Mr McCLELLAND (Barton) (10.02 a.m.)—The opposition fully supports the Statute Law Revision Bill 2005. I had a private conversation with the member for Flinders earlier, and I must concede that all governments over all periods of time demonstrate errors and that this is not a reflection of incompetence on the part of government. These things happen and, as the parliamentary secretary indicated, there are also reasons to update references to various bodies that have either ceased to exist or changed their names.
The rationale for this form of omnibus legislation, where there are so many items riding on one instrument, was described when the first Statute Law Revision Bill was introduced in 1981. The then Fraser government Attorney-General, Senator the Hon. Peter Durack, said:
The Government has decided to introduce Statute Law Revision Bills into the Parliament on a regular basis, at least once in each year and, if required, once in each sitting. This will enable the prompt correction of mistakes and errors and removal from the statute book of expired laws. In the absence of the regular passage of Bills of this kind, the correction of an error in an Act can only be achieved by having a special Bill passed for that purpose or waiting until the Act needs to be amended for some other more important purpose.
Indeed, in fully supporting the mechanism that was announced by the Hon. Peter Durack, the then senator Gareth Evans stated:
The Statute Law Revision Bill is a fascinating Bill, for the contents of which the Government is to be much congratulated.
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The first innovation is the very existence of the Bill as a vehicle—a compendious vehicle—for tidying up oversights, errors and oddities that creep into even the best laid drafting plans and also to accommodate minor changes that become necessary because of changing circumstances. The Opposition notes that it is the Government’s intention to introduce housekeeping Bills of this kind at least once each year, and perhaps every sitting. I, for one, certainly applaud that as a rational legislative measure aiding in the avoidance of the unnecessary cluttering of the parliamentary process with what are on any view small issues most of the time.
That indicated the bipartisan support for this vehicle that has occurred for over 20 years now.
In terms of the mechanisms adopted in this Statute Law Revision Bill, the parliamentary secretary noted the correcting of drafting and clerical mistakes, the removal of references to bodies that have ceased to exist and the updating of references to bodies that have succeeded earlier bodies, to assist in the publication of consolidated versions of acts and obviously to facilitate those consolidated versions being placed on the electronic means of communication that we have now—I think primarily SCALEplus, the government web site, or AustLII, which is run by the Law Council of Australia.
It is encouraging in our democracy that, for over 20 years, oppositions of both descriptions have accepted governments on faith in identifying what are minor amendments of an essentially technical nature. That says volumes for their faith not only in our parliamentary system but also in our bureaucracy. At the end of the day, I note there is a safeguard, as this legislation will be the subject of oversight by the Scrutiny of Bills Committee. But again, consistent with what has occurred for over 20 years, both sides of the parliament support what is a practical measure of correcting errors and updating legislation.