EXPLANATORY STATEMENT

 

Select Legislative Instrument 2005 No. 215

 

Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Act 2000

 

Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Amendment Regulations 2005 (No. 1)

 

Authority

Section 18 of the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Act 2000 (the Act) provides that the Governor-General may make regulations prescribing matters required or permitted by the Act to be prescribed, or necessary or convenient to be prescribed for carrying out or giving effect to the Act.

 

Section 14A of the Act sets out the appropriations for non-ABSTUDY payments for the period from 1 January 2005 to 30 June 2009.  Non-ABSTUDY payments are payments (other than ABSTUDY payments) made for the purposes of the Act to organisations, institutions and individuals.  Payments are made under the Indigenous Education Programme, which includes elements such as Supplementary Recurrent Assistance, English as a Second Language -- Indigenous Languages Speaking Students, Indigenous Education Projects, the Indigenous Tutorial Assistance Scheme and Whole of School Intervention Strategy.

 

Subsection 14A(2) of the Act allows the making of regulations to increase the appropriations provided in section 14A by reference to changes in a specified index.  The index applied for this purpose in the Regulations is the Wage Cost Index Number 1 (WCI1).

 

Purpose and operation

The purpose of the Regulations is to make provision for an increase in the amounts that may be payable to organisations, institutions and individuals under section 14A of the Act in order to supplement the cost of delivering educational services to Indigenous students for the period 1 January 2005 to 30 June 2009 in line with changes in the WCI1. 

 

The Regulations amend the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Regulations 2001 (the Principal Regulations) to provide for increases in the appropriations for non-ABSTUDY amounts set out in subsection 14A(1) of the Act in accordance with subsection 14A(2) of the Act.  The Regulations have the effect of increasing the amounts stated in section 14A by a factor of 1.021, which is the increase in the WCI1 from 2003-04 to 2004-05.

 

The effect of the Regulations is to provide an additional $4.87 million for the period 1 January 2005 to 30 June 2006.

 

The Regulations are a legislative instrument for the purposes of the Legislative Instruments Act 2003.

 

Commencement

The Regulations are taken to have commenced retrospectively on 1 October 2005.  This is to ensure that the supplemented amounts of financial assistance can be paid to funding recipients in October 2005.  The Regulations provide for increases in the grants paid under the Act and consequently do not disadvantage recipients in any way.  The Office of Legislative Drafting and Publishing has advised that the retrospective commencement of the regulations does not contravene subsection 12(2) of the Legislative Instruments Act 2003.

 

Consultation

Consultation was not undertaken prior to making the Regulations as it was not considered necessary in this case.  The Regulations have the effect of increasing the amounts payable under section 14A of the Act.

 

Details of the Regulations

 

Regulation 1 -- Name of Regulations

 

This regulation provides that the title of the Regulations is the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Amendment Regulations 2005 (No. 1).

 

Regulation 2 -- Commencement

 

This regulation provides that the Regulations are taken to have commenced on 1 October 2005. 

 

Regulation 3 -- Amendment of Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Regulations 2001

 

This regulation provides that the Principal Regulations are amended as set out in Schedule 1.

 

Schedule 1 -- Amendments

 

Item [1] -- After regulation 4, including the note

 

Regulation 4 of the Principal Regulations sets out the factor by which appropriations for non-ABSTUDY payments set out in section 14 of the Act are increased.

 

This item adds regulation 5 which deals with the appropriations for non-ABSTUDY payments for the 2005-2008 quadrennium in accordance with section 14A of the Act.  Regulation 5 provides that, for subsection 14A(2) of the Act, the amounts mentioned in each item of the table in subsection 14A(1) of the Act are increased by a factor of 1.021, which is the factor by which the Wage Cost Index No. 1 has changed from the 2003-2004 financial year to the 2004-2005 financial year.