Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Hansard source

The main purpose of the Statute Law Revision Bill (No. 2) 2006 is to correct technical errors that have occurred in acts as a result of drafting and clerical mistakes. It also repeals a number of acts and provisions of acts which have become obsolete. These corrections and repeals are considered to be desirable to improve the quality of the text of Commonwealth legislation and to facilitate the publication of the consolidated versions of the acts. As far as we understand it, none of the corrections make any change to the substance of the law and so we will not be opposing this legislation.

I take this opportunity to make reference to a few of the provisions in order to give the House a feel for the content of the legislation. The issue of commencement of the legislation is covered by clause 2. In order to be clear about the location of text in the Workplace Relations Act 1996 that is being amended by items in schedule 1, the commencement of those items is tied to the commencement of schedule 5 of the Workplace Relations Amendment (Work Choices) Act 2005. The effect of this is that the error is taken to have been corrected immediately after that act was renumbered.

The items in schedule 2 mostly amend misdescriptions in amending acts. There are a small number of items amending other errors in amending acts. In order to correct the misdescription, it is necessary to amend the amending act rather than the principal act and to treat the correction as having occurred immediately after the time specified in the amending act for the commencement of the misdescribed item.

The items in schedule 3 repeal obsolete acts and make consequential amendments to any acts that refer to those acts. These items commence on the day on which this act receives the royal assent. The items in schedule 4 repeal obsolete references to official managers and official management. These items are all to commence on the day on which this act receives the royal assent. The items in schedule 5 remove occurrences of gender-specific language from the Customs Act 1901 and replace them with gender-neutral language. These items also commence on the day on which this act receives the royal assent.

I turn to item 11. It makes reference to the fact that subsection 93D(1) of the Federal Magistrates Act 1999 incorrectly provides for the chief executive officer of the Federal Magistrates Court to authorise an officer or staff member of the Family Court to provide family counselling under the Family Law Act 1975. Officers and staff members of the Family Court can already be authorised by the chief executive officer of the Family Court to provide family counselling under one of the subsections of the Family Law Act 1975. Item 11 amends subsection 93D(1) of the Federal Magistrates Act to provide for the CEO of the Federal Magistrates Court to authorise an officer or staff member of the Federal Magistrates Court to provide such counselling.

Item 30—and indeed quite a few items in this bill—deals with the workplace relations legislation. Item 33 of schedule 16 to the Workplace Relations and Other Legislation Amendment Act 1996 repealed division 2 of part XIV of the Workplace Relations Act. That division used to contain divisions relating to the Industrial Relations Court of Australia. It contained sections 365 and 366, which dealt with the payment of salaries to the judges of that court. Section 358 of the Workplace Relations Act provided for the consolidated revenue fund to be appropriated to the extent necessary for payment of items under sections 365 and 366. The Workplace Relations and Other Legislation Amendment Act 1996 did not remove the references to sections 365 and 366 when it repealed division 2 of part XIV. Item 30 removes the incorrect references to sections 365 and 366.

Again, item 38 deals with the Work Choices legislation. Paragraphs 91(a) and (b) of schedule 6 to the Workplace Relations Act refer to subclause 105(1). However, clause 105 of schedule 6 is not in fact divided into subclauses and item 38 corrects those references. Quite a few of the items in the statute law legislation refer to Work Choices legislation and it is obviously important that legislation like this is not hastily drafted or done on the run.

Schedule 3 refers to the repeal of obsolete acts, and there are quite a few of them. For example, item 11 repeals the National Rail Corporation Agreement Act 1992, item 14 repeals the Ships (Capital Grants) Act 1987 and item 15 repeals the States Grants (Urban Public Transport) Act 1974. I note in passing that this act extended to moneys that were being paid in the years 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976 and 1977 on projects to improve the quality, capacity, efficiency or frequency of the public transport system of a major city. It is regrettable that the Commonwealth these days does not seem to take any interest in urban public transport and that some of the transport problems of our cities—to say nothing of greenhouse gas emissions—would be reduced if it did.

Item 16 repeals the Bounty (Ships) Act 1989. Item 17 repeals the Sydney 2000 Games (Indicia and Images) Protection Act 1996. We also have the repeal of the Australian Capital Territory Taxation (Administration) Act 1969, the National Rail Corporation Agreement Act 1992 and the Pay-roll Tax (Territories) Assessment Act 1971. These are just some of the pieces of legislation that have been rendered obsolete over the years, and the statute law bill has the effect of repealing these pieces of obsolete legislation. I indicate that the opposition will not be opposing the legislation and will be supporting it through the House.

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