Commonwealth Numbered Regulations - Explanatory Statements

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WORKPLACE RELATIONS REGULATIONS (AMENDMENT) 1997 NO. 56

Statutory Rules 1997 No. 56

(Issued by the authority of the Minister for Industrial Relations)

Workplace Relations Act 1996

Workplace Relations Regulations (Amendment)

Subsection 359(1) of the Workplace Relations Act 1996 (the WR Act) provides that the Governor-General may make regulations prescribing, inter alia, matters required or permitted by the WR Act, or necessary or convenient to give effect to the WR Act.

These regulations:

*       update references to State industrial authorities, taking into account name changes to the Queensland and South Australian bodies, the reconstitution of the Industrial Relations Commission of New South Wales, and the abolition of the Industrial Relations Commission of Victoria, and its successor body, the Employee Relations Commission of Victoria;

*       renumber the sub-items to Schedule 6 of the Workplace Relations Regulations, reflecting changes to the item numbering effected by Statutory Rules 1997 No. 48; and

*        make technical amendments to the commencement provision of Statutory Rules 1997 No. 48, thus ensuring that those regulations do not insert a new regulation 30ZN and new Schedule 11 into the Workplace Relations Regulations prior to the commencement of Schedule 2 to the Workplace Relations and Other Legislation Amendment Act (No. 2) 1996 (which enacted the section upon which regulation 30ZN and Schedule 11 depend for validity).

Sub-regulation 1.1 provides for commencement of Part 3 of these regulations.

Part 3 of the regulations (which amends the commencement provision of Statutory Rules 1997 No. 48) is taken to commence on 5 March 1997 (ie the date on which Statutory Rule 1997 No, 48 were originally made). This ensures that certain previously made regulations do not commence prior to the section of the Workplace Relations Act 1996 (the WR Act) enabling their making.

As originally made, regulations 9 and 17 of Statutory Rules 1997 No. 48 operated so as to insert, inter alia, new regulation 30ZN and new Schedule 11 into the Workplace Relations Regulations on 12 March 1997. New regulation 30ZN and new Schedule 11 set out the modifications to the AWA provisions of the WR Act which a complementary State law is required to make prior to applying those provisions as a State law. New regulation 30ZN and new Schedule 11 depend for validity, however, on section 170WKA of the Workplace Relations Act 1996, which only took effect on 13 March 1997 (the commencement date for Schedule 2 to the Workplace Relations and Other Legislation Amendment Act (No. 2) 1996).

The retrospective operation of Part 3 of these regulations means that new regulation 30ZN and new Schedule 11 only took effect 19 March 1997. Those provisions will not have any actual operation, however, until such time as a State elects to make complementary legislation (which is expected in late March 1997).

Retrospective amendment of the commencement provision to Statutory Rules 1997 No. 48 did not effect the rights of any person, whether adversely or otherwise.

The remainder of these regulation commence on gazettal.