Explanatory Memorandum
(Circulated by authority of the Attorney-General, Senator the Hon George Brandis QC)General outline
The main purposes of this Bill are to correct technical errors that have occurred in Acts as a result of drafting and clerical mistakes and to repeal spent and obsolete provisions and Acts (which will result in the repeal of 17 spent Acts).
This Bill also contains amendments to:
- (a)
- remove specific references in Acts to Ministers and to replace them with generic, more robust, references and reduce the need for Orders under section 19B or 19BA of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 to be made and read in conjunction with the Acts (see Schedule 3); and
- (b)
- modernise language and to make other technical amendments in certain legislation (see Schedules 4 and 5); and
- (c)
- make amendments consequential on amendments to the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 (see Schedules 6 to 8) which enable the repeal of redundant provisions.
The corrections and repeals are desirable in order to improve the quality of the text of Commonwealth legislation and to reduce the regulatory burden by making the statute book clearer and more efficient to use. They 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.