Conceptualising 'charity' parameters - the prism of public benefit

In the wake of proposed Australian statutory reforms on the definition of 'charity', and with this several relatively recent High Court authorities targeting the parameters of charity law, this article investigates how those parameters are impacted upon by the perennial core concept of 'public benefit'. ft highlights that the notion of 'public benefit', via its constituent elements of 'public' and 'benefit', the parameters of which are themselves not always amenable to clarity, represents perhaps the most challenging aspect of defining the parameters of the legal concept of 'charity'.