{"id":"BILL-r7428","name":"Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 2) 2025-2026","slug":"appropriation-parliamentary-departments-bill-no-2-2025-2026","collection":"bill","jurisdiction":"commonwealth","status":"in_force","isInForce":true,"actNumber":null,"makingDate":null,"administeringDepartment":null,"currentVersion":{"id":446060,"registerId":"commonwealth-BILL-r7428-current","compilationNumber":null,"startDate":"2026-05-05","status":"royal_assent","reasons":null,"registeredAt":null},"sections":[],"analysis":{"summary":{"status_summary":"The bill received royal assent on 27 March 2026 and is now Act No. 16 of 2026.","complexity_score":1,"likely_questions":["What does this bill appropriate additional money for?","On what date did the bill receive royal assent?"],"complexity_factors":["routine additional appropriation for parliamentary departments","standard passage with no proposed amendments"],"plain_english_summary":"The Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 2) 2025-2026 authorises additional expenditure from the Consolidated Revenue Fund. This expenditure relates directly to the parliamentary departments. The bill supplements existing appropriations to ensure sufficient funds are available for these departments.\n\nIt builds upon the funding already provided through the Supply (Parliamentary Departments) Act (No. 1) 2025-2026. It also adds to the appropriations in the Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Act (No. 1) 2025-2026. These prior acts set out the initial allocations for the parliamentary departments in the current financial year.\n\nThe legislative process began in the House of Representatives. The bill was introduced and read a first time on 5 February 2026. The second reading was moved on the same date. Debate on the second reading occurred across multiple days in February and March 2026. The bill was referred to the Federation Chamber on 3 March 2026 for further consideration. It returned to the House and the second reading was agreed to on 24 March 2026. The third reading was also agreed to on that day.\n\nFollowing passage in the House, the bill was introduced in the Senate on 25 March 2026. The first reading and second reading were completed on that date. Second reading debate continued on 26 March 2026. Both the second reading and third reading were agreed to on 26 March 2026. This marked the final passage through both houses.\n\nRoyal assent was given on 27 March 2026. The bill is now known as Act No. 16 of 2026. With assent granted, the additional money can be appropriated and spent as outlined in the legislation for the parliamentary departments.\n\nThis act directly impacts the parliamentary departments by increasing their available budget for expenditure. The extra funding is provided in addition to the amounts in the Supply (Parliamentary Departments) Act (No. 1) 2025-2026 and the Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Act (No. 1) 2025-2026. It supports the operations of these departments during the 2025-2026 financial period."},"flash_summary":{"complexity_score":3,"scope_assessment":{"changed":false,"description":"This Act remains a narrowly focused supplementary appropriation instrument: it provides additional 2025–26 funding for Parliamentary Departments and clarifies a few accounting and advance‑related mechanics. It does not introduce new policy programs, regulatory powers, or permanent structural changes to departmental functions. The added mechanics (notional transactions treatment, portfolio statement relevance, advance counting rules, and ability to credit special accounts) are administrative/accounting measures that support the appropriation rather than expanding the Act beyond its core appropriation purpose."},"complexity_factors":["Short, single-purpose appropriation Act (total appropriation $9.183m) with one Schedule","Approximately 15 defined terms in section 3 (e.g. departmental item, administered item, non‑corporate entity, portfolio statements)","Cross-references to other legislation: Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 and Acts Interpretation Act 1901 (affects interpretation and accounting rules)","Small number of conditional rules: advance treatment in section 11 involves interplay with prior Appropriation (No.1) and Supply (No.1) Acts","Notional transactions clause (section 5) introduces an accounting nuance that slightly raises interpretive complexity","Section 4’s declaration that portfolio statements are relevant documents can affect outcome interpretation across sections 8 and 9","Limited nested exceptions (e.g. subsection 11(2) reduces appropriations by advanced amounts, but not below nil)"],"plain_english_summary":"**What this Act does (mechanically)**\n\n- Appropriates an additional $9,183,000 from the Consolidated Revenue Fund for expenditure by Parliamentary Departments for 2025–26 (see section 6 and Schedule 1).  The Schedule allocates:\n  - Department of the House of Representatives: $670,000\n  - Department of Parliamentary Services: $8,513,000\n  - (No additional amounts shown in Schedule 1 for the Department of the Senate or the Parliamentary Budget Office in this Act’s “additional” column; the Schedule also shows earlier Budget Appropriations for all Parliamentary Departments.)\n- Confirms accounting and interpretation rules that affect how those appropriations operate, including:\n  - treating internal (notional) transactions between non‑corporate Commonwealth entities as if they were real transactions for appropriation and debiting purposes (section 5);\n  - declaring the Portfolio Budget Statements and Portfolio Additional Estimates Statements to be “relevant documents” for statutory interpretation (section 4);\n  - allowing amounts to be debited from an appropriation and credited to a special account if the special account’s purposes overlap with an appropriated item (section 12).\n- Adjusts how an advance made by a responsible Presiding Officer under earlier parliamentary‑department appropriation Acts is treated (section 11).  