House of Representatives

Explanatory Memorandum

Circulated By Authority of the Hon Robert Mcclelland MP, Attorney-General

Notes on clauses

Clause 1 - Short title

8 Clause 1 provides for the Act to be cited as the Statute Law Revision Act 2009 .

Clause 2 - Commencement

9 Clause 2 provides for the commencement of the Act.

10 Subclause 2(1) provides that each provision of the Act specified in column 1 of the table set out in the subclause commences, or is taken to have commenced, in accordance with column 2 of the table. Any other statement in column 2 has effect according to its terms.

11 The note at the end of the table explains that the table relates only to the provisions of the Act as originally passed by both Houses of the Parliament and assented to. The table will not be expanded to deal with provisions inserted in the Act after assent.

12 Subclause 2(2) provides that column 3 of the table contains additional information that is not part of the Act. It also clarifies that information in column 3 may be added or edited in any published version of the Act.

13 The items in Schedule 1 to the Bill amend errors in principal Acts. All items in the Schedule (other than item 27) commence on the day this Act receives the Royal Assent. This is because the "slip rule" will have been applied to each error since the enactment of the erroneous provision. This means that the text of the law will have been taken to have been correct, despite the error.

14 Current Commonwealth drafting practice is to avoid retrospective commencement where practicable. Given the application of the slip rule, it is appropriate for these amendments to commence on Royal Assent. The amendments ensure that the text of the law accords with how it would be interpreted.

15 Other amendments relate to errors in numbering, grammatical errors or changes in drafting style, and it is appropriate that these amendments commence on the day this Act receives the Royal Assent because they do not change the substantive content of the law.

16 Item 27 is an amendment consequential on the enactment of the Fair Work Act 2009 . It commences retrospectively. The item makes directly (in a corrected form) a misdescribed amendment that is repealed by item 6 of Schedule 2.

17 The items in Schedule 2 to the Bill relate to misdescribed or redundant amendments or errors contained in amending Acts. The commencement of those items is tied to the time specified in the amending Act for the commencement of the misdescribed or redundant amendment. Some of these amendments repeal misdescribed amendments that have become redundant. These amendments commence on the day this Act receives the Royal Assent.

18 Schedule 3 repeals obsolete Acts and makes a consequential amendment to a provision of another Act that refers to a repealed Act. The Schedule is to commence on the day this Act receives the Royal Assent.

19 Schedule 4 amends the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 to change occurrences of the expression "ballot-paper" and "ballot-papers" to "ballot paper" and "ballot papers" respectively. Part 1 of the Schedule is to commence on the day the Act receives the Royal Assent. Parts 2 and 3 commence on the same day, immediately after Part 1. This is to ensure that the specific amendments in Part 1 have commenced before the amendments in Parts 2 and 3 commence, thereby preventing any overlap between various amendments.

20 Schedule 5 amends a number of Acts to amend the language used to refer to websites to ensure consistency. It also amends a number of Acts to change capitalised occurrences of the term "Internet" to the non-capitalised "internet". Part 1 of the Schedule will generally commence on the day this Act receives the Royal Assent. The items in Part 1 that do not commence on the day this Act receives the Royal Assent have commencements that are tied to commencements of provisions of other Acts. Parts 2 and 3 will commence on the same day, immediately after those items in Part 1 that commence on the day this Act receives the Royal Assent. This is to ensure that the specific amendments in Part 1 have commenced before the amendments in Parts 2 and 3 commence, thereby preventing any overlap between various amendments.

Clause 3 - Schedule(s )

21 Clause 3 provides that each Act specified in a Schedule to the Act is amended or repealed as set out in the applicable items in the Schedule and any other item in a Schedule has effect according to its terms. This is a technical provision to give operational effect to the amendments contained in the Schedules.