Robert McClelland (Barton, Australian Labor Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the explanatory memorandum to this bill and move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The statute law revision bills are important mechanisms which ensure more effective and accessible laws. The Office of Parliamentary Counsel does an excellent job in reviewing, correcting and updating the body of Commonwealth legislation by preparing these bills. Interestingly, they are often done during an election period, when there is no legislation to work on—so there is some productive work done during those periods.

Scrutiny of the statute book extends beyond the correction of minor errors and the clearing away of obsolete acts. The Statute Law Revision Bill 2008 removes gender specific language, which will ensure that our laws are contemporary.

The timely corrections and repeals of obsolete language effected by statute law revision bills improve the quality and accuracy of Commonwealth legislation and facilitate the publication of consolidated versions of acts. It is a matter of record that the process was undertaken during the period of the former government but has cross-party support and is a very useful and productive exercise.

The bill has four schedules. Schedule 1 amends minor and technical errors contained in principal acts, such as incorrect spelling, punctuation or numbering.

Most of schedule 2 amends errors contained in amending acts and misdescribed or redundant amendments. The remainder of schedule 2 amends errors in cross-references to the Australian Citizenship Act 2007, which came before the parliament in 2005 but was not enacted until 2007. References to the ‘Australian Citizenship Act 2006’ are amended to refer to the ‘Australian Citizenship Act 2007’.

Schedule 3 repeals obsolete acts and makes consequential amendments to provisions of other acts that refer to a repealed act. A large number of these obsolete acts are administered by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and relate to programs that are now finished.

Schedule 4 amends a number of acts to replace gender specific language with gender neutral language.

The effect of the commencement provisions in schedules 1 and 2 is that the errors are taken to have been corrected immediately after the error was made. Schedule 3 commences on royal assent and schedule 4 commences the day after royal assent.

While none of the amendments proposed by the schedules will alter the content of the law, the bill ensures our statute books reflect current social standards and it will improve the quality and public accessibility of Commonwealth legislation.

I express my gratitude to those who were involved in this quite extensive piece of work and I commend the bill to the House.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be speaking on the Statute Law Revision Bill 2008. This is a bill to amend drafting and technical errors in 40 acts, repeal 27 obsolete acts and remove gender specific language from 88 acts. It is one of those run-of-the-mill bills which governments introduce on a regular basis to update legislation. As the Attorney has pointed out, there is very productive work done during the period when we are supposedly doing productive work ourselves in getting re-elected to this place—and when some new members, of course, are getting elected for the first time. It is very exciting for them but not so exciting on this side of the House for those members who have come from the other side!

In fact, I am surprised to see so many members speaking on the Statute Law Revision Bill. There are three speakers to follow me, and I feel somewhat inadequate because I do not intend to speak for very long at all. In fact, I really only wanted to say that obviously the opposition supports this bill. It is an essential tool of government to update Commonwealth statute books and to keep them accurate.

As the Attorney pointed out, there are four schedules to the bill. Schedule 1 makes some minor technical amendments to 26 principal acts. Schedule 2 makes amendments to 14 amending acts. Schedule 3 repeals 27 obsolete acts, particularly for programs that have already been completed and things like the Brigalow Lands Agreement Act 1962 and the Queensland Tobacco Leaf Marketing Board Guarantee Act 1953. I do not think there has been tobacco grown in Queensland for some time. Certainly the government bought out most of the last tobacco farmers in Indi not long before the last federal election, and I do not think there is any tobacco leaf grown in this country at all anymore. There is a list, of course, of all these bills attached to the explanatory memorandum, which the Attorney has just tabled in the House. Schedule 4 removes gender specific language from 88 acts, which is the modern thing to do, apparently. The opposition would like to place on record its support for the bill.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Words have their meaning. I am not going to say that the Statute Law Revision Bill 2008 is akin to the works of Shakespeare or the King James Bible, but certainly words have their meaning. The words in statutes reflect where we are as a society and what we think. I can remember when I was at law school in the late 1970s and early 1980s reading acts of parliament and decisions of judges of the House of Lords and also judges in our courts—the Supreme Court of Queensland and the High Court of Australia—where terminology in relation to women was quite extraordinary. Women were considered chattels or like cattle. This was found in our law. It was extraordinary to think that that is the way that we would treat women and think about ourselves as a society.

So it is propitious that we actually amend the laws on our statute books to reflect contemporary society. I commend the Attorney-General for bringing this bill forward and the previous government because they were involved in this process. Both sides of politics take that approach and I think it is worthy and important. If someone comes and has a look at some of our laws—young law students or high school students doing legal studies—they wonder, ‘What are we doing? Where are we going? What does it say about us as a society?’ So this bill, whilst correcting minor errors and removing obsolete language, really does play an important role.

