According to LawCite, Craig v South Australia has been cited the seventeenth most times of any High Court decision.

Crown counsel conveyed their instructions from the Attorney-General that the government did not intend to provide Craig with legal aid.

South Australia then applied at the Supreme Court to have Judge Russel's order quashed by writ of certiorari.

At least in the absence of a contrary intent in the statute or other instrument which established it, an administrative tribunal lacks authority either to authoritatively determine questions of law or to make an order or decision otherwise than in accordance with the law... [C]onstitutional limitations arising from the doctrine of the separation of judicial and executive powers may preclude legislative competence to confer judicial power upon an administrative tribunal.

If such an administrative tribunal falls into an error of law which causes it to identify a wrong issue, to ask itself a wrong question, to ignore relevant material, to rely on irrelevant material or, at least in some circumstances, to make an erroneous finding or to reach a mistaken conclusion, and the tribunal’s exercise or purported exercise of power is thereby affected, it exceeds its authority or powers.

Such a mistake on the part of an inferior court entrusted with authority to identify, formulate and determine such issues and questions will not, however, ordinarily constitute jurisdictional error.

This is due to the High Court's decision in Craig not to follow the UK line of authority articulated in Anisminic; which among other things, abolished the distinction between jurisdictional and non-jurisdictional error.