Tom French (Moore, Australian Labor Party) | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Statute Update Bill 2026. I begin with a confession. This is not a bill that will have Australians gathering around the kitchen table tonight cancelling their plans and saying: 'Quick! Parliament is dealing with obsolete acts, incorrect cross-references and the national crisis of the missing full stop.' But that does not mean it is unimportant. In fact, some of the least dramatic work of this parliament is also some of the most necessary. The law has to be maintained. It has to be kept coherent. It has to be capable of being read, used and applied by the people who rely on it. As a former industrial lawyer, I have spent enough time with statutes, awards, agreements and regulations to know that small drafting errors can become very practical problems. A wrong cross-reference can send parties in circles. A missing word can generate a dispute. A comma can ruin a perfectly good afternoon. The difference between 'and' and 'or' can, in the wrong hands, become a three-hour argument followed by a letter beginning, 'With respect, your construction is misconceived.'

That is why this bill is worth doing. It is also why I have some sympathy for the drafters. They are asked to produce laws that are precise, durable and readable while knowing that every word may one day be examined by people with too much coffee and a professional interest in disagreement.

The Statute Update Bill 2026 makes minor and technical amendments across the Commonwealth statute book. It amends 42 Commonwealth acts, repeals 106 spent or obsolete acts, corrects clerical and drafting errors, updates references, removes spent provisions and improves consistency across Commonwealth legislation. This is legislative maintenance. It is not glamorous, but neither is changing the oil in the ute, testing a circuit, updating a register or cleaning out a filing cabinet that has been threatening to achieve a legal personality. These things are done because systems work better when they are kept in order.

The Commonwealth statute book is large. It deals with family law, electoral law, social security, Veterans' Affairs, health, customs, transport, communications, the environment, agriculture, fisheries and many other areas. Over time, provisions expire. Agencies change their names. Courts are restructured. Transitional laws complete their purpose. Drafting conventions change. References that were once accurate become outdated. A statute book that is not regularly updated becomes harder to navigate, and that has real consequences. It makes the law harder for public servants to administer. It makes the law harder for lawyers to interpret. It makes it harder for businesses, unions, community organisations and ordinary Australians to understand. The rule of law is not assisted by legislation that reads like an archaeological dig.

Schedule 1 of this bill makes general amendments to 42 acts. These amendments are intended to enhance readability, facilitate interpretation, and administration, and promote consistency across Commonwealth law. They are minor and technical in nature. They either make no change to the substance of the law or make minor changes consistent with the scope and purpose of the relevant provisions.

Some of the examples are modest. Some are almost charmingly modest. The bill corrects a punctuation error in the Australian Centre for Disease Control Act 2025, where a provision ends with a colon rather than a full stop. Now, I do not want to overstate the national significance of a full stop. No-one is going to the barricades over punctuation. But legislation is a place where punctuation can do a surprising amount of work. A colon where there should be a full stop might not bring the Commonwealth down, but it should still be fixed before some poor lawyer decides to see how far they can run with it—and let's be honest: some poor lawyer absolutely would.

The bill also updates references to the Federal Circuit Court so that they properly refer to the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia Division 2. That is not just a cosmetic update. If a person is reading the Federal Court of Australia Act, they should be able to identify the correct court without first needing to understand the full history of the court restructuring in this country. The law should not operate like a scavenger hunt. A reader should not have to move from an old act to a repealed act to a transitional provision to a renamed institution and then finally to the body that actually exists. Updating those references makes the law more accessible and easier to administer.

There are also amendments to the Freedom of Information Act 1982. These update requirements about how certain applications may be sent to the agency or minister. The existing provisions refer to methods that no longer properly reflect the current framework. The amendments align those provisions with modern communication methods, including electronic communication. That is sensible. The public should not be forced through outdated procedural hoops because the statute book has not caught up. There is a place for paper, and there are some who remain deeply committed to it. I have met lawyers who would laminate an email if they could. But even the most committed paper enthusiast would accept that legislation should reflect how government actually operates.

The bill also corrects technical errors in family law, electoral law, health law, maritime safety law and other areas. For example, it corrects an incorrect reference in the Family Law Act 1975 relating to child related proceedings and the application of the law against hearsay. It corrects errors in the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, including references to registered political parties and timing terminology. It updates references connected with Western Australia's application of the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law. It corrects a reference in the National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013 concerning crisis or emergency funding as a result of a significant change to a participant's support needs. These are not headline reforms, but they are precisely the kinds of corrections that make the law work better. They reduce confusion. They assist administration. They help ensure that the words on the page match the intended operation of the law.

