Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

I rise on behalf of the opposition to speak in support of the Statute Law Amendment (Prescribed Forms and Other Updates) Bill 2023. This bill will make minor amendments across 85 Commonwealth acts. These types of bills come before parliament from time to time. Indeed, in 2021 the former coalition government introduced a very similar bill, which lapsed at the end of the 46th Parliament.

There are six schedules in this bill. Schedule 1 aims to reduce the number of provisions that require the use of forms that are prescribed by regulations. By way of example, one of the items in this schedule will see an amendment to the Health Insurance Act of 1974 to remove the words 'prescribed form' and substitute 'approved form'. The amendments in schedule 1 amend provisions to replace forms prescribed by regulations with other approaches, such as empowering regulations to directly mandate the requirements themselves and empowering ministers and other senior decision-makers to approve forms by notifiable instruments, which is consistent with the view of the Attorney-General's Department that prescribed or approved forms should appear on the Federal Register of Legislation. This is in keeping with modern drafting practices.

The main purpose of schedule 2 is to update language relating to persons with disability to focus on the person rather than the disability across numerous pieces of Commonwealth legislation. These updates do not change the meaning of the relevant provisions. Updates give effect to the recommendations by Economic Justice Australia in its August 2022 research report, 'Handicapped': use of outdated terminology in social security law and policy.

Schedule 3 will amend Commonwealth acts that refer to Northern Territory acts to reflect changes that the Northern Territory made to citing its acts. This, again, will change neither the purpose nor the intent of legislation.

Schedules 4 to 6 make amendments to remove technical errors across numerous pieces of legislation and to release obsolete acts or spent and obsolete provisions of acts.

In conclusion, as we know, from time to time drafting errors occur or obsolete provisions of acts do not get repealed when they are replaced. Provisions to clean up these errors are routine. The amendments in schedules 4 to 6 enhance readability, facilitate interpretation and administration and promote consistency across the Commonwealth statute book. The changes in this bill are minor and technical and do not impact the intent of any statute. Accordingly, they will not change the meaning of the relevant legislation except to the extent that they reduce the reliance on forms prescribed in regulations. I commend the bill to the House.

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