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by ehnto 1582 days ago
Most laws have some ambiguity, it's the reason we have courts that have the ability to make somewhat arbitrary rulings, so that they can enforce a fair and just outcome that supports, 'the spirit of the law'. It goes both ways too, sometimes someone breaks a law in literal terms, but by the spirit of the law it isn't actually important. Courts dismiss cases of broken laws all the time based on that.

You simply can't codify everything, just like in software, there are bugs in law, and people will take advantage in weird and unusual ways. Courts come in and remedy the outcome of the bug, and that ruling is used in future cases to make better decisions, so you can consider that a hotfix.

> (even when paying more money is against the spirit of the law, that will not matter; only when it's about paying less money)

The literal law is to not pay people below Australia's legal minimum wage. It's not a "target wage", so going over it is obviously not relevant, it is the bare minimum. The spirit of that suite of laws is to stop companies from exploiting workers.