Page 2895 - Week 11 - Thursday, 22 October 1992
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Mr Humphries about the extent to which this is mirror legislation. But, given that it is legislation closely based on Commonwealth legislation which has the definitions section at the back and in respect of which there is extensive literature, it seems as sensible to put it at the back as at the front.
We have just extensively debated clause 28, which had the definitions at the back. Although Mr Stevenson moved amendments to clause 28, he did not move an amendment to clause 28 to put the definitions at the front. In a Bill of some 50-odd clauses he has chosen to shift the order of the definitions in only one clause, clause 31. I do not think it matters much whether the definitions are at the front or at the back, but the style has to be consistent. We have adopted the style of - I will not say the parent Act - the Act that we are patriating from, and we are keeping definitions at the back. That seems sensible. Let us keep it that way.
MR HUMPHRIES (11.56): Madam Speaker, Mr Stevenson raised a point which really has to be addressed; it will not just go away. The fact is that legislation adopts a particular pattern, and it is a somewhat strange pattern. Definitions applying throughout a whole Act appear at the very front of an Act, usually in section 4 or section 6, and definitions which apply to a part of an Act appear at the beginning of the part. In this Bill, when the definitions appear in a particular clause only, they appear at the end of the clause rather than at the beginning. It is a good point to raise. A lay person is entitled to ask, "Why do they put the definitions at the beginning of an Act and at the beginning of a part, but at the end of a section? Would it not make more sense to do it the other way round?".
The placement of definitions has an impact on the way people read legislation. You pick up a piece of legislation with provisions which perhaps go over several pages and you try to understand what a particular provision says. It either makes no sense at all or conveys a different impression from the one that it should convey because you have not yet reached page 26, on which you find the definition provisions which explain what is going on and put the earlier provisions you read first into a different context.
As a lawyer, my first impression is to say, "No, no, no. This is the way we do it and we are going to keep doing it this way". But Mr Stevenson - and I discussed this with him at length last night - makes a point which, as I said, will not go away. Why is it that the definition provisions go at the end of the clause? It would be more user friendly to put those provisions at the beginning of the clause, not at the end. I know, as Mr Connolly is going to say, that that is the way the Trade Practices Act does it. I repeat my point that we are no longer following what the Trade Practices Act does, because the whole point of making our own Act is that we are going to be able to make different provisions from those in the Trade Practices Act, and presumably better provisions than those in the Trade Practices Act where we feel that is appropriate.
Having said all that, I do not propose to support Mr Stevenson's amendment today, because I believe that - as the Attorney has pointed out - we have already passed other clauses of this Bill with definitions at the end rather than at the beginning. Casting my mind back to other legislation, I think we would be establishing a procedure different from that which is followed in many other pieces of legislation. For whatever value it might have, I am all in favour of consistency. I therefore think that we should approach this matter as a question
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