Part II - This brief introduction to Part 2 is designed to set the stage for the detailed chapters that follow, each of which examines various parts of the Australian Consumer Law of relevance to commercial law. Commercial law, unlike many other areas of law, is not driven by a single defining doctrinal idea; rather, it is driven by the relevance of selected legal topics to commercial life. There are certain ideas that are recurrent within commercial law, such as reasonableness, good faith and bad faith, the need to protect innocent parties, reliance and legitimate expectations. However, none of these ideas defines an entire area of law or forms the basis for the existence of those laws in the first place. Most areas of commercial law exist because the demands of commerce require a set of rules to regulate the interactions of the players within that field. Consumer law is no different, and its centrality to commercial life makes it a proper sub-field for study within commercial law.

This chapter considers the centrality of price to the contract for the sale of good. In particular, it examines the role of the price in the contract’s certainty of terms, the exceptions to this requirement, and the operation of those exceptions. The statutory provisions for determining a price in a contract that is silent on the term are examined, as are the leading cases. Contracts for the sale of goods are defined and distinguished from contracts in which goods are exchanged partly for a money consideration, and partly in exchange for other goods. The chapter also examines when such agreement may constitute a contract for the sale of goods, and when it constitutes a barter contract. The performance of the contract of sale is then examined in terms of the reciprocal obligations of payment and delivery. The wrongful performance of both payment and delivery is considered. The chapter then examines the remedies available to the buyer and the seller for breaches of payment or delivery, depending on whether the breach is of a condition or a warranty, and the defences to claims by either party against the other.

This chapter deals with unconscionable conduct in the context of commercial law. There are a number of statutory schemes that regulate unconscionable conduct in the commercial sphere. The Australian Consumer Law (ACL), contained in Schedule 2 to the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) (CCA), provides a broad-ranging scheme that covers most commercial dealings within which unconscionable conduct may occur. Financial services and financial products are regulated under the Australian Securities and Investments Commission [ASIC] Act 2001 (Cth). The ASIC Act provided a statutory scheme regulating unconscionable conduct concerning financial services in trade or commerce. This chapter primarily deals with the unconscionable conduct regime set out by the ACL. The scheme has arguably the most direct application to commercial law as it governs the interactions between corporations and consumers and small businesses. The chapter first examines the equitable doctrine of unconscionable conduct, from which all the statutory regimes are derived, before considering ss 20–22 of the ACL.

Knowing your learner means more than being able to list the facts of their age, gender, socio-cultural demographics and report grades. This chapter’s fertile question invites you to consider what other factors need to be understood, and how we can go about gathering and acting upon this knowledge.

This chapter’s fertile question invites you to challenge the assumption that planning for learning primarily involves the production of a written plan for an activity, lesson or program of work. While the written plan is an important product of planning, it is the process of planning, rather than the final document, that determines the success of the learning experience.

Stories are an everyday part of our lives: we make sense of the world through the stories we hear and tell. This chapter explores how you can build on your experience in storytelling and your knowledge of expository writing to write thought-provoking case stories. You will learn about the benefits of dividing story writing into two processes: ‘writing it down’ or gathering observations, and ‘writing it up’ or drawing conclusions and making compositional decisions. Separating observations from conclusions enables you to create stories that are rich in layers of detail. These details make them more ‘real’, and better represent the complex web of conditions and participants’ perspectives that characterise teaching situations. After reviewing the elements of narrative, you will learn to use a simple five-step model, the ‘SISDA’ steps, to help select, develop and refine your case story. You will also explore three variants of the SISDA steps. Opportunities for collaboration in writing and refining case stories will be highlighted throughout the chapter.

At the heart of this chapter’s fertile question is the recognition that effective professional relationships are built – only rarely do they ‘grow themselves’ – and that a range of resources need to be in place for development to happen.

You might be tempted to skip or skim this chapter and jump straight into the case stories. This is understandable as the whole premise of this book is that learning through stories is often more inviting than learning with discursive texts. However, if you do choose to jump into the case stories first, you need to return to this chapter later in order to stand back and see the broader landscape across which you are travelling as you read and write case stories. This metacognitive distance will deepen your understanding of the ways case learning helps you build your skills in problem solving, perspective taking and conditional thinking, which in turn will help you better develop these foundational skills of reflective teaching practice.

This chapter’s fertile question invites you to challenge the assumption that all assessment is meaningful, in that it supports student learning. When assessment is undertaken as an afterthought to learning, or conversely, if teaching is driven by the needs of high-stakes standardised testing, students and their learning are disadvantaged.

Knowing the content of a learning area as a teacher is a different kind of knowledge to knowing the content as a learner. This chapter’s fertile question asks you to consider not only what kinds and how much content you need to know in order to teach it, but how you need to know it.

At the heart of this chapter’s fertile question is the recognition that meeting the needs of diverse learners involves making decisions based on a shifting range of variables that include: 1) understanding who your diverse learners are, 2) recognising what their needs are in a particular context, and 3) knowing how you can meet their needs by selecting appropriate cognitive, socio-emotional or behavioural approaches.