{"id":"C1973A00137","name":"Handicapped Children (Assistance) Act 1973","slug":"handicapped-children-assistance-act-1973","collection":"act","jurisdiction":"commonwealth","status":"repealed","isInForce":false,"actNumber":"137 of 1973","makingDate":null,"administeringDepartment":null,"currentVersion":{"id":2567,"registerId":"commonwealth-C1973A00137-current","compilationNumber":null,"startDate":"2026-03-29","status":"Repealed","reasons":null,"registeredAt":null},"sections":[{"sectionNumber":"1","sectionType":"section","heading":"Handicapped Children (Assistance) Act 1973","content":"Handicapped Children (Assistance) Act 1973\n\nNo. 137 of 1973\n\nAN ACT\n\nTo amend the Handicapped Children (Assistance) Act 1970.\n\n\\[Assented to 13 November 1973\\]\n\nBE IT ENACTED by the Queen, the Senate and the House of Representatives of Australia, as follows:—\n\nShort title and citation.\n\n1. (1) This Act may be cited as the Handicapped Children (Assistance) Act 1973.\n\n(2) The Handicapped Children (Assistance) Act 1970 is in this Act referred to as the Principal Act.\n\n(3) The Principal Act, as amended by this Act, may be cited as the Handicapped Children (Assistance) Act 1970-1973.\n\nCommencement.\n\n2. This Act shall come into operation on the day on which it receives the Royal Assent.\n\nGrants.\n\n3. Section 9 of the Principal Act is amended by omitting paragraphs (a) and (b) of sub-section (3) and substituting the following paragraphs:—\n\n“(a) in the case of an organization that is not a local governing body—did not become available as a result of the borrowing of those moneys or any other moneys by the organization, and were not received by the organization from the Government of Australia or of a State or from a government authority;\n\n  \n\n(b) in the case of an organization that is a local governing body—were not received by the organization (otherwise than as a result of the borrowing of those moneys by the organization) from the Government of Australia or of a State or from a government authority; and\n\n(c) in the case of an organization that is not a local governing body but which received the moneys from a local governing body—were not received by the local governing body (otherwise than as a result of the borrowing of those moneys by the local governing body) from the Government of Australia or of a State or from a government authority.”.\n\nGrants.\n\n4. Section 12 of the Principal Act is amended by omitting paragraphs (a) and (b) of sub-section (3) and substituting the following paragraphs:—\n\n“(a) in the case of an organization that is not a local governing body—did not become available as a result of the borrowing of those moneys or any other moneys by the organization, and were not received by the organization from the Government of Australia or of a State or from a government authority;\n\n(b) in the case of an organization that is a local governing body—were not received by the organization (otherwise than as a result of the borrowing of those moneys by the organization) from the Government of Australia or of a State or from a government authority; and\n\n(c) in the case of an organization that is not a local governing body but which received the moneys from a local governing body—were not received by the local governing body (otherwise than as a result of the borrowing of those moneys by the local governing body) from the Government of Australia or of a State or from a government authority.”.\n\nFormal amendments.\n\n5. The Principal Act (including the title) is further amended by omitting the words “the Commonwealth” (wherever occurring) and substituting the word “Australia”.","sortOrder":0}],"analysis":{"summary":{"complexity_score":3,"scope_assessment":{"changed":false,"description":"This Act does not change the fundamental scope of the Principal Act. The 1970 Act was designed to provide grants for services to children with disabilities, and this 1973 amendment stays squarely within that purpose. The changes are purely technical — refining eligibility rules for matching funds and updating terminology — rather than expanding or redirecting the legislation's reach. The addition of a third category of organisation (non-government bodies funded via local councils) closes a loophole rather than extending the law into new territory."