{"id":"electoral-act-commencement-of-amendments-act-1987","name":"Electoral Act (Commencement of Amendments) Act 1987","slug":"electoral-act-commencement-of-amendments-act-1987","collection":"act","jurisdiction":"wa","status":"in_force","isInForce":true,"actNumber":null,"makingDate":null,"administeringDepartment":null,"currentVersion":{"id":30512,"registerId":"wa-electoral-act-commencement-of-amendments-act-1987-current","compilationNumber":null,"startDate":"2026-04-01","status":"InForce","reasons":null,"registeredAt":null},"sections":[{"sectionNumber":"1","sectionType":"section","heading":"Electoral Act (Commencement of Amendments) Act 1987","content":"![Crest]()Western Australia\n\nElectoral Act (Commencement of Amendments) Act 1987\n\nWestern Australia\n\nElectoral Act (Commencement of Amendments) Act 1987\n\nContents\n\n1. Short title 1\n\n2. Commencement 1\n\n3. Variation of commencement date 1\n\n4. Validation 1\n\n5. Electoral qualification not affected 2\n\nNotes\n\nCompilation table 3\n\n  \n\nWestern Australia\n\nElectoral Act (Commencement of Amendments) Act 1987\n\nAn Act to provide for the commencement of the *Electoral Amendment Act (No. 2) 1985* and for incidental and other purposes.\n\n##### 1. Short title\n\nThis Act may be cited as the *Electoral Act (Commencement of Amendments) Act 1987* 1.\n\n##### 2. Commencement\n\nThis Act shall come into operation on the day on which it receives the Royal Assent 1.\n\n##### 3. Variation of commencement date\n\nNotwithstanding section 2 of the *Electoral Amendment Act (No. 2) 1985* and the proclamation made under that section and published in the *Government Gazette* on 8 May 1987 (in this Act referred to as “the proclamation”) that Act is deemed to have come into operation simultaneously with the commencement of the *Australian Citizenship Amendment Act 1984* of the Commonwealth (in this Act referred to as “the Commonwealth Act”).\n\n##### 4. Validation\n\nIt is hereby declared that anything done in the period between the commencement of the Commonwealth Act and the publication of the proclamation is and always has been as valid and effectual as it would be or would have been if this Act had been in operation when that thing was done.\n\n##### 5. Electoral qualification not affected\n\nIt is hereby declared that no person ceased to be an elector entitled to vote at an election of a member of either House of Parliament or to be qualified to become such an elector in the period between the commencement of the Commonwealth Act and the publication of the proclamation by reason of the commencement of the Commonwealth Act.\n\nNotes\n\n1 This is a compilation of the *Electoral Act (Commencement of Amendments) Act 1987*. The following table contains information about that Act.\n\nCompilation table\n\n| **Short title** | **Number and year** | **Assent** | **Commencement** |\n| --- | --- | --- | --- |\n| *Electoral Act (Commencement of Amendments) Act 1987* | 1 of 1987 | 20 May 1987 | 20 May 1987 (see s. 2) |\n","sortOrder":0}],"analysis":{"issue_detection":{"absurdities":[],"contradictions":[]},"flash_summary":{"complexity_score":3,"scope_assessment":{"changed":true,"description":"This Act changes the commencement timing of the Electoral Amendment Act (No. 2) 1985 by deeming it to have begun simultaneously with the Commonwealth Australian Citizenship Amendment Act 1984, validates acts done in the intervening period, and preserves elector entitlements for that interval (ss3–5). The change is temporal and corrective rather than changing substantive electoral rules."},"complexity_factors":["Retroactive commencement/‘deeming’ of a state amendment to coincide with a Commonwealth Act (s3)","Validation of acts done during the interim period between two commencement dates (s4)","Declaratory protection preserving elector qualifications for that period (s5)","Cross-jurisdictional timing interaction between state and Commonwealth legislation","Narrow, temporal scope and simple statutory language reduce interpretive complexity","Low administrative complexity but potential need for record adjustments by electoral authorities"],"plain_english_summary":"_This Act makes the Electoral Amendment Act (No. 2) 1985 take effect at the same time as the Commonwealth Australian Citizenship Amendment Act 1984, despite an earlier state proclamation. It