Page 3395 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 24 November 1992
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MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (10.17): I have to accept the criticism, Mr Cornwell. It is a little like the taxation Act. One would think that a simple law saying "Thou shalt pay tax" would suffice. Unfortunately, some of the best brains in the Commonwealth are employed at very high salaries in order to avoid Commonwealth taxation provisions, which is why we get in the Commonwealth taxation Act section 52XYZ(3)(ab). When you have a provision that is intended to be simple, unfortunately lawyers will often come up with a way of avoiding it. Parliaments tend to react with a clarification, and when you get clarification upon clarification you tend to get sections that are long and complex. When read out, as Mr Stevenson did, they seem a little absurd and, as I said, not a model of good English drafting. I would certainly support any moves nationally to simplify these provisions; but I do say that, until that happens, it is more prudent for us to keep to the established language.
MR HUMPHRIES (10.18): Madam Speaker, I have to say that I do not understand what Mr Cornwell was talking about. It seems perfectly simple and plain to me, and I am sure Mr Connolly feels the same way! I have to oppose the amendment moved by Mr Stevenson because it seems to me, on reading this, that there are different circumstances in the two subclauses.
Mr Kaine: There are? It escapes me.
MR HUMPHRIES: It is not easy to determine, I admit. There is reference, for example, to applications of the director in accordance with subclause (3), which is not referred to in subclause (1). Presumably the circumstances in which you might seek an order under (1) or (2) are different. Rolling them both into one, as Mr Stevenson proposes, it seems to me, would have unintended consequences. I support what he is saying, though. It is unclear, despite my earlier comments, and it may be that they could be teased out.
However, I think there is a broad assumption that, because a sentence is long and lots of long words are used in it, it can be rendered simpler by the deletion of some words. I suspect that, when you get down to the business of actually looking at it, you will find that to make a provision such as that simpler to understand you would actually need more words. That is often the case with legislation of this kind, I suspect. I think that is a process that goes beyond this exercise today in amending the Fair Trading Bill. Instead, perhaps it should be considered in due course by bodies such as the Legal Affairs Committee of this Assembly, of which I am chairman, to look at ways in which we might get this sort of legislation on the books in a form which people can understand.
MR STEVENSON (10.20): Mr Humphries said it far better than I could when he said that it seems perfectly clear to him. When we were looking at the Bill initially, we spent many hours reading it. We were trying to work out what each clause meant. You cannot possibly suggest that amendments are necessary unless you work out what on earth they are saying in the first place. These subclauses contain 153 words and 172 words. I did not count the numbers as words; that makes it more. I also left out the tiddly subclause (3) of 110 words. What we got down to was that subclause (1) says that the court may make orders to prevent or compensate for loss or damage. What the amendment does is save 160-odd words by putting the two subclauses into one. We got a statement from the Attorney-General that it is slightly absurd. I agree with the second word but not the first - "absurd" is right but "slightly" is not.
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