House of Representatives

Explanatory Memorandum

(Circulated by the authority of the Attorney-General, the Hon Mark Dreyfus QC MP)

General Outline and Financial Impact Statement

General Outline

The main purpose of this Bill is to correct technical errors that have occurred in Acts as a result of drafting and clerical mistakes.

This Bill also contains amendments to:

(a)

make amendments consequential on amendments to the Interpretation Act 1901 and the enactment of the Legislative Instruments Act 2003 ; and

(b)

repeal spent and obsolete provisions and Acts (which will result in the repeal of approximately 100 pages of spent and obsolete provisions); and

(c)

modernise language and make other technical amendments in certain legislation.

The corrections and repeals are desirable in order to improve the quality of the text of Commonwealth legislation and, in particular, to facilitate the publication of consolidated versions of Acts by the Commonwealth and by private publishers of legislation.

None of the corrections makes any change to the substance of the law.

Financial Impact Statement

This Bill will have no financial impact.