I am happy to speak on this legislation because it reminds me of my old law school days. Bills of this nature really are acknowledgement of the importance of us being attentive to the operation of law in our statute books. We need to scrutinise and review and monitor our laws to make sure they are up to date. It is about ensuring they are accurate as well.

This bill corrects a catalogue of Commonwealth statutes which are out of date or obsolete or contain errors. The bill is broken into four schedules. The first amends 26 principal acts and the second amends 14 amending acts. Schedule 3 repeals 27 obsolete acts and schedule 4 removes gender specific language from 88 acts. It is not just one or two; we are talking about a lot of acts of parliament that we are amending with the Statute Law Revision Bill. We are really affecting a lot of acts that are on the statute books.

Before I examine the bill in detail, I would like to acknowledge the Office of Parliamentary Counsel. The process of reviewing, correcting and updating the body of Commonwealth legislation is a function that is well executed by the office, which prepares these sorts of bills. It is well served by competent lawyers; it is well served by competent staff. Noting and collating errors in existing legislation ensures that the laws of our land are accurate and effective, and the office does it extraordinarily well.

The Statute Law Revision Bill is simple, but it is an important tool to make sure that our laws are accessible and understandable by young people, mature-age people and older people. This bill improves the quality and accuracy of our Commonwealth legislation and facilitates the publication of consolidated versions of enactments. The bill is part of a continuous process. I pay credit to the other side of the House, as well as to our own, for ensuring that our statute books are free from errors and cleared of obsolete legislation.

The bill contains four schedules, as I said. The first schedule amends minor and technical errors contained in the principal acts. The types of errors proposed for amendment in this schedule are of a minor and technical nature, such as incorrect spelling, punctuation or numbering. Schedule 2 amends errors contained in amending acts, and misdescribed or redundant amendments. Many of these errors are misdescribed amendments; they are inaccurately described text which needs to be amended. Additionally, the schedule amends errors in relation to the cross-references to the Australian Citizenship Act 2007. Schedule 3 repeals obsolete acts and makes consequential amendments to provisions in other acts that refer to repealed acts. Schedule 4 amends a number of acts to replace gender specific language with gender neutral language. The effect of the commencement of the provisions in schedules 1 and 2 is that errors are to be corrected immediately after the error is made. Commencement of schedule 3 will be on royal assent, and schedule 4 commences the day after royal assent.

I had a look at the explanatory memorandum to the bill, and I thought it was fascinating, to be honest. It appeals to me as a lawyer. I thought it was really interesting to see which particular acts of parliament were being amended. Without these amendments, some of these acts of parliament, and the provisions in the sections within them, make absolutely no sense whatsoever. For example, the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 states that a ‘defendant bears and evidential burden’. That simply needs to be corrected; you cannot have that, as it makes no sense whatsoever. Then there is my alma mater, the University of Queensland, at St Lucia: I am sure we would like it to have a capital U, rather than ‘university’ in lower case. There is the same issue in the Australian National University Act 1991.

In section 23 of the Defence Housing Australia Act, there should be a comma after the reference to subsection (1). There is a need for that, because if you look at the section it makes no sense without it. If you look at the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, you see that there is a missing closing bracket after ‘2A’ in section 430(2), and there is a missing full stop after the word ‘official’ in paragraph 486G(3)(b) of the same act.

There are a number of amendments like that. For example, the word ‘the’ is missing in section 11(3) of the Water Act 2007. The word ‘for’ is missing from section 86(1) of the Water Act. This is important because, without the word ‘for’, the phrase reads ‘the Commonwealth is responsible those changes’. What does that mean? It means nothing. It should say that ‘the Commonwealth is responsible for those changes’. Without the amendment, it is useless.

I note that the Brigalow Lands Agreement Act 1962 is very obsolete. It comes from my state of Queensland and it needs to be got rid of.

One of the things that I found absolutely fascinating was the Queensland Flood Relief Act 1974. I was born and raised in Ipswich, and a lot of Ipswich went under flood in 1974. My parent’s house was eight feet under the water, and I remember vividly canoeing while on top of our roof. We had to move twice in 1974 because the floodwaters came up and we had to leave my grandparents’ house as well. Working-class people like my folk would have lost everything but for the Australian Army, who came in with trucks and Army vehicles and took away furniture and other chattels. Otherwise, my parents would have lost absolutely everything in the 1974 flood. So Commonwealth government relief for people in Ipswich and the surrounding areas was extremely important.

