Senate

Revised Explanatory Memorandum

(Circulated with the authority of the Minister for Finance and Deregulation, Senator the Hon Penny Wong)

IX. Notes on Schedule 6 - Amending the Science and Industry Research Act 1949

72. This Schedule seeks to repeal a redundant paragraph and make technical amendments to the Science and Industry Research Act 1949 (CSIRO Act).

73. An explanation of the amendments proposed in this Schedule is provided in sequential order.

Technical amendments (removing a subsection reference and correcting the structure of a paragraph

74. Item 1 amends section 51 of the CSIRO Act to remove the redundant reference number (2) that appears before the substantive text in section 51.

75. Section 51 of the CSIRO Act has not been divided into subsections since the CSIRO Act was amended by the Audit (Transitional and Miscellaneous) Amendment Act 1997 . It appears that the continued used of this subsection number was overlooked in that amendment.

76. Item 2 would add the word 'and' to the end of each paragraph within section 51 of the CSIRO Act. This clarifies that in each annual report of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), as made under section 9 of the Commonwealth Authorities and Companies Act 1997 (CAC Act), the members of the CSIRO Board who issue the annual report must set out all of the requirements stated in each paragraph of section 51 of the CSIRO Act.

77. Item 3 replaces 'year; and' with 'year.' in paragraph 51(2)(d) of the CSIRO Act. Item 3 is a necessary consequence of the amendment made by item 4 to repeal of paragraph 51(2)(e) of the CSIRO Act.

Repeal of a redundant paragraph

78. Item 4 repeals paragraph 51(2)(e) of the CSIRO Act, which requires that the CSIRO's annual report must set out any policies notified by the Minister under section 28 of the CAC Act.

79. Section 28 has been amended and policies are now applied through General Policy Orders, rather than through being notified by the responsible Minister. Also, other legislation already requires any policies applying to CSIRO to be mentioned in CSIRO's annual report, specifically the CAC Act and the Commonwealth Authorities and Companies (Report of Operations) Orders 2008 . As these rules achieve similar effects as paragraph 51(2)(e), this paragraph is redundant.

80. Further, removing this paragraph would enable consistency with other CAC Act bodies, as the enabling Acts of other CAC Act bodies do not specify that the annual report of that body should include policies of the Commonwealth, given that this is covered through the CAC Act.

Application

81. Item 5 clarifies that removal of the requirement in paragraph 51(2)(e) of the CSIRO Act applies to CSIRO annual reports for financial years starting on or after 1 July 2011.