EXPLANATORY STATEMENT

 

Select Legislative Instrument 2005 No. 164

 

 

Issued by the Attorney-General

 

Electronic Transactions Act 1999

 

Electronic Transactions Amendment Regulations 2005 (No. 1)

 

 

Section 16 of the Electronic Transactions Act 1999 (the Act) provides, in part, that the Governor-General may make regulations, not inconsistent with the Act, prescribing all matters which by the Act are required or permitted to be prescribed, or which are necessary or convenient to be prescribed for carrying out or giving effect to the Act.

 

The purpose of the Regulations is to remove the exemption in the Electronic Transactions Regulations 2000 (the Principal Regulations).  The proposed amendment would remove one law of the Commonwealth from the list of prescribed laws to which certain provisions of the Act do not apply. The Principal Regulations exempt the provisions of specified Commonwealth legislation and subordinate legislation from the Act where it would not be appropriate to permit the use of electronic communications.

 

The Agriculture and Veterinary Chemicals Code Act 1994 (the Code Act), which contains the Agvet Code, operates nationally because the State and Northern Territory Governments have passed complementary legislation to apply the Agvet Code.

 

However, an exemption for the Code Act, from the provisions of the Act, was inserted into the Principal Regulations because the State and Territory Governments did not have in place corresponding legislation dealing with electronic transactions.

 

As the State and Northern Territory Governments have now passed complementary legislation dealing with electronic transactions, the exemption in the Principal Regulations is no longer required.

 

The proposed Regulations would remove Item 11 of Schedule 1 to the Principal Regulations, which exempts the Code Act from the application of the Act.

 

The Act specifies no conditions that need to be met before the power to make the Regulations may be exercised.

 

The Regulations would commence on 1 July 2005 to complement the new cost recovery arrangements of the Australian Pesticides Veterinary Medicine Authority.