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16of special contribution is therefore a necessary exception to the usualpractice of the Court in quantifying the homemaker contribution as beingequal to the efforts of the other spouse in earning income during thecourse of the marriage.” 4433. The next significant case is that of Norbis v Norbis 45 where the High Courtrevisited some of the concepts it had examined in Mallet, but the decisiondid not take special contributions any further. It is significant in that wherea differently constituted High Court majority in Mallet had decided that theuse of “starting points” and “guidelines” placed restraint on judicialdiscretion, the majority in Norbis determined that guidelines were anappropriate, necessary and useful tool for first instance decision making.The judgment also stands as the leading case whether, in propertydivision, a trial judge should either look at each asset, “asset by asset” oradopt a “global” approach to the assets when altering the propertyinterests of the parties.34. In Norbis, the parties were married for 30 years. After buying, developingand selling real property for some time, at separation, the parties eitherjointly or separately owned six properties. At first instance the trial judgesplit the interest in five of the properties 60/40 in favour of the husband,and the sixth property was also split 60/40, favouring the wife. On appealthe Full Court expressed the view that it was not appropriate to separateoff individual assets and in a marriage of long duration a global view of theassets of the parties should be taken.35. In a comment on contributions, Mason and Deane JJ expressed thefollowing:44 P. Parkinson ‘Quantifying the Homemaker Contribution in Family Property Law’ supra at p 2645 (1986) 161 CLR 513; (1986) FLC 91-712