The Queensland Flood Relief Act 1974, which allowed the Treasurer at any time before 1 July 1976 to authorise payment of financial assistance to Queensland for the purpose of alleviating the effects of the flood in the state, was extremely helpful. But of course the 1974 flood was a long time ago. I can remember that, when I was a junior lawyer practising in Ipswich in 1983, you always had the requisite question asked in any conveyance: ‘Was your house affected by the 1974 flood?’ We do not do that anymore in Queensland, but it was interesting. That is the extent to which, nine years later, it affected the psyche of the particular area where I lived.

Of course there is no authorisation for repayments and the act is obsolete, but I am very grateful that my parents received assistance and relief in relation to this piece of legislation. Whilst it is obsolete, I am a little sad that it will no longer be in the statute books, because it is a reminder of the fact that my folks and so many of our family and friends received such great assistance through this particular act. It was a tremendous act of parliament and a great initiative, and it goes to show that the Commonwealth parliament has a big role in getting financial assistance to people.

There is a lot of gender specific language that is gotten rid of in this legislation. As the father of two teenage daughters, I believe the amendments are important in ensuring that the sexes are recognised equally under the law. Of course the amendments that are really necessary in the circumstances are that we reflect our legislation as being gender neutral. The importance of this particular aspect is highlighted by the appointment of the new Governor-General. I would like to illustrate this by saying that, in the list of legislation amended by this bill, the bill corrects the Royal Powers Act 1953, which clarifies the Governor-General’s powers when the Queen visits Australia. Following the passage of this bill, the Royal Powers Act 1953 will refer to the Governor-General as ‘himself or herself’—how appropriate in view of the historic decision to appoint Her Excellency Quentin Bryce as the Governor-General.

The Statute Law Revision Bill 2008 is a fascinating bill—as Gareth Evans would have said in 1981, when the first Statute Law Revision Bill entered this House. It is a great innovation. I commend both sides of the House for this rational legislative approach. Whilst this legislation is not controversial, it is generally acknowledged that this type of legislation is important in maintaining the process of orderly, accurate and up-to-date Commonwealth statute books. This is an omnibus bill. It is important that we do this in a timely way and do it regularly. While none of the amendments proposed will alter the contents of the law, except as I have noted, the bill will improve the quality and accessibility of our Commonwealth legislation. I commend the bill to the House.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In preparing for my entry to parliament, between the election and when parliament started I read the biography of the Hon. James Killen, who was a former member for Moreton and a great orator. I read with great enthusiasm a lot of the exchanges in the cut and thrust of parliament, but the legislation before us now is not something that would generate much of that sort of banter. I have been a native title adviser, a mines adviser and a health adviser, and I have worked in industrial law and commercial law, and I would have to say, with respect to the Attorney-General, that this is one of the most boring pieces of legislation I have ever encountered. But for the fact of its contribution to fairness in terms of gender neutral language, it probably would obtain that title.

The Statute Law Revision Bill 2008 runs the ruler over the Commonwealth legislation to improve its quality and accuracy. It is part of the continual process of review that ensures our Commonwealth laws are up to date and reflect the highest standards. Prior to coming into parliament, I spent 11 years as an English teacher and about 10 years as a lawyer. Obviously standards, words and accuracy are very important for an English teacher and also for a lawyer, and I had a look at the make-up of the House of Representatives and the Senate to see how many other people had been teachers or lawyers. There are about 21 teachers, 13 female and eight male; and there are 48 former barristers, solicitors or lawyers, 35 male and 13 female. So obviously the people in this House do spend a lot of time focusing their minds on being accurate.

Robert McClelland (Barton, Australian Labor Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr McClelland interjecting

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will take that interjection from the Attorney-General. If nothing else, this experience developed in me as an English teacher—and I am sure in my colleagues from teaching and law backgrounds—a keen eye for detail, especially when it comes to language and grammar. As my staff will attest, I am a bit of a stickler when it comes to accurate spelling and correct grammar.

One of the ways we can ensure high standards of literacy among our children is to make sure that we do our best to get it right every single time. That is why I think it is especially important that public documents and certainly Commonwealth legislation are of the highest standard and accuracy. Some members may think that this bill is insignificant—and I do not want to take anything away from the member for Blair’s previous praise of the legislation—because the legislation is merely making technical corrections to legislation without altering the content of the law.

