After each election, new members of federal parliament are given a briefing about the workings of the nation’s peak law making body.

Recent events have made it clear that these briefings need to spend more time spelling out the difference between arbitrary rule and legitimate decision making.

It might also be useful for new ministers to consider what Justice Steven Rares had to say about how administrative law – and that means the judiciary – can intervene if public administration runs off the rails.

Before his retirement from the Federal Court, Rares gave a remarkable paper on administrative decision making that has taken on a new relevance after environment minister Tanya Plibersek effectively killed off a $1 billion gold mine.

“The rule of law assumes that public power will be exercised reasonably,” Rares wrote in 2014.

“That is because the arbitrary, capricious, unjustified and inadequately justified use of the power of the state is a hallmark of tyranny and the antithesis of the rule of law.”

That does not mean judges will intervene to replace administrative decisions. But they will strike down those in which the decision maker did not comply with the law.

Broadly, that means ministers and other administrative decision makers should not take account of irrelevant considerations, while ensuring they do take account of relevant considerations.

They are also required to provide procedural fairness and that includes giving people an opportunity to put their case and respond to proposed adverse decisions.

These requirements are not aimed at preventing governments from giving effect to their political agendas. But it does require them to act fairly and lawfully.

This lies at the heart of the dispute over the $1 billion gold mine at Blayney, west of Bathurst in NSW, that has been killed by Plibersek.

It also lies at the heart of an earlier decision by resources minister Maleleine King that prevents the development of the $8 billion uranium deposit at Jabiluka in the Northern Territory.

The Albanese government has every right to seek to implement its policies – even when those policies are considered by some to be wrongheaded.

But it does not have a right to implement those policies through administrative measures that are unfair, biased or unlawful.

That would indeed put this country on the road to tyranny. We would no longer be governed by law, but by the whim of elected authoritarians.

When Plibersek throttled the gold mine, she was ostensibly relying on section 10 of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Act.

This does not mean she can do as she likes.

Parliament entrusted her with the authority to prevent developments that are inconsistent with Aboriginal tradition or which would harm the use or significance of a particular location.

Now consider what happened and decide for yourself whether all relevant matters had been considered, or whether this gold mine was killed after the minister took account of an irrelevant matter.

The Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council, which has legal cultural authority over the site, wants the mine to go ahead and says there would be no impact on areas of cultural significance.

This was clearly relevant.

But can that be said about the anti-mine views of another Indigenous group, unknown to the local Indigenous community, that has no cultural responsibility for the mine site?

The fate of the gold mine – and the decision-making process – would not have been missed by anyone considering investing in this country.

But if that process looks wobbly, what are we to make of the process that led to the government killing any prospect of developing an $8 billion uranium mine at Jabiluka in the Northern Territory?

At the request of the federal government, the former Labor government of the Northern Territory rejected an application from Energy Resources of Australia to extend a lease over the Jabiluka deposit.

Last month ERA won an injunction preventing the NT government from stripping the company of its lease, pending a full hearing on October 28.

The reason? The Federal Court found the decision to refuse the renewal of the lease could have been due to an abuse of process.

And that brings us to a curious incident that is outlined in an affidavit filed in the Federal Court by ERA’s chief executive, Brad Welsh.

It relates how Welsh struggled to obtain a meeting with resources minister King and was eventually invited to a 30-minute meeting on June 28.

For the first 20 minutes, King was not present.

The affidavit says King asked no questions and did not respond to any issues that had been raised by Welsh.

It says she did not advise him the government was considering expanding Kakadu National Park to include Jabiluka and did not advise him that traditional owners had objected to the renewal of the lease.

It says he was not asked to provide further submissions and was not provided with the objections of the traditional owners.

In the circumstances, it should come as no surprise that ERA’s legal action alleges that the company was denied procedural fairness.

The company’s application for judicial review says King and the Commonwealth failed to disclose credible, relevant, adverse and significant information.

They had also failed to give ERA a reasonable opportunity to be heard or to give the company an opportunity to know the relevant issues on which the government’s decision would turn.

If this challenge succeeds, ERA wants an order from the Federal Court declaring that its lease over the Jabiluka deposit remains in force.

That would be an ominous sign for Plibersek.