{"id":"C1971A00039","name":"International Wheat Agreement Act 1971","slug":"international-wheat-agreement-act-1971","collection":"act","jurisdiction":"commonwealth","status":"repealed","isInForce":false,"actNumber":"39 of 1971","makingDate":null,"administeringDepartment":null,"currentVersion":{"id":5691,"registerId":"commonwealth-C1971A00039-current","compilationNumber":null,"startDate":"2026-03-30","status":"Repealed","reasons":null,"registeredAt":null},"sections":[{"sectionNumber":"1","sectionType":"section","heading":"International Wheat Agreement Act 1971","content":"International Wheat Agreement\n\nNo. 39 of 1971\n\nAn Act to approve the Ratification by Australia of the Wheat Trade Convention, 1971 and the Food Aid Convention, 1971 and to repeal certain Acts.\n\n\\[Assented to 18 May 1971\\]\n\nBE it enacted by the Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty, 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 International Wheat Agreement Act 1971.\n\nCommencement\n\n2. This Act shall come into operation on the day on which it receives the Royal Assent.\n\nRepeal\n\n3. The following Acts are repealed:—\n\nInternational Wheat Agreement Act 1962;\n\nInternational Wheat Agreement (Extension) Act 1965;\n\nInternational Wheat Agreement (Extension) Act 1966;\n\nInternational Wheat Agreement (Extension) Act 1967;\n\nInternational Grains Arrangement Act 1967.\n\nApproval of ratification of Conventions.\n\n4. Approval is given to the ratification by Australia of the Wheat Trade Convention, 1971 and the Food Aid Convention, 1971, that is to say, the Conventions of those names of which the International Wheat Agreement, 1971, that is to say, the Agreement adopted by the United Nations Wheat Conference, 1971 at Geneva on the twentieth day of February, One thousand nine hundred and seventy-one, consists.","sortOrder":0}],"analysis":{"kimi_summary":{"_metrics":{"model":"kimi-k2.5","source":"moonshot-batch","completionTokens":1606},"content_quality":"ok","complexity_score":2,"scope_assessment":{"changed":false,"description":"The Act remains tightly confined to its original purpose of approving ratification of the 1971 Wheat Trade and Food Aid Conventions and repealing superseded legislation from the 1960s."},"complexity_factors":["Single operative provision approving ratification of two external international conventions","Legislation incorporates treaties by reference without reproducing their text in the statute","Minimal structure with only 5 sections and no regulatory mechanisms"],"plain_english_summary":"This Act gives Australia formal approval to join two international agreements reached in 1971: the **Wheat Trade Convention** (which sets rules for international wheat trading) and the **Food Aid Convention** (which coordinates food assistance to developing countries).\n\n**Key points:**\n* **Treaty ratification**: The Act allows the Australian Government to formally 'ratify' (make binding on Australia) these two United Nations conventions that were negotiated in Geneva.\n* **Cleaning up old laws**: It repeals five earlier Acts from the 1960s that covered previous wheat agreements, which are now out of date.\n\n**Who cares?** Primarily wheat traders, the agriculture sector, and countries that receive Australian wheat as food aid. The Act itself doesn't create new domestic rules or penalties—it simply authorises Australia's participation in these international arrangements."},"summary":{"complexity_score":1,"scope_assessment":{"changed":false,"description":"This Act is a direct and clean successor to the earlier international wheat agreement legislation it repeals. It does not expand beyond its original purpose — it simply updates Australia's international treaty commitments from the 1962–1967 framework to the new 1971 conventions. The scope remains exactly the same: parliamentary approval for Australia's participation in international wheat trade and food aid arrangements."},"complexity_factors":["Only 4 operative sections — extremely short","No defined terms section","No conditional logic or exceptions","No cross-references to other legislation beyond the Acts being repealed","Single operative action: approving ratification of two named conventions","Plain declaratory language throughout"],"plain_english_summary":"## International Wheat Agreement Act 1971\n\n**What this law does in plain English:**\n\nThis is a short, straightforward piece of Commonwealth legislation that does two things:\n\n- **Gives Parliament's approval** for Australia to formally commit (ratify) to two international treaties agreed at a United Nations conference in Geneva in February 1971:\n  - The **Wheat Trade Convention, 1971** — an international agreement governing the trade of wheat between countries\n  - The **Food Aid Convention, 1971** — an international agreement about providing wheat and grain as food aid to countries in need\n\nTogether, these two conventions made up what was known as the **International Wheat Agreement, 1971**.