Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to talk briefly on the Statute Law Revision Bill. This bill is to correct technical errors caused by drafting and clerical mistakes, to repeal obsolete provisions in acts, to modernise language and to make other technical amendments to the legislation. Bills of this nature are traditionally non-controversial and receive the support of parliament because they are regarded as an essential tool in the process of keeping the Commonwealth statute books accurate and up to date. The acts to be repealed are self-evidently obsolete and have been repealed by the legislation. Of the acts to be amended, most of the proposals relate to spelling, grammatical and technical errors and the removal of gender-specific language.

The amendments will replace specific legislative references with generic ones. This will make Commonwealth legislation easier to use. The bill also proposes amendments to ensure consistency of language and correct technical errors. A number of obsolete acts are also repealed.

This parliament has a strong tradition of passing statute law revision bills in a bipartisan manner since they were introduced by the Fraser government in 1981. In a second reading speech to the Statute Law Revision Bill 1981 the then Liberal Party Attorney-General, Senator Durack, said:

The government has decided to introduce statute law revision bills into the parliament on a regular basis—at least once a year and if required once in each sitting. This will enable the prompt correction of mistakes and errors and removal from the statute books of expired laws.

Bills of this nature are regarded as an essential tool in the process of keeping the Commonwealth statute books accurate and up-to-date. It is self-evident that the opposition would not be opposing such a cleaning up exercise and I am therefore happy to highlight the opposition's support for this bill.

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