In line with Cabinet's long standing approval for a program of regular statute law revision, Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bills will continue to be prepared for each sitting of Parliament (Budget and Spring).

To enable the timely preparation of Bills for introduction into the Parliament, the following principles and procedures should be observed:

Content and Nature of Proposals for inclusion in Bills

Bills will continue to contain the following matters only:

• minor amendments proposed by government agencies (but not a significant number of amendments to one Act).
• minor amendments by way of pure statute law revision proposed by the Parliamentary Counsel.
• repeals of obsolete or unnecessary Acts, proposed by agencies or the Parliamentary Counsel.

Amendments proposed by agencies must be non-controversial and must contain no more than minor policy changes. The Manual for Preparation of Legislation, produced by the Parliamentary Counsel's Office, sets out some guidelines as to matters that are inappropriate for inclusion in the statute law revision program (The manual is available on-line at http://www.pco.nsw.gov.au/about.html.)

Procedures for Submission of Proposed Amendments

Ministers should ensure that their Departments are advised of the following procedures for submission of proposals:

• requests for matters to be included in Bills should be drafted for the Minister's signature and addressed to the Parliamentary Counsel.
  
• requests should be accompanied by a parliamentary briefing note (no longer than one page) on the proposal. Each briefing note should relate to amendments to one Act only and should be in plain English, assuming no knowledge of the particular issue. It should include:
  • a broad statement of the rationale for the proposal, its context and who has proposed it (eg. a new scheme is about to commence or has recently been introduced and amendments are needed to ensure its effective operation).
  • a general outline of the proposal in non-technical terms (more detailed description will be available in the Explanatory Note to the Bill).
    
• each matter will be assessed initially by the Parliamentary Counsel and then by The Cabinet Office. Any matter considered to be unsuitable for the program will not be included.

Dates for Submission

To facilitate preparation of Bills, Ministers should ensure that proposals from their agencies are submitted immediately to Parliamentary Counsel as and when approved.

Subject to their being assessed as suitable for the statute law program, proposals approved by the relevant Minister and received by Parliamentary Counsel by 1 May in any year will be included in the Bill for the Budget Session, and proposals received by 1 October will be included in the Bill for the Spring Session.

Proposals submitted after these dates will be considered for inclusion in the following Session's Bill unless formally withdrawn.

Enquiries may be directed to the Parliamentary Counsel's Office or The Cabinet Office.

Roger Wilkins
Director-General