I am sure we will debate much more important legislation than this. However, minor technical errors can sometimes hang around and before you know it they are here to stay. In fact my mother’s maiden name of Morrissy is misspelt because when someone came to Australia they obviously knew their last name but did not know how to spell it—either that or I come from a long line of dyslexics or bad spellers; I am not sure. Also my electorate of Moreton—as you would be well aware, Deputy Speaker Bird—is spelt M-o-r-e-t-o-n, but it was actually named after the Earl of Morton, which is spelt M-o-r-t-o-n. Somewhere in history it was misspelt, perhaps by one of my ancestors, and therefore Moreton gained an ‘e’ and that is how it has remained ever since.

This bill contains four schedules to amend or repeal more than 150 acts. Schedule 1 amends minor and technical errors contained in principal acts. The kinds of corrections we are talking about here concern spelling, punctuation and numbering. Schedule 2 amends errors contained in amending acts and misdescribed or redundant amendments. This schedule also corrects errors in cross-references to the Australian Citizenship Act 2007. This act has been incorrectly described as the Australian Citizenship Act 2006. The Australian Citizenship Bill was introduced in November 2005 and was given assent in March 2007. However, the act was incorrectly labelled the Australian Citizenship Act 2006—something to get some of my former law lecturers frothing at the mouth but probably not something that has grabbed the imagination of the Australian public. Schedule 3 repeals obsolete acts and makes consequential amendments to provisions of other acts that refer to a repealed act. Finally, schedule 4 amends a number of acts to replace gender specific language with gender neutral language. It includes more than 500 amendments to 88 acts.

I understand that there is still some work to be done to ensure Commonwealth legislation is contemporary and free from inappropriate gender-specific language. Of course, this involves a review of all legislation passed since Federation. However, no matter how onerous, the parliament must lead by example in this regard. I commend the work done by the former government to kick off some of this.

Just as we have passed legislation in this House to amend laws discriminating against same-sex couples, so we must ensure we use inclusive language for all. Obviously our language defines our culture. Language is a very powerful tool, Deputy Speaker—which is why I use the term ‘Deputy Speaker’, which is gender neutral language. I know other people use gender specific language, but I believe that you are a Deputy Speaker and therefore we should address you as such. Language defines our culture in so many ways, so we must give good examples. We must ensure that everybody is recognised equally by the law. Nobody would expect any less of the parliament.

The Legislative Instruments Act 2003 includes measures to achieve high drafting standards, particularly with regard to gender inclusive language. It requires the secretary to take steps to prevent the inappropriate use of gender specific language in legislative instruments, to advise rule makers of inappropriate use of gender specific language in legislative instruments that have already been made and to notify both houses of parliament when a rule maker is so advised.

I take you back to that list of former barristers, solicitors and lawyers in the current parliament and note that the make-up is 35 men and 13 women. In our law schools, that is not the case. The majority of law students are actually female, my wife being one of them. However, the senior boardrooms of our top law firms do not reflect that, do not reflect a majority of females, so in some small way this legislative process that the Attorney-General has commenced is sending a good message to our female law students.

In closing, I wish to acknowledge the Office of Parliamentary Counsel for drafting this bill. Even for a grammatical stickler like me, this kind of review of Commonwealth legislation is a tedious task, but the Office of Parliamentary Counsel has done an outstanding job. I also thank the Attorney-General for his input and for introducing this bill and I hope he will forgive my earlier comments! I commend the bill to the House.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Despite the overtly uncontroversial nature of this legislation, the Statute Law Revision Bill 2008 does make important changes to ensure effective and accessible laws for the Australian public. Like all statute law revision legislation, it amends minor and technical errors in acts, it amends and removes errors within existing acts and it updates acts to remove descriptions of defunct and completed programs.

The greatest significance of this bill is that it will also amend a number of acts to remove gender specific language and replace it with gender neutral language in over 500 changes in 88 different acts. Examples of such language include using the term ‘chair’ as opposed to ‘chairperson’ or ‘chairman’ when establishing new officers. It is also important to avoid gender specific words such as ‘policeman’ and replace them with neutral terms such as ‘police officer’. As law makers of this country we should seek to simplify the laws we enact to make them accessible to the public but we should also seek to ensure that the language we use to draft laws is gender neutral. We do not wish to reinforce gender stereotypes.

