House of Representatives

Explanatory Memorandum

(Circulated by authority of the Attorney-General, the Honourable Daryl Williams, AM QC MP)

Notes on clauses

Clause 1 - Short title

1. Clause 1 provides for the Act to be cited as the Statute Law Revision Act 2002.

Clause 2 - Commencement

2. Clause 2 provides for the commencement of the Act. Subclause 2(1) provides that each provision of the Act specified in column 1 of the table commences, or is taken to have commenced, on the day or at the time specified in column 2 of the table.

3. The commencement of each item is tied to the commencement of the provision that created the error. The effect of this is that the error is taken to have been corrected immediately after it was made.

4. Schedule 1 items amend errors in Principal Acts, whereas Schedule 2 items amend misdescriptions in amending Acts. In order to correct a misdescription it is necessary to amend the amending Act (rather than the Principal Act) and to deem the correction to have occurred immediately after the time specified in the amending Act for the commencement of the misdescribed item.

Clause 3 - Schedule(s)

5. Clause 3 provides for the Schedules to the Act. Subclause 3(1) provides that the Acts specified in the Schedules to the Bill are amended or repealed as set out in those Schedules.

Clause 4 - Effect of repeal

6. Clause 4 provides that the amendments made by items 472 to 478 of the Public Employment (Consequential and Transitional) Amendment Act 1999 (Act No. 146 of 1999) are taken never to have had effect. Those items are repealed by item 23 of Schedule 2. The reason for the repeal of these items is that they were amendments of the Federal Magistrates Act 1999, which was going through the Parliament at the same time as the Public Employment (Consequential and Transitional) Amendment Act 1999 . The Federal Magistrates Bill 1999 was renumbered in the Parliament, which meant that the amendments made by the Public Employment (Consequential and Transitional) Amendment Act 1999 operated on the incorrect provision numbers. The amendments made by items 474 to 478 became clearly misdescribed. The amendments made by items 472 and 473 were capable of operation, but clearly operated on the incorrect provisions. Accordingly it is appropriate to repeal the items. The necessary amendments have since been made by the Public Employment (Consequential and Transitional) Amendment Regulations 2000 , which amend the Public Employment (Consequential and Transitional) Amendment Regulations 1999 .