Ah wonderful world of legal authority clarified by my learned colleagues.
Just to clarify as to the 'v', you can do it this way: "v." (it's the more old-fashioned way of doing it). Another variation still commonly used is: "-v-". Note for the purposes of assignments and exams, it is appropriate to use "v" by itself. The dashes are I note are used in legal practice.
Another variation of showing parties names in legal practice is noting who is suing who. E.g.
The Queen v Lavender (meaning the Crown has taken Lavender to court).
Lavender -ats- The Queen ('ats' means 'at the suit of', hence Lavender is responding at the suit of the Crown.)
The latter is commonly used during legal proceedings.
As for the reports, Moonlight Sonata hit the nail on the head! The CLR is the official Law Report of the High Court and published by Lawbook Co. The ALR I think is released by Lexis Nexis and is not an authorised version (as Melsc noted). Do note sometimes that the CLR does not publish all of the High Court's cases and so you may need to refer to the ALR. If the two versions exist, go with the CLR.
AustLII is an online source and requires medium neutral citation. Many important cases are not reported (e.g. Ermogenous v Greek Orthodox Community (Re: Intention to Create Legal Relations) - how can the Reports leave this one out??? - Kirby J didn't even dissent).
I actually like referring to cases, it shows that you know what you are talking about and that a judge would say you are right. I have to say its annoying have multiple cases when mooting.
