Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Statute law revision bills are simple but important tools to pursue more effective and accessible laws. The process of reviewing, correcting and updating the body of Commonwealth legislation is a function well executed by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel, which prepares these bills. On occasion, scrutiny of the statute book extends beyond the correction of minor errors and the clearing of obsolete bills. This bill, for example, will ensure that our laws are contemporary by removing references to outdated expressions and gender-specific language. I think they are matters that would meet generally with approval and not be a matter of contest.

The timely corrections and repeals effected by statute law revision bills improve the quality and accuracy of Commonwealth legislation and facilitate the publication of consolidated versions of enactments.

The bill has five schedules. Schedule 1 amends minor and technical errors contained in 18 principal acts, such as incorrect spelling, punctuation or numbering. Schedule 2 amends errors contained in 13 amending acts. Many of these errors are misdescribed amendments that either incorrectly describe the text to be amended or specify the wrong location for the insertion of new text.

Schedule 3 repeals a total of 17 obsolete acts. Part 1 proposes to repeal 15 acts that are administered by the Minister for Transport and Regional Services. Part 2 proposes to repeal two acts that are administered by the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources. Part 3 proposes to remove references to the acts that are repealed by parts 1 and 2.

Schedule 4 repeals obsolete references to the out-of-date terms ‘official manager’ and ‘official management’. Schedule 5 removes gender-specific language from the Customs Act 1901.

There are various commencement dates for the provisions listed in schedules 1 and 2. The effect of the commencement provisions is that the errors are taken to have been corrected immediately after the error was made. All other provisions commence on royal assent.

While none of the amendments proposed by the schedules will alter the content of the law, the bill will improve the quality and public accessibility of Commonwealth legislation.

I commend the legislation to the Committee, and I present the explanatory memorandum to the bill.

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

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In a perfect world it would not be necessary to return to the parliament to correct the wording, or to correct mistakes, in the drafting of legislation. But no matter how efficient the legislative draftsmen are, mistakes will always occur. When you look at the volume of legislation which is processed and which indeed becomes part of the law of this country, it is most remarkable that the Office of Parliamentary Counsel does such a fine job. When you look at the opportunities for error, typos and so on, it really is amazing, relatively speaking, that we have so few.

As was indicated by the honourable member for Wills and by the Attorney-General, this Statute Law Revision Bill (No. 2) 2006 is essentially a housekeeping bill. It is tidying up things that need to be tidied up. It is removing from the statute books things that are no longer relevant and things that are no longer appropriate to remain part of the law of this country. I am pleased that the opposition is not opposing what the government is proposing to do. I saw that the member for Wills, however, did take a sideswipe at the government by suggesting that in some way this government is not interested in urban traffic or transport. I would commend to him the AusLink program. If you look at what the Australian government is spending on matters which traditionally have been the responsibility of the states in the transport area, the inaccuracy of what the honourable member uttered in a throwaway line in his speech becomes very obvious to anyone. The member opposite did seek to criticise some aspects of the legislation and some aspects of the changes brought about by the Statute Law Revision Bill (No. 2) 2006.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to ask the member a question, if I could.

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Would the member for Fisher accept a question?

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wonder whether the member for Fisher could detail for me the amount of money that is being spent in the area that he was referring to and demonstrate to the chamber how the government is actually—

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Shortland will resume her seat. I do not know whether I should encourage the member for Shortland to extend the debate away from the bill; it is a very narrow bill. I call the member for Fisher.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was not expecting the question so I do not have the exact figures here, but I think most people would accept that the Australian government are spending billions of dollars on transport and are not running away from that. We are in effect picking up the slack that the states have left, even though they are now getting every last cent of GST that was supposed to enable them to carry out their constitutional responsibilities. Sadly, they seem to be failing in this area.

