following day. The action against Gillespie was brought under s 3 of the Common Informers (Parliamentary Disqualifications) Act. This statute is a substitute for Constitution s 46 as authorised by that section. It provides that any person (known as a "common informer") can bring an action for a penalty against a Member of Parliament for sitting in Parliament while disqualified from doing so. During the proceeding, a question arose as to whether a common informer action could be brought against a Member of Parliament without a prior finding by the Court of Disputed Returns or the relevant House of Parliament. The High Court decided unanimously on 21 March 2018 that the Common Informers Act does not confer jurisdiction to determine the eligibility of a member: such jurisdiction is conferred exclusively by Constitution s 47 as substituted by s 376 of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 and can exercised only upon a referral by the Parliament to the High Court under s 376; therefore the proceeding under the Common Informers Act "should be stayed until the question whether the defendant is incapable of sitting is determined" following such a referral. The Parliament has not made a referral with respect to Gillespie. Peter Dutton (2018) A Federal Court challenge to a migration decision made by Peter Dutton as Minister for Home Affairs claimed that the decision was invalid because he was disqualified under Constitution s 44(v). It was claimed that he had a pecuniary interest in an agreement with the public service of the Commonwealth, consisting of an interest in a childcare business that received a Commonwealth government subsidy. He had previously resisted Labor attempts to secure a referral to the High Court on this ground; Labor and he had produced conflicting legal advice. Government lawyers contended that the Federal Court does not have jurisdiction regarding parliamentary eligibility. The challenge was dismissed on 16 August 2019, the court finding that it was "not appropriate to grant a potentially indefinite stay on the basis of a purely hypothetical sequence of events" and commenting: "A fundamental difficulty with the applicant’s argument is that the relief sought is as against the minister in his ministerial capacity, rather than as against the minister personally". Exemptions The office of Ministers of State are one category exempted from disqualification under subsection (iv). This exemption is necessary because Constitution s 64 requires a federal Minister (at least after three