EXPLANATORY STATEMENT

Select Legislative Instrument 2006 No. 207

 

Issued by Authority of the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry

                       

                        Wool Services Privatisation Act 2000

 

  Wool Services Privatisation (Wool Levy Poll) Amendment                                                   Regulations 2006 (No. 1)

 

Subsection 39(1) of the Wool Services Privatisation 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.

 

Division 7 of the Act provides for the Commonwealth to allocate funding to a research body to conduct research and development activities for the benefit of Australian woolgrowers.  That funding is partly sourced from a wool industry levy.

 

Subsection 32(3) of the Act requires the designated wool research and development body, Australian Wool Innovation Ltd (AWI), which has been declared by the Minister to be the research body for the purposes of Division 7 of the Act, to make recommendations in relation to the rate of levy, with each recommendation being made not later than the third anniversary of the previous recommendation.  Subsection 32(4) requires that before making each recommendation, the research body must conduct a poll in accordance with the regulations, and that the recommendation must be in accordance with the results of the poll.

 

Accordingly, the Wool Services Privatisation (Wool Levy Poll) Regulations 2003 (the Principal Regulations) were enacted to allow the conduct of a poll of wool levy payers under section 32 of the Act and enable AWI to make a recommendation in relation to the amount of wool levy.  The proposed return date for the upcoming wool poll is 3 November 2006.

 

Prior to the amendments, the Principal Regulations were very specific about the means for voting and only allowed for voting by post or by facsimile.  AWI considered the restriction to post or facsimile voting to be an unintended consequence of the drafting, and accordingly requested the Government to amend the Principal Regulations to specifically allow electronic voting. 

The amending Regulations have established a framework to allow electronic voting over the Internet.

Details of the amending Regulations are set out in the Attachment.

 

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

The Regulations commenced on the day after they were registered.

                                                                                             Â                           ATTACHMENT

 

DETAILS OF THE WOOL SERVICES PRIVATISATION (WOOL LEVY POLL) AMENDMENT REGULATIONS 2006 (No. 1)

 

Regulation 1 provides for the name of the Regulations to be the Wool Services Privatisation (Wool Levy Poll) Amendment Regulations 2006 (No. 1).

 

Regulation 2 provides for the commencement date to be the day after the Regulations are registered.

 

Regulation 3 provides for the amendment of the Wool Services Privatisation (Wool Levy Poll) Regulations 2003, by Schedule 1.

 

Regulation 4 provides that subregulation 14(2) of the Wool Services Privatisation (Wool Levy Poll) Regulations 2003 does not apply to the 2006-07 poll year so that the cut-off date of 15 September 2006 for the poll can proceed as planned.

 

 

Schedule 1                                          Amendments

 

Item [1] amends regulation 11 to provide for the insertion of new subregulations 11(2) and (3).

 

Item [2] amends regulation 11 by inserting new subregulations (2) and (3), which provide for an electronic form of ballot paper.

 

Item [3] amends regulation 12 to provide that the voting instructions must specifically instruct voters on how to cast their votes via the Internet, if they are voting in electronic form.

 

Item [4] amends regulation 14 by inserting a new subregulation (5) detailing specific requirements for electronic voting that a panel formed by the research body must take into account.

 

Item [5] makes a consequential amendment to paragraph 15(1)(a) by omitting the text 'received by the entity'.

 

Item [6] makes a consequential amendment to paragraph 15(1)(b) by substituting the word 'send' for 'return' in the text.

 

Item [7] makes a consequential amendment to subregulations 15(2) and (3) by substituting the word 'record' for 'send' in each subregulation.

 

Item [8] omits subregulation 16(3) which deals specifically with faxed ballot papers, because the effect of this subregulation is superseded by new regulation 16A.

 

Item [9] inserts a new regulation 16A to deal with multiple ballot papers, including those received via the Internet.

 

Item [10] amends regulation 18 by inserting a new subregulation (8) to permit the counting of lodged electronic votes with a computer program.