Sandra Peterson of the Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, in a paper she wrote in theStatute Law Review in 1999, compared gender neutral drafting in Commonwealth jurisdictions ranging from the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Canada to Australia. She describes the reform that has occurred as being at two levels throughout these jurisdictions; the first level is through the amendment of interpretation legislation, whilst the second has been the adoption of gender neutral language policies. An example of the first level of reform is section 23 of the Acts Interpretation Act, which is the provision that says ‘words importing a gender include every other gender’, which Peterson calls the ‘all gender rule’. This was introduced in 1984 by the Labor government, followed by New South Wales in 1987, Queensland in 1991, Victoria in 1993 and Western Australia in 1994. The intent of amending that act to reflect the provision I have just read out was summarised by former Labor Attorney-General Gareth Evans as intended to alter ‘this sexist way of dealing with matters of gender’. It is well known that, within older legislation, individuals are still referred to in male-specific terms.

The all-gender approach in the Acts Interpretation Act is an important step in limiting the potential for any ambiguity in the interpretation of law, but interpretation legislation, as the name suggests, is only about aiding judges and decision makers in understanding legislation. It does not direct how legislation should be drafted, and this underlines the key importance of adopting gender neutral language to ensure that gender neutral terms are continually introduced.

The law and policy development of gender neutral language has unfortunately been stunted at times by different administrations. The Howard government in 1997 attempted to roll back the term ‘chairperson’, to be replaced by the gender specific ‘chairman’ when introducing the Productivity Commission Bill into the parliament. This has allowed a slow creep of such terms back into the common vernacular. Section 18 of the Acts Interpretation Act now lists ‘chair’, ‘chairperson’, ‘chairman’ and ‘chairwoman’ for how chairs and deputy chairs may be referred to, which I would suggest shows the somewhat hypocritical manner in which the gender neutral policy of drafting executed by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel is contrasted with a gender specific statute. As the Australian Law Reform Commission stated in its 1994 report entitled Equality before the law: justice for women:

… the existence of a policy does not … mean that it is always implemented.

The policy, as found in drafting direction No. 2.1, released in May 2007 by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel, provides guidance to the drafters with regard to gender neutral language. Interestingly, it refers to the use of the third person singular when drafting—that is, not using pronouns and instead repeating the noun. It also provides policy direction, against the former Prime Minister’s wishes, to use the term ‘chair’ or ‘chairperson’ instead of ‘chairman’. There is also a discussion as to whether to include feminine pronouns when drafting. There is recognition by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel that there are many masculine pronouns on the statute book without equivalent female pronouns. Some of these are not amended as they refer to other documents or agreements which have gender specific language, the acts have little or no future operation or the acts refer to masculine pronouns deliberately for a policy purpose. An example of this would be the use of the term ‘seaman and masters’ in the Navigation Act, which is required due to the many relevant international treaties and agreements.

The Hon. Jack Straw, current Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary in the United Kingdom, referred to gender neutral language as having no more than a reasonable cost to brevity or intelligibility. In March 2007 the British Labour government introduced gender neutral drafting policies into the British parliament.

I take this opportunity to commend the Office of Parliamentary Counsel for their work in collating these changes. Understandably there are probably many more to do, but this is an active attempt to start the process of changing language and how it affects the way in which the law is interpreted.

This amendment, though uncontroversial and highly technical, has the opportunity to change the manner and form of laws that as law makers in this place we deal with on an everyday basis. This is good progress to ensure that our statute books are gender neutral, and I look forward to seeing many more of these changes put in place in future. I commend this bill to the House.

Robert McClelland (Barton, Australian Labor Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

in reply—I would like to sincerely thank the honourable members for their contributions to the debate on the Statute Law Revision Bill 2008. In summary, all regarded this as a very worthwhile piece of legislation—not all that exciting but very important. The statute law revision bills are important and practical mechanisms for updating Commonwealth legislation and enhancing its quality and accessibility. Minor drafting and clerical errors are bound to find their way into our legislation, given the volume of bills passing through the parliament. It is of note that most bills have passed with bipartisan support. The areas of conflict are relatively small in the overall scheme of things.

Regular review of our legislation allows for the prompt correction of these mistakes and errors. These bills also allow for the removal from the statute book of expired laws, which ensures that the body of Commonwealth legislation is kept up to date and is not cluttered by obsolete acts. They ensure that our laws reflect contemporary social standards by amending statutes containing gender specific language to produce a statute book that is gender neutral and more inclusive. This government continues with the tradition of supporting statute law revision bills.

The Office of Parliamentary Counsel has displayed a high level of expertise in the initiation and preparation of this bill to make sure that in the future our statute book remains as accurate and as effective as it can possibly be. We commend the office for the quality of its work on this bill.

While the bill does not change the substance of the law, it is an important responsibility of any government to carry out the passage of a statute law revision bill. Once again, I thank speakers and commend the bill to the Committee.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

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