The Statute Law Revision Bill (No. 2) 2006 is a fairly narrow bill. It does traverse almost the entire area of government activity. When you go through the explanatory memorandum, it is obvious that acts of parliament dealing with many portfolios are being corrected, altered, changed and varied as appropriate. The Office of Parliamentary Counsel do a very good job and I want to commend them on bringing forward this bill and having gone through all of this legislation, with all of this detail. We are very fortunate to have competent people in the Office of Parliamentary Counsel. This is an important bill. It might not appear to be a bill of great significance, but it is important that we update our legislation so that people going to the statute books of this country are able to see legislation which continues to be relevant to Australia in 2007. I commend to the bill to the chamber.

Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

in reply—I thank the member for Wills for his indication of support for the measure and I thank the member for Fisher for his very supportive comments. He will observe that, listening to the speech of the honourable member for Wills, he and I did take interest in one of the comments, which I will come back to in a few moments.

The first Statute Law Revision Bill was introduced into Commonwealth legislation in 1981. Legislation of this type has been a feature of ensuring that what are traditionally housekeeping issues in relation to legislation are effectively addressed. Parties of both political persuasions have used statute law revision measures to achieve that outcome. So there is nothing unusual about it, but the expansion of it, which covers areas that I identified such as the removal of obsolete and outdated language as well as legislation that is no longer required, takes us beyond mere technical amendments. I would not want to overlook the role of parliamentary counsel in this process; they work under enormous pressure. I know the speed with which they have had to address very major legislation. If you look at the workplace reforms that have recently been implemented, they took an enormous amount of time, I think it required something like three teams of drafters to be able to have that very complex legislation readied.

The member for Wills suggested, in relation to these matters, that legislation is sometimes hastily drafted. Let me say, it is drafted under a great deal of pressure. That does not mean it is hastily drafted. Governments have programs which need to be implemented. People would be critical of us if those matters, which we had foreshadowed as policy initiatives, were not implemented in a timely way but, inevitably, there can be drafting errors. That should not be a reflection on parliamentary counsel. They have a very high level of expertise in this area. Noting and collating errors in existing legislation to ensure that our statute book remains accurate and effective is one of their roles and I think they do it extraordinarily well.

The bill does not change the substantive nature of law, but it is always interesting when people make comments outside of the legislative measures. I did note with interest the rather expansive view that the member for Wills took on the use of Commonwealth powers in areas in which he may have an interest—he identified urban public transport, for instance. It is interesting to note that—in the context in which the Commonwealth is often accused of taking an expansive view, such as in the area of Work Choices, and the opposition is very critical—they have a view that when there are other areas of interest to them an expansive view should be taken. I am sure they would not want to simply hand over buckets of money to the states and hope that issues might be addressed.

Obviously, what the opposition are observing is that we should have Commonwealth oversight in areas where the states have been traditionally responsible, and there are difficulties in relation to that unless you take it over entirely. You have duplication; you have expenditure that has to be made at a Commonwealth level to administer these matters as well as the administration that happens in the states’ hands.

Our view has been—particularly through the GST, which is a growth tax—that the states would be better resourced. I note the recent reports that have demonstrated that the growth tax has grown much more substantially than it was originally thought. It has put the states in a very strong position to be able to undertake their responsibilities more fully, and, I would say in relation to urban public transport, to do so at all. But the fact is they seem to have their own priorities and it seems to me that the proper approach is to see in an election in the states whether or not the priorities that the states have determined are the most appropriate.

I would agree that urban public transport is an area in need of very significant additional resources, but I think the states have made decisions that those resources ought not to be put there and that they ought to be put into areas of public expenditure. I note that, in my own state, it tends to be simply in those areas of administration, and increased funds are being committed to paying those involved in public administration. I suspect that, if the states had been more careful in the way in which they programmed their own expenditure, they would have been better placed to deal with a number of these tasks. I only offer those comments because of the observations by the member for Wills.

Can I return to my starting point and say how much I appreciate the support of the opposition for this measure. From time to time I do make observations that a very substantial proportion of legislation is non-controversial; this is such a measure.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ordered that the bill be reported to the House without amendment.