As an industrial lawyer, I've often seen how much turns on the words of a page. In workplace law, people tend to find out very quickly whether a clause is clear. If an enterprise agreement is drafted badly, someone will discover it, usually at the worst possible time, often on a Friday and almost always after everyone else had thought the issue had already been settled, and the same lesson applies to legislation. Clarity is not an optional extra. It is part of making the law usable.

Schedule 2 the bill repeals 102 spent or obsolete acts. These acts have done their work. They no longer have an ongoing role. The repeal of these acts does not alter the current or future effect of the law. It does not remove rights. It does not create new obligations. It simply clears away legislation that is no longer required. Of those 106 acts, 104 are from the Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry portfolio. That is quite a harvest. There is no criticism in that. Agriculture, fisheries and forestry may have technical, transitional and amending acts over the years, but, once those acts have performed their function, there is no great public benefit in leaving them sitting on the statute book indefinitely. At some point, the legal paddock has to be cleared. The statute book should not be a storage shed for expired machinery, old forms and equipment nobody has used since 2004. It should be accurate, current and as accessible as possible.

Some may ask why parliament needs to spend time on this kind of bill. The answer is simple: the quality of legislation affects the quality of government. A statute book that is accurate and up to date is easier to administer. It is easier to comply with. It is easier to enforce, and it is easier for the public to trust. When the law contains obsolete provisions, outdated references and technical errors, people lose time working around them. Departments have to explain them. Lawyers have to interpret them. Courts may have to resolve them. Members of the public may be left wondering why a law points them to an institution, provision or process that no longer exists. That is not good administration. It is not good drafting, and it is not good enough.

This bill also has a broader democratic purpose. Legislation should be accessible to the people who are governed by it. Of course, not every statute will be read like a beach novel. No-one is taking the Income Tax Assessment Act on holiday unless something has gone terribly wrong. But citizens should be able to approach law with a reasonable expectation that the references are correct, the provisions are current and obsolete material has been removed. That is part of the discipline of responsible government. It is also part of respect for the public.

The law belongs to the public. It should not be maintained only for lawyers, judges, departments and parliamentary counsel. It should be maintained because the people are entitled to know the rules that apply to them. They are also entitled to expect that those rules are written, updated and organised with care. As someone who worked in industrial relations, I know, when laws and instruments are clear, disputes can often be avoided. Employers, workers and unions may not always agree on the policy, but at least they can understand the starting point. When the text is unclear, outdated or inconsistent, the dispute shifts from the real issue to the wording itself, and that is rarely efficient. It is very good for billable units but less good for everyone else. Good drafting reduces friction. Accurate references reduce confusion. Removing spent law reduces clutter. Modernising language and structure improves access.

This is not about changing the direction of government policy. It is about keeping the statute book in working order. The explanatory material makes that clear. The amendments are minor and technical. This bill has no financial impact. It is compatible with human rights, and it does not limit human rights. It does not change legal rights obligations or entitlements except in minor ways consistent with existing provisions. That is why these bills are traditionally non-controversial.

Since 1934, statute law revision and statute stocktake acts have been used to correct errors, remove obsolete provisions and keep Commonwealth legislation accurate. That history reflects sensible a proposition: parliaments should not only make new laws; they should also maintain laws already made. We do that in every serious field. In construction, we maintain buildings. In electrical work, we maintain systems. In public administration, we maintain records. In law, we maintain the statute book. If we fail to do that, we should not be surprised when people find the system harder to use.

This bill is modest, but it is useful. It will not dominate the evening news. It will not trend online unless punctuation Twitter has a very big day. It will not produce a dramatic division across the chamber, but it will make the Commonwealth legislation cleaner, clearer and more coherent. There is value in that. The public does not benefit from unnecessary complexity. Public servants do not benefit from obsolete provisions. Practitioners do not benefit from incorrect cross-references. Courts do not benefit from avoidable drafting confusion. Even lawyers, despite our reputation, do not need every possible interpretive argument preserved for future generations. Some clutter can simply be removed.

The Statute Update Bill 2026 does exactly that. It corrects errors. It updates references and removes those spent provisions. It repeals obsolete acts. It improves readability and administration across the Commonwealth Statute Book, and, in a parliament which often deals with large and contested reforms, this bill is a reminder that practical work also counts. Sometimes governing is not about announcing a new scheme. Sometimes it's about fixing a section number, updating a court name, deleting the dead provision and putting the full stop where the full stop was always meant to be. That may not be dramatic, but it is necessary. I commend the bill to the House.

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