\n\n- **Cleans up old legislation** by repealing (cancelling) five earlier Acts that had approved previous versions of similar international wheat agreements dating back to 1962, including extensions and the International Grains Arrangement Act 1967. This essentially replaces the old legal framework with the new one.\n\n**Who does this affect?**\n\nPrimarily the Australian Government and its obligations under international trade and food aid law. It does not directly impose obligations or rights on individual Australians — it is about Australia's relationship with other countries in the global wheat market.\n\n**Why does it matter?**\n\nWheat was one of Australia's most significant export commodities in 1971. By ratifying these conventions, Australia committed to international rules around wheat pricing, trade volumes, and contributing grain to help feed people in poorer nations. This legislation gave the formal legal tick of approval required under Australia's constitutional system before the Government could bind the country to those international commitments."},"issue_detection":{"absurdities":[{"type":"other","section":"4","severity":"low","reasoning":"Parliamentary approval to ratify a treaty is supposed to authorise the executive to take the step of ratification. However, this is a recurring and accepted (if philosophically untidy) feature of Australian treaty legislation — the Agreement is adopted internationally first, then Parliament approves ratification domestically. While technically the Act approves a future act of ratification (not the Agreement's adoption), the phrasing creates an appearance of approving something already done. This is a low-severity quirk of treaty-implementation drafting rather than a genuine logical impossibility.","confidence":0.55,"description":"Section 4 approves ratification of Conventions that form part of the International Wheat Agreement, 1971, which was adopted on 20 February 1971 — nearly three months before this Act received Royal Assent on 18 May 1971. The approval is therefore being granted after-the-fact to an agreement already in existence, raising the question of whether 'approval to ratify' means anything if the agreement pre-dates the Act."},{"type":"circular_definition","section":"4","severity":"medium","reasoning":"The drafting structure is: the 'Conventions' are defined as 'the Conventions of those names of which the International Wheat Agreement, 1971 consists', and the 'International Wheat Agreement, 1971' is then itself defined as 'the Agreement adopted by the United Nations Wheat Conference, 1971 at Geneva.' While the ultimate anchor is the Geneva adoption (breaking the strict logical circle), the intermediate definitional pathway goes: Conventions → Agreement → Conventions, before finally resolving to the Geneva instrument. A reader must parse through a circular loop to reach the external anchor. This creates genuine interpretive confusion, particularly for a provision whose sole operative purpose is to identify the instruments being approved.","confidence":0.8,"description":"Section 4 contains a deeply convoluted self-referential definitional structure: it approves ratification of 'the Wheat Trade Convention, 1971 and the Food Aid Convention, 1971, that is to say, the Conventions of those names of which the International Wheat Agreement, 1971, that is to say, the Agreement adopted by [the Conference] ... consists.' The section defines the Conventions by reference to the Agreement, and simultaneously defines the Agreement by reference to the Conventions — a circular definitional loop."},{"type":"other","section":"3","severity":"low","reasoning":"The long title states the Act exists to approve ratification of the two 1971 Conventions and 'to repeal certain Acts.' The repeal of the four predecessor Wheat Agreement Acts is logical housekeeping. However, the International Grains Arrangement Act 1967 relates to a separate international instrument (the International Grains Arrangement, the successor to the 1962 Wheat Agreement under a different name). Its repeal here is defensible on policy grounds but sits incongruously within an Act whose title and purpose is framed around the 'International Wheat Agreement' lineage. This is a low-level drafting oddity rather than a true impossibility.","confidence":0.5,"description":"Section 3 repeals the International Grains Arrangement Act 1967 alongside four 'International Wheat Agreement' Acts. The International Grains Arrangement is a distinct instrument to the International Wheat Agreement family — repealing it under an Act whose sole stated purpose (per the long title) is to approve ratification of the Wheat Trade Convention and Food Aid Convention, and to repeal 'certain Acts', creates an unexplained jurisdictional overreach within the Act's own stated scope."}],"contradictions":[]}},"importantCases":[],"_links":{"self":"/api/acts/international-wheat-agreement-act-1971","history":"/api/acts/international-wheat-agreement-act-1971/history","analysis":"/api/acts/international-wheat-agreement-act-1971/analysis","conflicts":"/api/acts/international-wheat-agreement-act-1971/conflicts","importantCases":"/api/acts/international-wheat-agreement-act-1971/important-cases","documents":"/api/acts/international-wheat-agreement-act-1971/documents"}}