},"complexity_factors":["Very short amending Act — only 5 substantive sections","Conditional logic distinguishing three categories of organisation (non-local-governing-body, local governing body, and non-local-governing-body funded via a local governing body) creates layered 'if/then' reading","Relies heavily on cross-references to the Principal Act (1970) — cannot be understood in isolation","Nested exception structure: 'otherwise than as a result of the borrowing' within a broader exclusion rule adds a subtle carve-out","Identical amendment made twice (Sections 3 and 4) to two different sections of the Principal Act, requiring careful parallel reading","Purely formal amendment in Section 5 (terminology change) adds no legal complexity but contributes minor drafting overhead"],"plain_english_summary":"## Handicapped Children (Assistance) Act 1973\n\nThis is a **short amending Act** — meaning it doesn't stand alone, but instead makes targeted changes to an earlier law, the *Handicapped Children (Assistance) Act 1970* (the \"Principal Act\"). That original 1970 law set up a system of **Commonwealth grants** (government funding) to organisations that provided services for children with disabilities.\n\n### What does this amending Act actually change?\n\n**1. Clarifying the rules around matching grants (Sections 3 & 4)**\nThe 1970 Act required organisations to provide their own money (\"matching funds\") to qualify for government grants. This amendment **refines the rules** about what counts as a valid matching contribution, specifically for three types of organisations:\n\n- **Ordinary (non-government) organisations** — their matching funds must not come from government borrowings, other borrowings, or any government source (Commonwealth, State, or government authority).\n- **Local governing bodies** (like local councils) — their matching funds must not come from government sources, *but* money they borrowed themselves is allowed to count.\n- **Non-government organisations that received money *from* a local council** — a new third category created by this amendment. Their funds trace back through the council, so the same \"no government money\" rule applies to what the council originally received.\n\nIn plain terms: **you can't \"double dip\"** — organisations can't use government money as their supposed \"own contribution\" to unlock more government grants. The new third category closes a loophole where funds could be funnelled through a local council to disguise their government origin.\n\n**2. A cosmetic name change (Section 5)**\nEvery reference to **\"the Commonwealth\"** throughout the Principal Act is replaced with simply **\"Australia\"**. This is a purely formal, stylistic update with no legal effect on rights or obligations.\n\n### Who does this affect?\n- **Disability service organisations** (charities, non-profits, schools, etc.) receiving grants under the 1970 Act.\n- **Local councils** that either receive grants directly or act as a conduit to pass funds to non-government organisations.\n\n### Why does it matter?\nThe amendment tightens the integrity of the grant program by ensuring government money can't be recycled back as fake \"matching\" contributions — protecting the public interest in how taxpayer funds are spent on services for children with disabilities."},"issue_detection":{"absurdities":[{"type":"self_contradicting","section":"Section 5","severity":"low","reasoning":"Section 5 purports to make a sweeping textual substitution across the Principal Act but the mechanism is self-limiting: it cannot reach back and alter the enacting formula of the very instrument creating it. The result is a terminological inconsistency between the amending Act and the amended Act when read as a consolidated whole, which is an internal drafting absurdity, albeit a common one in Commonwealth legislation of this era.","confidence":0.72,"description":"Section 5 instructs that the word 'Australia' be substituted for 'the Commonwealth' wherever it occurs in the Principal Act — but the amending Act itself (this very Act) uses 'the Commonwealth' in its own enacting formula: 'BE IT ENACTED by the Queen, the Senate and the House of Representatives of Australia'. More critically, Sections 3 and 4 of this amending Act insert new text into the Principal Act that refers to 'the Government of Australia' — language already conforming to the substitution. However, this creates a drafting absurdity: the amendment in Section 5 is said to apply to the Principal Act 'including the title', yet it is this amending Act that is doing the amending. The amending Act cannot apply its own Section 5 to itself, meaning any residual 'Commonwealth' references within this Act are unaffected — producing an inconsistent composite document the moment the Acts are read together."