Page 736 - Week 02 - Thursday, 23 February 2012
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Mr Speaker, today I am introducing the Electronic Transactions Amendment Bill 2012, which seeks to strengthen the existing regime on the use of electronic communications in international and domestic contracts.
In November 2005 the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts. The convention aims to facilitate the use of electronic communications in international trade. It ensures that contracts concluded and other communications exchanged electronically are as valid and enforceable as their traditional paper-based equivalents.
In April 2007 the Standing Committee on Law and Justice, or the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General as it was then known, agreed to consider updating their respective electronic transaction legislation in relation to the convention. The commonwealth and all states and territories have electronic transactions acts based on the 1996 model law on electronic commerce, which was developed by the UN Commission on International Trade Law.
In 2009, after public consultation on the proposal to accede to the convention, the standing committee ministers agreed to the drafting of a model bill to implement obligations under the convention. At its May 2010 meeting, standing committee ministers committed to update their uniform electronic transactions legislation by adopting a model bill prepared and endorsed by parliamentary counsel’s committee.
The bill contains relatively minor amendments that serve to update the electronic transactions regime to reflect internationally recognised legal standards on e-commerce. The purpose of the bill is not to vary or create contract law. Rather, it includes a range of measures directed at improving the general operation of the current electronic transactions regime.
The UN convention is only concerned with international business contracts. However, SCAG ministers agreed that the amendments required to implement the convention will apply to both domestic and international contracts to ensure commonality of rules between domestic and international contracts using electronic communications.
Australia cannot accede to the United Nations convention until the model provisions are enacted by each jurisdiction. The convention itself is not in force until three countries have acceded to the convention. Currently two countries, Singapore and Honduras, have ratified the convention. Australia has the potential to be the third country to ratify the convention, effectively causing the convention itself to come into force.
I would now like to turn to the key elements of the bill. Amendments to electronic signature provisions allow for the legal recognition of electronic signatures by establishing general conditions under which an electronic signature is regarded as authenticated. Section 9 makes clear that the notion of signature does not necessarily imply a party’s approval of the entire content of the communication to which the signature is attached.
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