Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Words have their meaning. I am not going to say that the Statute Law Revision Bill 2008 is akin to the works of Shakespeare or the King James Bible, but certainly words have their meaning. The words in statutes reflect where we are as a society and what we think. I can remember when I was at law school in the late 1970s and early 1980s reading acts of parliament and decisions of judges of the House of Lords and also judges in our courts—the Supreme Court of Queensland and the High Court of Australia—where terminology in relation to women was quite extraordinary. Women were considered chattels or like cattle. This was found in our law. It was extraordinary to think that that is the way that we would treat women and think about ourselves as a society.

So it is propitious that we actually amend the laws on our statute books to reflect contemporary society. I commend the Attorney-General for bringing this bill forward and the previous government because they were involved in this process. Both sides of politics take that approach and I think it is worthy and important. If someone comes and has a look at some of our laws—young law students or high school students doing legal studies—they wonder, ‘What are we doing? Where are we going? What does it say about us as a society?’ So this bill, whilst correcting minor errors and removing obsolete language, really does play an important role.

I am happy to speak on this legislation because it reminds me of my old law school days. Bills of this nature really are acknowledgement of the importance of us being attentive to the operation of law in our statute books. We need to scrutinise and review and monitor our laws to make sure they are up to date. It is about ensuring they are accurate as well.

This bill corrects a catalogue of Commonwealth statutes which are out of date or obsolete or contain errors. The bill is broken into four schedules. The first amends 26 principal acts and the second amends 14 amending acts. Schedule 3 repeals 27 obsolete acts and schedule 4 removes gender specific language from 88 acts. It is not just one or two; we are talking about a lot of acts of parliament that we are amending with the Statute Law Revision Bill. We are really affecting a lot of acts that are on the statute books.

Before I examine the bill in detail, I would like to acknowledge the Office of Parliamentary Counsel. The process of reviewing, correcting and updating the body of Commonwealth legislation is a function that is well executed by the office, which prepares these sorts of bills. It is well served by competent lawyers; it is well served by competent staff. Noting and collating errors in existing legislation ensures that the laws of our land are accurate and effective, and the office does it extraordinarily well.

The Statute Law Revision Bill is simple, but it is an important tool to make sure that our laws are accessible and understandable by young people, mature-age people and older people. This bill improves the quality and accuracy of our Commonwealth legislation and facilitates the publication of consolidated versions of enactments. The bill is part of a continuous process. I pay credit to the other side of the House, as well as to our own, for ensuring that our statute books are free from errors and cleared of obsolete legislation.

The bill contains four schedules, as I said. The first schedule amends minor and technical errors contained in the principal acts. The types of errors proposed for amendment in this schedule are of a minor and technical nature, such as incorrect spelling, punctuation or numbering. Schedule 2 amends errors contained in amending acts, and misdescribed or redundant amendments. Many of these errors are misdescribed amendments; they are inaccurately described text which needs to be amended. Additionally, the schedule amends errors in relation to the cross-references to the Australian Citizenship Act 2007. Schedule 3 repeals obsolete acts and makes consequential amendments to provisions in other acts that refer to repealed acts. Schedule 4 amends a number of acts to replace gender specific language with gender neutral language. The effect of the commencement of the provisions in schedules 1 and 2 is that errors are to be corrected immediately after the error is made. Commencement of schedule 3 will be on royal assent, and schedule 4 commences the day after royal assent.

I had a look at the explanatory memorandum to the bill, and I thought it was fascinating, to be honest. It appeals to me as a lawyer. I thought it was really interesting to see which particular acts of parliament were being amended. Without these amendments, some of these acts of parliament, and the provisions in the sections within them, make absolutely no sense whatsoever. For example, the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 states that a ‘defendant bears and evidential burden’. That simply needs to be corrected; you cannot have that, as it makes no sense whatsoever. Then there is my alma mater, the University of Queensland, at St Lucia: I am sure we would like it to have a capital U, rather than ‘university’ in lower case. There is the same issue in the Australian National University Act 1991.

