Page 2743 - Week 09 - Thursday, 27 September 2007
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This bill makes statute law revision amendments to ACT legislation under guidelines for the technical amendments program approved by the government. The bill makes amendments that are minor or technical, and non-controversial. They are generally insufficiently important to justify the presentation of separate legislation in each case and may be inappropriate to make as editorial amendments in the process of republishing legislation under the Legislation Act 2001.
However, the bill serves the important purpose of improving the overall quality of the ACT statute book so that our laws are kept up to date and are easier to find, read and understand. A well-maintained statute book significantly enhances access to ACT legislation and it is a very practical measure to give effect to the principle that members of the community have a right to know the laws that affect them.
The enhancement of the ACT statute book through the technical amendments program is also a process of modernisation. For example, laws need to be kept up to date to reflect ongoing technological and societal change. Also, as the ACT statute book has been created from various jurisdictional sources over a long period, it reflects the various drafting practices, language usage, printing formats and styles throughout the years. It is important to maintain a minimum level of consistency in presentation and cohesion between legislation coming from different sources at different times so that better access to, and understanding of, the law is achieved.
This Statute Law Amendment Bill deals with two kinds of matters. Schedule 1 provides for a minor, non-controversial amendment proposed by a government agency. Statute law amendment bills generally include a second schedule that contains amendments to the Legislation Act 2001 proposed by the parliamentary counsel to ensure that the overall structure of the statute book is cohesive and consistent and is developed to reflect best practice. This bill does not provide for such amendments but the schedule heading is retained to preserve the usual numbering of schedule 3 and a note to that effect is included in schedule 2.
Schedule 3 contains technical amendments proposed by the parliamentary counsel to correct minor typographical errors or clerical errors, improve language, omit redundant provisions, include explanatory notes or otherwise update or improve the form of legislation. Statute law amendment bills may include a fourth schedule that repeals redundant legislation. However, a fourth schedule is not included in this bill.
This bill contains a large number of minor amendments with detailed explanatory notes, so it is not useful for me to go through them now. However, I would like to briefly mention several matters. Schedule 1 contains five amendments to the Environment Protection Act 1997 and one amendment to the Environment Protection Regulation 2005. The first two amendments to the Environment Protection Act omit a redundant provision—and a related definition—which regulated dealings with ozone-depleting substances or things containing such substances if the dealing had been a prescribed activity. No relevant dealings are prescribed and ozone-depleting substances are now regulated under the Ozone Protection and Synthetic Greenhouse Gas Management Act 1989—a commonwealth act.
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