{"id":"C1935A00035","name":"Ministers of State Act 1935","slug":"ministers-of-state-act-1935","collection":"act","jurisdiction":"commonwealth","status":"repealed","isInForce":false,"actNumber":"35 of 1935","makingDate":null,"administeringDepartment":null,"currentVersion":{"id":3771,"registerId":"commonwealth-C1935A00035-current","compilationNumber":null,"startDate":"2026-03-30","status":"Repealed","reasons":null,"registeredAt":null},"sections":[{"sectionNumber":"1","sectionType":"section","heading":"Ministers of State Act 1935","content":"MINISTERS OF STATE.\n\nNo. 35 of 1935.\n\nAn Act to increase the maximum number of Ministers of State from nine to ten and to appropriate an amount for their salaries.\n\n\\[Assented to 3rd October, 1935.\\]\n\nBE it enacted by the King’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 Ministers of State Act 1935.\n\nRepeal.\n\n2. The Acts specified in the first column of the Schedule to this Act are repealed to the extent respectively specified in the second column of that Schedule.\n\nNumber of Ministers.\n\n3. The number of Ministers of State may exceed seven but shall not exceed ten.\n\nSalaries of Ministers.\n\n4. There shall be payable to the King, out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Commonwealth, which is hereby appropriated accordingly, for the salaries of the Ministers of State, an annual sum up to but not exceeding Thirteen thousand five hundred and sixty pounds.\n\nSection 2. THE SCHEDULE.\n\n| First Column.Acts Repealed.                               | Second Column.Extent of Repeal. |\n| --------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------- |\n| Ministers of State Act 1917.............................. | The whole                       |\n| Financial Emergency Act 1931...........................   | Section seven                   |\n| Financial Emergency Act 1932...........................   | Section four                    |\n| Financial Relief Act 1933...............................  | Section thirty-six              |","sortOrder":0}],"analysis":{"kimi_summary":{"_metrics":{"model":"kimi-k2.5","source":"moonshot-batch","completionTokens":1679},"content_quality":"ok","complexity_score":1,"scope_assessment":{"changed":false,"description":"The legislation remains tightly focused on its original purpose of adjusting the maximum number of ministers and appropriating funds for their remuneration."},"complexity_factors":["Only 4 operative sections with no subsections","No defined terms or interpretation provisions","No conditional logic or nested exceptions","Single purpose statute with straightforward provisions"],"plain_english_summary":"**What it does:** This law sets the maximum number of Ministers of State (cabinet ministers) at ten and provides public funding for their salaries.\n\n**Key points:**\n- **Cabinet size:** The government can appoint up to ten ministers (the executive members who run government departments).\n- **Salaries:** Authorises up to £13,560 per year to be paid from the Consolidated Revenue Fund (the government's main bank account) to cover ministerial salaries.\n- **Cleanup:** Repeals four older laws that previously governed the number of ministers and their pay, replacing them with this single, updated rule.\n\n**Who it affects:** This changes how the Australian Government can be structured, giving the Prime Minister flexibility to appoint up to ten ministers instead of a smaller number. It also commits taxpayer money to pay for these positions."},"issue_detection":{"absurdities":[{"type":"other","section":"Section 3","severity":"low","reasoning":"The long title states the purpose is 'to increase the maximum number of Ministers of State from nine to ten.' However, Section 3 only stipulates the number 'may exceed seven but shall not exceed ten.' This language is inherited from incremental amendment drafting, but it creates a mismatch: the floor of 'more than seven' (i.e., at least eight) is inconsistent with the stated baseline of nine in the long title. If the prior law allowed up to nine, Section 3 should logically read 'may exceed nine but shall not exceed ten.' The current drafting actually permits a number as low as eight, which would have been prohibited under the prior regime the long title implies. The section is thus over-broad relative to its stated purpose — it doesn't merely raise the ceiling from nine to ten, it also potentially lowers the floor.","confidence":0.82,"description":"The Act's own title and long title claim to increase the maximum number of Ministers from nine to ten, but Section 3 sets the maximum at ten while setting the floor above seven — meaning the operative provision is consistent with a prior maximum of eight or nine, not specifically nine to ten as advertised."},{"type":"other","section":"Section 4","severity":"medium","reasoning":"Section 4 reads: 'There shall be payable to the King… for the salaries of the Ministers of State, an annual sum…' The grammatical construction makes 'the King' the payee, not the Ministers. Standard appropriation drafting of the era typically reads 'payable out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund for the salaries of…' — here the insertion of 'to the King' as the recipient before the prepositional phrase 'for the salaries' creates a logical absurdity: the money is appropriated and paid to the King for the purpose of Ministers' salaries, but no mechanism compels the King to then disburse it to the Ministers. This is almost certainly a drafting quirk of the era (reflecting the constitutional fiction of Crown revenues), but literally read it means the Ministers have no statutory entitlement to receive anything.","confidence":0.75,"description":"Salaries are directed to be payable 'to the King' out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund, rather than to the Ministers themselves. On a strict literal reading, the Crown receives its own Ministers' salaries, meaning the Ministers are never actually paid."