{"id":"C2004A03314","name":"Futures Industry (Fees) Act 1986","slug":"futures-industry-fees-act-1986","collection":"act","jurisdiction":"commonwealth","status":"repealed","isInForce":false,"actNumber":"73 of 1986","makingDate":null,"administeringDepartment":null,"currentVersion":{"id":7263,"registerId":"commonwealth-C2004A03314-current","compilationNumber":null,"startDate":"2026-03-30","status":"Repealed","reasons":null,"registeredAt":null},"sections":[{"sectionNumber":"1","sectionType":"section","heading":"Futures Industry (Fees) Act 1986","content":"![1.jpg](image.001.jpeg)\n\nFutures Industry (Fees) Act 1986\n\nNo. 73 of 1986\n\nAn Act relating to fees payable for the purposes of the Futures Industry Act 1986\n\n\\[Assented to 24 June 1986\\]\n\nBE IT ENACTED by the Queen, and the Senate and the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Australia, as follows:\n\nShort title\n\n1. This Act may be cited as the Futures Industry (Fees) Act 1986.\n\nCommencement\n\n2. This Act shall come into operation, or shall be deemed to have come into operation, as the case requires, on the day on which the Futures Industry Act 1986 comes into operation.\n\nInterpretation\n\n3. (1) Expressions used in this Act have the same respective meanings as in the Futures Industry Act 1986.\n\n(2) The Companies and Securities (Interpretation and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1980 applies to this Act.\n\nFees payable\n\n4. (1) There shall be paid to the Commonwealth for or in respect of—\n\n(a) the lodgment of documents with the Commission under the Futures Industry Act 1986;\n\n  \n\n(b) the registration of documents under that Act or the inspection or search of registers kept by, or documents in the custody of, the Commission under that Act;\n\n(c) the production by the Commission, pursuant to a subpoena, of any register kept by, or documents in the custody of, the Commission under that Act;\n\n(d) the issuing of documents or copies of documents, the granting of licences, consents or approvals or the doing of other acts or things by the Ministerial Council or the Commission under that Act;\n\n(e) the making of inquiries of, or applications to, the Ministerial Council or the Commission in relation to matters arising under that Act; and\n\n(f) the submission to the Commission of documents for examination by the Commission,\n\nsuch fees (if any) as are prescribed.\n\n(2) Where a fee is payable to the Commonwealth under sub-section (1) for or in respect of the lodgment of a document with the Commission and the document is submitted for lodgment without payment of the fee, the document shall be deemed not to have been lodged until the fee has been paid.\n\n(3) Where a fee is payable to the Commonwealth under sub-section (1) for or in respect of any matter involving the doing of any act or thing by the Ministerial Council or the Commission, the Ministerial Council or the Commission shall not do that act or thing until the fee has been paid.\n\n(4) This section has effect notwithstanding anything contained in the Futures Industry Act 1986.\n\n(5) Nothing in this section prevents the Commonwealth from—\n\n(a) waiving or reducing, in a particular case or classes of cases, fees that would otherwise be payable pursuant to this section; or\n\n(b) refunding, in whole or in part, in a particular case or classes of cases, fees paid pursuant to this section.\n\nRegulations\n\n5\\. (1) The Governor-General may make regulations, not inconsistent with this Act, prescribing fees, not in any case exceeding $1,000, for the purposes of sub-section 4 (1).\n\n(2) The power of the Governor-General to make regulations shall be exercised only in accordance with advice that is consistent with resolutions of the Ministerial Council.\n\n\\[Minister’s second reading speech made in—\n\nHouse of Representatives on 16 April 1986\n\nSenate on 7 May 1986\\]","sortOrder":0}],"analysis":{"issue_detection":{"absurdities":[{"type":"retroactive_impossibility","section":"Section 2","severity":"medium","reasoning":"The commencement is tied to when the Futures Industry Act 1986 comes into operation. If the Futures Industry Act 1986 commenced before 24 June 1986 (the assent date of this Act), the 'deemed' commencement language would have this Act operating retroactively. Obligations under s4 — including fee payment requirements — could theoretically apply to conduct that occurred before this Act was assented to by the Queen, which is constitutionally and logically problematic. You cannot owe a fee under an Act that did not yet exist at the time.","confidence":0.72,"description":"The commencement clause uses the phrase 'shall come into operation, or shall be deemed to have come into operation, as the case requires' — meaning this Act may be deemed to have commenced before it was assented to (24 June 1986), potentially creating retroactive legal obligations before the Act legally existed."