into the challenges and possibilities for meaningful tax reform in Australia. This is a particularly acute issue as the Australian government heads towards its 2026 Budget buffeted by the political reality that tax reform inevitably creates ‘winners’ and ‘losers’.

Find out more:

Melbourne Centre for Commercial Law

Melbourne Law School’s tax program

If you have been wondering whether to enrol in Melbourne Law School's Masters program, this episode is for you. Associate Professor Matthew Bell speaks with the Director of the Melbourne Law Masters program, Professor Andrew Godwin. They not only discuss how the program now spans more than 25 specialist practice areas, from banking to medical law, intellectual property to tax, but also about the benefits that the program's multi-disciplinary, intensive learning classrooms bring to lawyers and non-lawyers looking to take the next step in their careers. As an added bonus, Andrew proves just how many strings he has to his bow by telling us about some of his favourite composers (spoiler alert: Mozart doesn't make the list!)

https://law.unimelb.edu.au/study/masters

In this episode, Matthew Bell speaks with Julian Bailey in London and Kim Rosenberg in Dubai. Julian and Kim both did their legal training and spent their early years in practice in Australia, and have gone on to be partners in leading international firms and to make very substantial contributions to the international construction law community through their writings, teaching and involvement with leading professional bodies.

Julian and Kim reflect on how their early days in Australia prepared them for international practice and how they have built and consolidated their careers. They also share tips for how lawyers keen to do a stint overseas (whether a year or two, or more) can leverage their Australian experience.

You can find out more about Julian and Kim via their firm websites:

• https://www.jonesday.com/en/lawyers/b/julian-bailey

• https://www.freshfields.com/en/find-a-lawyer/r/rosenberg-kim

In this episode, host Miranda Stewart is joined in conversation by Peter Harris, Professor of Tax Law at the University of Cambridge and Director of the Centre for Tax Law. With a career spanning many years working for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and as a consultant for the Financing for Development Unit of the United Nations, assisting countries to develop and implement taxation policies has been central to Peter’s work.

At Melbourne Law School, Peter teaches Comparative Corporate Tax into the Melbourne Law Masters.

Inside Commercial Law is a podcast of the Melbourne Centre for Commercial Law at Melbourne Law School. For more information about the Centre, visit our website: ⁠https://law.unimelb.edu.au/centres/mccl

In late 2023, the High Court of Australia struck down the Victorian scheme requiring users of zero and low-emission vehicles (ZLEV) to pay a distance-based charge. It did so on the basis that the scheme imposed a ‘duty of excise’ and therefore impinged on the Commonwealth’s exclusive power under s 90 of the federal Constitution to levy such duties.

This has sent the Australian states and territories back to the drawing board in trying to raise money from ZLEV owners to pay their share of road maintenance funding, bearing in mind that the traditional source of such funding is the Commonwealth’s fuel excise. 

In this episode, Associate Professor Matthew Bell speaks with Professor Miranda Stewart of Melbourne Law School, and Peter Holcombe Henley and Mason Rogers of Clayton Utz about the Court’s decision and its implications. They unpack and explain the decision, noting that it was reached by a bare majority, and explore its implications for Australia’s road revenue and fiscal federalism.   

Links:  

• Zero and Low Emission Vehicle Distance-based Charge Act 2021 (Vic) 

• Vanderstock v Victoria [2023] HCA 30 (18 October 2023) 

• LK Weis, ‘Vanderstock v Victoria: Fiscal Federalism Meets Environmental Constitutionalism?’ (2024) 36(2) Journal of Environmental Law 253