Statute Update Bill 2026

Mr McCORMACK (Riverina) (18:51): The Office of Parliamentary Counsel prepares what is a routine statute maintenance, and through the Statue Update Bill 2026, the statute updates will happen. It makes technical amendments to enhance the accuracy and operation of Commonwealth legislation. The member for Moore has just spent the best part of 15 minutes telling us, 'There's nothing to see here, nothing to worry about.' I always get a little bit concerned when Labor members utter such words, because you can never be quite sure lately when government members stand at the despatch box or at the lectern in either the House of Representatives or the Federation Chamber and say, 'All will be well.' He also went to great lengths to talk about the necessity of sorts to reduce the amount of paper being spent printing bills and the like.

Interestingly, at the weekend I see in the Sunday Telegraph James O'Doherty's column 'The Sauce', no less. Under the heading 'Papering Cracks', he refers to the New South Wales parliament. I appreciate we are the Commonwealth parliament, but it's interesting because the same sorts of things that happen in state parliaments occur here.

Here we have the good old Greens, in this case Cate Faehrmann, costing taxpayers—wait for this—$733,000 in public servant hours with a parliamentary call for papers relating to music and arts grants, and what happened? Her parliamentary demand resulted in almost 700 boxes of paper arriving at her office. Can you just imagine that?

You know what she did? Having called for the parliamentary papers, she then complained when they arrived because there were so many volumes of papers. The Greens MP says the volume of documents produced under her call for papers motion was 'absolutely ridiculous'.

O'Doherty wrote: Faehrmann made the complaints when seeking other documents, which she wanted in an "electronic form"—something the parliament refuses to do. Government emails are instead printed out, stapled and put in boxes. As someone who has spent hours poring over physical government documents, this Sauce columnist reckons she has a point.

It's about time parliament joined the 21st century. That is one thing, but that Greens MP, albeit at a state level, is just like any other Greens political party MP. They want something, they demand something, and, when they get it, they're never quite happy.

They're never quite satisfied. It's so typical of the Greens. I'm old enough to have started in the newspaper industry when we were still—I can see the smiles of those opposite—using typewriters, would you believe?

They were good old Remington typewriters. Ms Urquhart interjecting— Mr McCORMACK: I've got a colleague who understands well! Thank you to my Tasmanian colleague.

She gets it too. We used typewriters. And when the teletext machine would whirr into action, everybody got excited, because, at a country newspaper, it was something coming from afar.

People might have thought it wasn't such a professional outfit, but when I became editor of the Daily Advertiser in 1991, I had 58 journalists in my newsroom, and there were 230 people or more who worked full time on that newspaper. They were heady days in the print industry. More's the pity, it's not the same now.

I digress. When the teletext machine whirred, we knew that something was happening. Generally, it was the Greens being the Greens.

They were just starting as a political movement. They were just getting a little bit of unfortunate traction, and, instead of something important happening, they were the biggest users of the fax machine, which you couldn't stop. You couldn't dictate who was going to send something or not fax through the good old facsimile machine.

It was the same with the teletext. The Greens political party are the biggest abusers of environmental processes. Heaven help them if they were here to talk about the very important statute update bill.

Schedule 1 of this bill contains 126 amendments across Commonwealth acts, and schedule 2 repeals more than 100 spent amending acts. As the member for Moore quite correctly pointed out—and he did, and I'll give him his due—the bill updates and maintains the accuracy and coherence of Commonwealth legislation, by correcting drafting errors, by repealing spent provisions, by removing obsolete legislative material and by updating terminology and cross-references inasmuch as where apostrophes—and nobody uses apostrophes any more, more's the pity; I do; I'm a real technical grammar— Mr Keogh: Do you use them appropriately?

Mr McCORMACK: I absolutely do—100 per cent I do. Everybody should be taught how to use apostrophes. But where there are no full stops and where commas are out of place, which might change the context and the meaning, the Office of Parliamentary Counsel ensures that they're right.

I will just digress a little and say there is one fantastic organisation in this building, and there are many, but it's Hansard, because Hansard always gets it right. I mean, we are so blessed to have Hansard and the Parliamentary Library. They are two services that I think we probably undervalue.

But I'll tell you what, they report things accurately. The issues with this: most amendments correct spelling, punctuation, terminology and cross-references, update absolute references and modernised drafting without altering substantive rights, obligations or penalties. The only criminal law amendment repeals an expired transitional authorisation relating to plastic explosives—that's important—and the substantive offences and penalties remain unchanged.

The most significant machinery amendment removes superseded veterans' indexation provisions. This is what I want to talk on just a little, because it appears to remove spent legislative machinery rather than alter current entitlements. I think that's important.

Many of our veterans do tune in. They do read Hansard, and they are very across and aware of the legislative machinery when it comes to their entitlements. We are having a debate in the parliament and across the country at the moment about making sure that veterans get their right entitlements.

I appreciate that the Minister for Veterans' Affairs and Minister for Defence Personnel, Minister Keogh, has issued a document creating a simpler, easier-to-use system for the veteran community. I think this document should be mandatory reading. We have the MRCA and DRCA and other provisions, which have been lumped into a much easier to follow process.

The Deputy Speaker and I had a discussion about this earlier. I'm concerned about the $5,000 cap on allied health. But when it comes to superseded veterans indexation provisions, we need to make sure that we explain it well to our veterans.

I wouldn't want any veteran to think that just updating the statute bill will have in any way an impact upon ex-service men and women's provisions, which they rightly need. I say again that Minister Keogh has provided this document. He writes in this letter to members and senators: I want you to be assured that when the changes come into effect, no veteran or family member will see an interruption or reduction in payments or benefits they're currently receiving.

I hope that's right, but, certainly with the provision of the improved Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2004, that document is commended and recommended to members. Previous bills were introduced as statute law revision bills and statute stocktake bills. The member for Moore mentioned in his speech that there's been 92 years of this particular bill—probably under different guises and different names, but the statute bill we're referring to today is the 2026 version.

The most recent act is the Statute Update Act 2016, so it's been a decade. There have been many, many bills passed and a lot of legislation concurred with in that decade. By convention, these bills are prepared by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel and confined to technical machinery and non-contentious amendments.

Given that, we'll take the government on its word. We hope that their word is their bond when it comes to the Statute Update Bill 2026, and I commend it to the Chamber. Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time. Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment. Federation Chamber adjourned at 19:02