},{"type":"other","section":"Sections 3 and 4 (new paragraph (c))","severity":"medium","reasoning":"Paragraphs (a) and (b) impose dual restrictions (borrowing AND government-source tests) on their respective organisation types. Paragraph (c) imposes only a government-source test on the local governing body intermediary, silently dropping the borrowing restriction. This asymmetry is logically inconsistent with the structure of the provision and could make compliance or enforcement determinations impossible to reconcile across the three paragraphs.","confidence":0.78,"description":"The new paragraph (c) inserted by both Sections 3 and 4 creates a logical gap: it addresses the case where an organisation 'is not a local governing body but which received the moneys from a local governing body.' However, the condition on eligibility in paragraph (c) tests only whether the local governing body received the moneys from a government source — it does not test whether the non-local-governing-body organisation itself borrowed the money or received it from a government source independently. An organisation could borrow money, on-lend it to the local governing body, have the local governing body pass it back, and satisfy paragraph (c) literally while circumventing the spirit of the restriction. The paragraph thus creates an incomplete compliance pathway that is internally inconsistent with the evident policy of paragraphs (a) and (b)."},{"type":"other","section":"Section 1(3)","severity":"low","reasoning":"This is a common but technically circular bootstrapping problem in amending legislation: the citation for the amended Act is declared within the amending Act before the amending Act has legally commenced. It is resolved in practice by the simultaneous commencement under Section 2, but the logical sequence is inverted — the Act names the result of its own amendments before those amendments are operative.","confidence":0.55,"description":"Section 1(3) states that the Principal Act 'as amended by this Act, may be cited as the Handicapped Children (Assistance) Act 1970-1973.' This is a standard citation provision, but it creates a minor temporal absurdity: until this Act commences (per Section 2, upon Royal Assent), the composite citation does not legally exist — yet Section 1(3) purports to define the citation within the same Act whose commencement triggers it. In other words, the citation provision speaks of an already-amended Act at a point in time when the amendments have not yet taken effect, treating the future amended state as a present fact."}],"contradictions":[{"severity":"high","section_a":"Section 3 (new paragraph (a))","section_b":"Section 3 (new paragraph (c))","confidence":0.82,"description":"Paragraph (a) disqualifies funds for a non-local-governing-body organisation if those funds 'became available as a result of the borrowing of those moneys OR any other moneys' — a broad anti-avoidance borrowing restriction. Paragraph (c), which also applies to non-local-governing-body organisations (those that received moneys via a local governing body intermediary), contains no equivalent borrowing restriction on the recipient organisation. The same class of organisation — one that is not a local governing body — is subject to a strict borrowing test under paragraph (a) but faces no such test under paragraph (c), depending solely on the route through which funds were received. This creates directly conflicting compliance standards for the same type of entity."},{"severity":"high","section_a":"Section 4 (new paragraph (a))","section_b":"Section 4 (new paragraph (c))","confidence":0.82,"description":"The same structural contradiction reproduced by Section 4 (amending s.12 of the Principal Act) as identified between paragraphs (a) and (c) of the substitution in Section 3: a non-local-governing-body organisation faces a borrowing disqualification under paragraph (a) but not under paragraph (c), creating inconsistent eligibility standards for the same class of organisation depending on whether a local governing body was used as an intermediary."},{"severity":"low","section_a":"Section 2","section_b":"Section 1(3)","confidence":0.5,"description":"Section 2 provides that the Act comes into operation upon Royal Assent, meaning prior to that moment no part of the Act is operative. Yet Section 1(3) describes the Principal Act 'as amended by this Act' — presupposing completed amendments — within the body of an Act that has not yet commenced. The composite citation in Section 1(3) logically cannot exist until Section 2 is satisfied, yet Section 1(3) is drafted as though the amendments are already in force at the time of reading, creating a minor but genuine temporal contradiction between the commencement provision and the citation provision."}]}},"importantCases":[],"_links":{"self":"/api/acts/handicapped-children-assistance-act-1973","history":"/api/acts/handicapped-children-assistance-act-1973/history","analysis":"/api/acts/handicapped-children-assistance-act-1973/analysis","conflicts":"/api/acts/handicapped-children-assistance-act-1973/conflicts","importantCases":"/api/acts/handicapped-children-assistance-act-1973/important-cases","documents":"/api/acts/handicapped-children-assistance-act-1973/documents"}}