In effect it specifies that certain earlier determinations are to be disregarded for particular counting rules, and it sets out that, as a matter of availability under the earlier Act, the Presiding Officers have access to particular advance amounts (see note to section 11 and subsection 11(2)).\n- Provides that the Consolidated Revenue Fund is appropriated as necessary to give effect to the Act (section 13) and repeals the Act on 1 July 2028 (section 14).\n\n**Who this affects**\n\n- Direct benefit recipients: the four Parliamentary Departments (Department of the Senate; Department of the House of Representatives; Department of Parliamentary Services; Parliamentary Budget Office). The additional money is formally available to those departments, principally the Department of Parliamentary Services and the Department of the House of Representatives in this instrument (Schedule 1).\n- Decision‑makers: the responsible Presiding Officers (the President and/or the Speaker, depending on the department) retain authority over advances under the earlier appropriation Acts and the accounting treatment of such advances is clarified here (section 11). Finance and departmental officials implement the flows and accounting under the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 (PGPA Act) which this Act cross‑references.\n- Payors: the appropriation comes from the Consolidated Revenue Fund—i.e. public revenue; the fiscal cost is borne by taxpayers/central government finances (sections 6 and 13).\n\n**Why it matters (official rationale and the practical implications)**\n\n- Official claim: the Act provides additional funding for parliamentary departments beyond the appropriations already made by earlier Supply and Appropriation Acts. That is the stated purpose in the Act’s text and explanatory material (see the short description and section 6). \n\n- Practical effects and implementation mechanics to note:\n  - Accounting effects: section 5 makes internal transfers between non‑corporate entities count as if an actual payment from an appropriation occurred. That affects which appropriation is debited and how departmental accounts appear even when no cash moves to or from the Consolidated Revenue Fund.\n  - Interpretation: section 4 makes portfolio statements relevant for interpreting what particular appropriations are for. That can broaden or clarify what activities a departmental or administered item may fund (see sections 8 and 9 which tie outcomes to portfolio statements).\n  - Advances: section 11 alters the counting rules for advances previously determined under the parallel No. 1 Acts so that Presiding Officers can access set advance amounts (the note to s11 lists the amounts: Senate $300,000; House $300,000; Parliamentary Services $1,000,000; Parliamentary Budget Office $300,000). It also prevents double‑counting by reducing this Act’s appropriation by any advanced amount already drawn (subsection 11(2)).\n  - Flexibility to move money into special accounts (section 12) gives agencies an administratively simpler route to credit special accounts where purposes overlap, but it also shifts where money is recorded and spent.\n\n**Costs, incentives, trade‑offs and implementation risks**\n\n- Who pays: taxpayers through the Consolidated Revenue Fund (sections 6 and 13). The appropriation increases government outlays for parliamentary administration in 2025–26 by $9.183 million.\n- Concentrated benefits / diffuse costs: benefits are concentrated on parliamentary departments; costs are distributed across public finances.\n- Marginal effects on markets and private enterprise: minimal. The Act funds internal public administration and facilities; it does not create new regulatory powers or direct market interventions.\n- Accounting and transparency trade‑offs: the notional transactions rule (section 5) and the ability to credit special accounts (section 12) make internal accounting cleaner for agencies but can obscure cash flows and actual net changes in spending unless financial statements and explanatory material are clear. Declaring portfolio statements relevant for interpretation (section 4) centralises interpretive authority on material prepared by the departments themselves, which can affect how narrowly or broadly an appropriation is read.\n- Behavioural incentives: making extra funds available may reduce immediate pressure on existing departmental budgets (substitution effect). The advance mechanism gives Presiding Officers short‑term funding flexibility but reduces the additional appropriation to the extent advances were already used (subsection 11(2)).\n- Compliance and implementation burden: low for external parties. Primary burden is administrative (accounting adjustments, possible transfers to special accounts, and record‑keeping to reflect notional transactions and advances). Implementation rests on standard PGPA Act processes (cross‑referenced throughout).\n- Opportunity cost: the $9.183 million could have been spent elsewhere; that is a routine budgetary trade‑off and affects the aggregate fiscal position in 2025–26.\n\n**Key provisions to review if you need more detail**\n- Total additional appropriation and Schedule 1 allocations: section 6 and Schedule 1.\n- Treatment of notional internal transactions: section 5.\n- Relevance of portfolio statements for statutory interpretation: section 4 (and see how sections 8 and 9 rely on portfolio statements to link activities to outcomes).\n- Advance treatment and how prior advances interact with this appropriation: section 11.\n- Crediting to special accounts: section 12.\n- Repeal date (administrative life of the Act): section 14."}},"importantCases":[],"_links":{"self":"/api/acts/appropriation-parliamentary-departments-bill-no-2-2025-2026","history":"/api/acts/appropriation-parliamentary-departments-bill-no-2-2025-2026/history","analysis":"/api/acts/appropriation-parliamentary-departments-bill-no-2-2025-2026/analysis","conflicts":"/api/acts/appropriation-parliamentary-departments-bill-no-2-2025-2026/conflicts","importantCases":"/api/acts/appropriation-parliamentary-departments-bill-no-2-2025-2026/important-cases","documents":"/api/acts/appropriation-parliamentary-departments-bill-no-2-2025-2026/documents"}}