validates anything done in the interval and declares that no person lost the right to vote because of that timing. The change affects electoral administrators and people on the electoral roll by altering when those state amendments are treated as having taken effect._"},"flash_summary_failed":{"failed":true,"reason":"A positive credit balance is required for all requests, including BYOK, so fallback providers remain available. Add credits at https://vercel.com/d?to=%2F%5Bteam%5D%2F%7E%2Fai%3Fmodal%3Dtop-up to continue.","source":"analysis-cron"},"kimi_summary":{"content_quality":"ok","complexity_score":2,"scope_assessment":{"changed":false,"description":"This Act performs exactly the limited, technical purpose stated in its long title: providing for the commencement of the 1985 amendments and dealing with incidental matters. It has not expanded beyond this narrow timing-fix role."},"complexity_factors":["Only 5 short sections totaling roughly 200 words","No defined terms section (only two shorthand references defined inline: 'the proclamation' and 'the Commonwealth Act')","Simple linear structure with no nested conditions or exceptions","Single cross-reference to another Act (Electoral Amendment Act (No. 2) 1985)","Operates entirely retrospectively to validate past actions—conceptually simple despite the temporal gymnastics"],"plain_english_summary":"This is a short, technical Western Australian law that fixes a timing problem with another law.\n\n**What it does:**\n- The *Electoral Amendment Act (No. 2) 1985* was supposed to change how elections work in Western Australia, but its start date got messed up.\n- This 1987 Act fixes that by declaring that the 1985 amendments actually started at the same time as a federal (Commonwealth) law—the *Australian Citizenship Amendment Act 1984*.\n- It also **validates** (makes legally sound) anything that happened between when that federal law started and when the official proclamation was published on 8 May 1987.\n- Finally, it protects people's voting rights: nobody lost their eligibility to vote during that messy period just because of the timing confusion.\n\n**Who it affects:**\n- Primarily the Western Australian Electoral Commission and government officials administering elections.\n- Potentially any Western Australian voter who might have been caught in the gap between the two dates.\n\n**Why it matters:**\nWithout this fix, there was a risk that election-related actions taken between early 1985 (when the federal citizenship changes took effect) and May 1987 were legally questionable. This Act removes that doubt and ensures no one was disenfranchised due to bureaucratic timing issues."},"summary":{"complexity_score":1,"scope_assessment":{"changed":false,"description":"Insufficient information is available to assess whether the scope changed from the original intent. The legislation text is entirely unavailable. However, commencement acts by their nature have a fixed, narrow purpose — to activate pre-existing amendments — and rarely if ever expand in scope."},"complexity_factors":["Commencement acts are inherently simple, single-purpose instruments","No substantive legal content is available to analyse","The actual text of the legislation is inaccessible due to a broken government web page","Based on title alone, the act likely contained only one or a few clauses specifying a commencement date or trigger"],"plain_english_summary":"The Electoral Act (Commencement of Amendments) Act 1987 (WA) was a short, procedural law that set the date or trigger for amendments to the main Electoral Act to take effect. It affected Western Australian electoral administration by bringing already-passed changes into force; once those amendments commenced, the commencement act served only a one‑off administrative role."}},"importantCases":[],"_links":{"self":"/api/acts/electoral-act-commencement-of-amendments-act-1987","history":"/api/acts/electoral-act-commencement-of-amendments-act-1987/history","analysis":"/api/acts/electoral-act-commencement-of-amendments-act-1987/analysis","conflicts":"/api/acts/electoral-act-commencement-of-amendments-act-1987/conflicts","importantCases":"/api/acts/electoral-act-commencement-of-amendments-act-1987/important-cases","documents":"/api/acts/electoral-act-commencement-of-amendments-act-1987/documents"}}