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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 11 Hansard (30 November) . . Page.. 3475 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

impairment, the register will provide the first real opportunity to access authorised versions of legislation directly using screen reader technology. Current software developments are expected to make future releases of PDF files readable in this way. The register will be developed in consultation with the ACT Human Rights Office to cater for the needs of people with disabilities.

A further benefit from this initiative is that the legislation register will make accessible legislative material that, under current circumstances, is virtually inaccessible to most people-for example, historical versions of legislation, approved forms and other statutory instruments notified only in the Gazette.

The Legislation (Access and Operation) Bill supports the implementation of the legislation access initiative in the following three ways:

encouraging access to authorised, electronic versions of legislation on approved Internet sites while maintaining access to authorised printed legislation;

restructuring, restating and simplifying the relevant legislation governing the life cycle of ACT legislation; and

assisting users by providing up-to-date republications of legislation in a readily accessible statute book.

The bill establishes the ACT legislation register, which will include the following material:

authorised republications of acts and statutory instruments as enforced from time to time;

each of the following as enacted or made-acts, subordinate laws, disallowable instruments, approved forms, commencement notices and other statutory instruments presently required to be published and notified in the Gazette;

notifications of the making of acts, subordinate laws, disallowable instruments, approved forms, commencement notices and other statutory instruments presently required to be published and notified in the Gazette; and

notifications of any amendments of subordinate laws or disallowable instruments by the Legislative Assembly.

The register could also contain, or provide links to, related material, such as repealed legislation, superseded versions of authorised republications or bills and explanatory memoranda for bills. The notification of enactments and legislative instruments on the legislation register will end the current need to notify them in the Gazette. These costly, short-form notices, which fail to provide the text of the law notified, will be replaced by immediate full text publication on the Internet.

The bill will bring together in a single act all the machinery of government law relating to the various stages of the legislation life cycle-for example, notification commencement, publication, disallowance (for subordinate laws and disallowable instruments), amendment, republication and repeal. The intention is to make the law easier to find and understand. At present, it is scattered through several acts and is sometimes not easy to find, let alone use. The Legislation (Access and Operation) (Consequential Provisions) Bill would omit the relevant provisions from those acts.

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