},{"type":"impossible_compliance","section":"Section 4(2) and 4(3)","severity":"medium","reasoning":"If a document is deemed not lodged until the fee is paid (s4(2)), and the Commission cannot act until the fee is paid (s4(3)), there is no formal legal state of 'pending' — the document simply does not exist in a legal sense. This means there is no lodgment to refuse, no decision to appeal, and no trigger for any statutory timeframe. A party unable to pay is left with no legal foothold whatsoever, with no avenue to challenge the fee requirement itself through the normal administrative process. This is not merely a policy choice — it creates a logical void.","confidence":0.78,"description":"The fee-enforcement mechanism creates a potential Catch-22: under s4(3), the Commission cannot act until a fee is paid, but under s4(2), a document is not 'lodged' until the fee is paid — meaning an applicant who cannot pay the fee is trapped in a loop where nothing is formally initiated, and therefore no mechanism exists to formally refuse or appeal the matter."},{"type":"other","section":"Section 5(1)","severity":"low","reasoning":"This is a legislative design flaw rather than a strict logical contradiction. A cap of $1,000 in 1986 Australian dollars represented a meaningful upper limit. With no indexation clause, the Governor-General's regulation-making power is permanently constrained by a nominal figure that loses real-world relevance over time. The Act provides no mechanism to update this cap short of amending primary legislation.","confidence":0.85,"description":"The $1,000 cap on prescribed fees has not been indexed or subject to any adjustment mechanism since 1986, making it a fixed nominal cap in perpetuity. While not strictly a logical absurdity at drafting, the absence of any indexation mechanism means the real value of the cap erodes to near-zero over time, potentially rendering the fee-setting power effectively useless for cost recovery."},{"type":"impossible_compliance","section":"Section 5(2)","severity":"medium","reasoning":"Under s5(2), the Governor-General may only act on advice consistent with Ministerial Council resolutions. If the Ministerial Council has not passed a relevant resolution, or cannot reach one, there is no valid advice that can be given, and therefore no regulations can be made. Since s4(1) requires fees to be 'as prescribed' and s4(2)-(3) enforce fee obligations, the entire operative mechanism of the Act is dependent on Ministerial Council consensus. The Act contains no fallback position if that consensus is unachievable, leaving the Act's core purpose — fee collection — potentially inoperable.","confidence":0.82,"description":"The Governor-General's regulation-making power is constrained to advice 'consistent with resolutions of the Ministerial Council' — but the Act provides no mechanism to resolve what happens if no such resolution has been passed, or if the Ministerial Council is deadlocked, effectively making it impossible to prescribe any fees at all in those circumstances."},{"type":"circular_definition","section":"Section 3(1)","severity":"low","reasoning":"A cross-referential interpretation clause is standard drafting practice, but it is logically hollow when the referencing Act introduces no expressions of its own that require definition. Every operative word in this Act (Commission, Ministerial Council, document, licence, etc.) is borrowed from the Futures Industry Act 1986. The clause does no interpretive work because there are no independent terms to interpret — it is a self-referential loop that only has meaning if you already understand the other Act.","confidence":0.65,"description":"Section 3(1) states that expressions in this Act have 'the same respective meanings as in the Futures Industry Act 1986' — but this Act contains no defined terms of its own, making the interpretation provision entirely circular and redundant. If all meaning is imported wholesale from another Act, s3(1) adds nothing."}],"contradictions":[{"severity":"medium","section_a":"Section 4(3)","section_b":"Section 4(5)","confidence":0.75,"description":"Section 4(3) mandates that the Commission 'shall not' act until a fee is paid — an apparently absolute prohibition. Section 4(5) then permits the Commonwealth to waive or reduce fees in particular cases. If a fee is waived under s4(5) before payment, it is unclear whether s4(3) still prohibits the Commission from acting, since the fee is 'payable' under s4(1) until formally waived. The Act does not specify the mechanism or timing of waiver, creating genuine ambiguity about when the s4(3) prohibition lifts."