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This paper focuses on a statutory provision common to Australian, New Zealand and Canadian personal property securities legislation which requires a grantor of a security interest generally to have 'rights in the collateral' before a security interest can attach to that collateral. It analyses the extent to which a particular construction of that provision, initially developed by Canadian courts and commentators in the context of certain lease transactions and now applied in New Zealand, may and should colour construction of the equivalent Australian legislation. The paper argues that 'new learning', which holds the interest of a lessee sufficient to enable a security interest to attach to leased goods, is capable of achievement through different reasoning to that currently adopted by New Zealand courts. Such reasoning has significant implications for understanding when a security interest may attach to personal property more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]