},{"type":"other","section":"Section 4","severity":"low","reasoning":"The Act repeals the Ministers of State Act 1917 in whole, along with salary-related provisions in three Financial Emergency Acts. If those emergency Acts had reduced ministerial salaries, their repeal without a clear saving provision could cause salary entitlements to spring back to pre-emergency levels, potentially exceeding the £13,560 cap in Section 4 before any Ministers are even appointed. The Act provides no transitional mechanism to reconcile restored salary entitlements with the new cap.","confidence":0.61,"description":"The salary cap of £13,560 per annum for up to ten Ministers implies a maximum of £1,356 per Minister — a figure that may already be arithmetically inconsistent with the salary rates established under the Acts being repealed, creating a potential shortfall upon commencement."}],"contradictions":[{"severity":"medium","section_a":"Long Title / Preamble","section_b":"Section 3","confidence":0.78,"description":"The long title declares the Act's purpose is to increase the maximum number of Ministers 'from nine to ten,' but Section 3 sets the operative floor at 'more than seven' (i.e., a minimum of eight), not more than nine. The long title implies the pre-existing minimum and maximum were both nine; Section 3's floor of eight contradicts this by permitting a number of Ministers that would have been valid under some earlier regime but is lower than the nine the long title treats as the baseline."},{"severity":"medium","section_a":"Section 2 and the Schedule (repeal of Financial Emergency Act 1931, s.7; Financial Emergency Act 1932, s.4; Financial Relief Act 1933, s.36)","section_b":"Section 4","confidence":0.65,"description":"Section 2 repeals the emergency salary-reduction provisions from three Acts without any saving clause, which would logically restore Ministers' salaries to their pre-emergency levels. However, Section 4 simultaneously imposes a new aggregate salary cap of £13,560. If the restored (pre-emergency) salary entitlements exceed this cap in aggregate, the two provisions are in direct conflict: Ministers would be legally entitled to higher salaries under the restored common law/prior statute position, yet the appropriation is capped at a figure that may not cover those entitlements."}]},"summary":{"complexity_score":2,"scope_assessment":{"changed":false,"description":"This Act does exactly what it says on the tin. Its original purpose was to increase the minister cap from nine to ten and set a salary appropriation, and the text contains nothing beyond that. No scope creep, no tacked-on provisions, no mission drift. It is a narrow, single-purpose amending Act that also tidies up superseded legislation via the Schedule of repeals."},"complexity_factors":["Very short — only 4 operative sections","Minimal defined terms — no interpretation section at all","No conditional logic or nested exceptions","Single Schedule listing 4 repeals, straightforward in structure","One financial appropriation with a simple ceiling figure","Cross-references limited to the attached Schedule only"],"plain_english_summary":"## Ministers of State Act 1935\n\nThis is a short piece of legislation that does two straightforward things:\n\n**1. Increases the number of Cabinet Ministers allowed**\nThe law raises the **maximum number of Ministers of State** (that is, members of the Cabinet who run government departments) from **nine to ten**. It also sets a floor — there must be more than seven. So the Cabinet had to have between eight and ten ministers.\n\n**2. Sets the total salary budget for those Ministers**\nIt appropriates (that is, **authorises the government to spend**) up to **£13,560 per year** from the Consolidated Revenue Fund (the main government bank account) to pay all Ministers' salaries combined.\n\n**Who does it affect?**\n- Directly: the Prime Minister and the small group of senior politicians appointed as Ministers of State.\n- Indirectly: the structure and size of the federal executive government.\n\n**Why does it matter?**\nAt the time, the number of ministers was strictly capped by law — you couldn't just appoint another minister without an Act of Parliament authorising it. This Act was essentially a machinery-of-government adjustment, allowing the government of the day to expand its Cabinet by one extra minister and fund that position. It also cleaned up the statute books by repealing four older Acts (or parts of them) that had previously governed minister numbers and salaries, including Depression-era emergency pay cut laws from 1931–1933."}},"importantCases":[],"_links":{"self":"/api/acts/ministers-of-state-act-1935","history":"/api/acts/ministers-of-state-act-1935/history","analysis":"/api/acts/ministers-of-state-act-1935/analysis","conflicts":"/api/acts/ministers-of-state-act-1935/conflicts","importantCases":"/api/acts/ministers-of-state-act-1935/important-cases","documents":"/api/acts/ministers-of-state-act-1935/documents"}}