},{"severity":"medium","section_a":"Section 4(2)","section_b":"Section 4(5)(b)","confidence":0.68,"description":"Section 4(2) deems a document not lodged until the fee is paid. Section 4(5)(b) permits the Commonwealth to refund fees already paid. If a fee is refunded after lodgment, it is logically unclear whether the document retroactively becomes 'not lodged' — since the condition precedent to lodgment (payment) has been reversed. The Act provides no answer, potentially allowing the Commonwealth to nullify completed lodgments through refund."},{"severity":"low","section_a":"Section 5(2)","section_b":"Section 4(4)","confidence":0.6,"description":"Section 4(4) states that s4 has effect 'notwithstanding anything contained in the Futures Industry Act 1986', asserting supremacy over that Act. However, s5(2) requires that regulations be consistent with Ministerial Council resolutions — and the Ministerial Council is itself a creature of the cooperative scheme underpinning the Futures Industry Act 1986. This creates a tension where this Act claims independence from the Futures Industry Act 1986 (via s4(4)), yet its own regulation-making power is tethered to a body whose authority and composition derive from that same Act."}]},"summary":{"complexity_score":2,"scope_assessment":{"changed":false,"description":"This Act is a tightly scoped companion to the Futures Industry Act 1986 and has not grown beyond its original purpose. It does exactly what its title and long title promise: it authorises and governs the charging of fees for administrative functions under the parent Act. There is no evidence of scope creep, amendment, or expansion into unrelated subject matter."},"complexity_factors":["Very short Act — only 5 sections","Minimal defined terms (expressions are borrowed wholesale from the parent Futures Industry Act 1986 rather than defined here)","Limited cross-references — primarily to one parent Act and one interpretation Act","Straightforward conditional logic (e.g. no fee = document not lodged; no fee = Commission won't act)","Fee-setting is delegated to regulations rather than set out in the Act itself, adding one small layer of indirection","$1,000 cap on fees is a simple, hard ceiling with no tiered or conditional structure"],"plain_english_summary":"## Futures Industry (Fees) Act 1986 — Plain English Summary\n\nThis is a short, companion piece of legislation that sits alongside the **Futures Industry Act 1986**. Its sole purpose is to **authorise the Commonwealth government to charge fees** for various administrative services provided under that parent Act.\n\n### Who does it affect?\nAnyone who needs to deal with the **Commission** (the regulatory body overseeing the futures industry — i.e., financial contracts for the future delivery of commodities or financial instruments) or the **Ministerial Council** (a council of relevant Commonwealth and State ministers). This includes businesses and individuals who are:\n- **Lodging documents** with the Commission (e.g., registration paperwork)\n- **Searching or inspecting registers** (official records) held by the Commission\n- **Applying for licences, consents or approvals**\n- **Making inquiries or applications** to the Commission or Ministerial Council\n- **Submitting documents for examination**\n- **Responding to subpoenas** (court orders requiring the Commission to produce documents)\n\n### What does it actually do?\n\n- **Authorises fee-charging:** Fees can be charged for any of the above activities, but only if set by regulations (rules made by the Governor-General — Australia's head of state acting on government advice).\n- **Caps fees at $1,000:** No single fee can exceed $1,000.\n- **Enforces payment:** If you lodge a document without paying the required fee, it is treated as if it was never lodged. The Commission also cannot act on your application until the fee is paid.\n- **Allows flexibility:** The Commonwealth can waive, reduce or refund fees in individual cases or categories of cases.\n- **Keeps fee-setting in check:** The Governor-General can only set fees in line with resolutions (formal decisions) of the Ministerial Council, meaning the States have a say in what fees are set."}},"importantCases":[],"_links":{"self":"/api/acts/futures-industry-fees-act-1986","history":"/api/acts/futures-industry-fees-act-1986/history","analysis":"/api/acts/futures-industry-fees-act-1986/analysis","conflicts":"/api/acts/futures-industry-fees-act-1986/conflicts","importantCases":"/api/acts/futures-industry-fees-act-1986/important-cases","documents":"/api/acts/futures-industry-fees-act-1986/documents"}}