In section 23 of the Defence Housing Australia Act, there should be a comma after the reference to subsection (1). There is a need for that, because if you look at the section it makes no sense without it. If you look at the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, you see that there is a missing closing bracket after ‘2A’ in section 430(2), and there is a missing full stop after the word ‘official’ in paragraph 486G(3)(b) of the same act.

There are a number of amendments like that. For example, the word ‘the’ is missing in section 11(3) of the Water Act 2007. The word ‘for’ is missing from section 86(1) of the Water Act. This is important because, without the word ‘for’, the phrase reads ‘the Commonwealth is responsible those changes’. What does that mean? It means nothing. It should say that ‘the Commonwealth is responsible for those changes’. Without the amendment, it is useless.

I note that the Brigalow Lands Agreement Act 1962 is very obsolete. It comes from my state of Queensland and it needs to be got rid of.

One of the things that I found absolutely fascinating was the Queensland Flood Relief Act 1974. I was born and raised in Ipswich, and a lot of Ipswich went under flood in 1974. My parent’s house was eight feet under the water, and I remember vividly canoeing while on top of our roof. We had to move twice in 1974 because the floodwaters came up and we had to leave my grandparents’ house as well. Working-class people like my folk would have lost everything but for the Australian Army, who came in with trucks and Army vehicles and took away furniture and other chattels. Otherwise, my parents would have lost absolutely everything in the 1974 flood. So Commonwealth government relief for people in Ipswich and the surrounding areas was extremely important.

The Queensland Flood Relief Act 1974, which allowed the Treasurer at any time before 1 July 1976 to authorise payment of financial assistance to Queensland for the purpose of alleviating the effects of the flood in the state, was extremely helpful. But of course the 1974 flood was a long time ago. I can remember that, when I was a junior lawyer practising in Ipswich in 1983, you always had the requisite question asked in any conveyance: ‘Was your house affected by the 1974 flood?’ We do not do that anymore in Queensland, but it was interesting. That is the extent to which, nine years later, it affected the psyche of the particular area where I lived.

Of course there is no authorisation for repayments and the act is obsolete, but I am very grateful that my parents received assistance and relief in relation to this piece of legislation. Whilst it is obsolete, I am a little sad that it will no longer be in the statute books, because it is a reminder of the fact that my folks and so many of our family and friends received such great assistance through this particular act. It was a tremendous act of parliament and a great initiative, and it goes to show that the Commonwealth parliament has a big role in getting financial assistance to people.

There is a lot of gender specific language that is gotten rid of in this legislation. As the father of two teenage daughters, I believe the amendments are important in ensuring that the sexes are recognised equally under the law. Of course the amendments that are really necessary in the circumstances are that we reflect our legislation as being gender neutral. The importance of this particular aspect is highlighted by the appointment of the new Governor-General. I would like to illustrate this by saying that, in the list of legislation amended by this bill, the bill corrects the Royal Powers Act 1953, which clarifies the Governor-General’s powers when the Queen visits Australia. Following the passage of this bill, the Royal Powers Act 1953 will refer to the Governor-General as ‘himself or herself’—how appropriate in view of the historic decision to appoint Her Excellency Quentin Bryce as the Governor-General.

The Statute Law Revision Bill 2008 is a fascinating bill—as Gareth Evans would have said in 1981, when the first Statute Law Revision Bill entered this House. It is a great innovation. I commend both sides of the House for this rational legislative approach. Whilst this legislation is not controversial, it is generally acknowledged that this type of legislation is important in maintaining the process of orderly, accurate and up-to-date Commonwealth statute books. This is an omnibus bill. It is important that we do this in a timely way and do it regularly. While none of the amendments proposed will alter the contents of the law, except as I have noted, the bill will improve the quality and accessibility of our Commonwealth legislation. I commend the bill to the House.

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