{"id":"salaries-adjustment-public-offices-act-1976","name":"Salaries Adjustment (Public Offices) Act 1976","slug":"salaries-adjustment-public-offices-act-1976","collection":"act","jurisdiction":"sa","status":"in_force","isInForce":true,"actNumber":null,"makingDate":null,"administeringDepartment":null,"currentVersion":{"id":106748,"registerId":"sa-salaries-adjustment-public-offices-act-1976-current","compilationNumber":null,"startDate":"2026-04-03","status":"InForce","reasons":null,"registeredAt":null},"sections":[{"sectionNumber":"1","sectionType":"section","heading":"Salaries Adjustment (Public Offices) Act 1976","content":"South Australia\nSalaries Adjustment (Public Offices) Act 1976\nAn Act to make provision for the adjustment of salaries of certain employees and for other purposes.\n\nContents\n1\tShort title\n4\tOperation of Superannuation Act not affected\n5\tRights to salary apart from this Act not affected\n6\tInterpretation\n7\tRetro-active increases in salary\n8\tRegulations\nLegislative history\n\nThe Parliament of South Australia enacts as follows:\n1—Short title\nThis Act may be cited as the Salaries Adjustment (Public Offices) Act 1976.\n4—Operation of Superannuation Act not affected\nNothing in this Act shall apply to or in relation to the Superannuation Act 1974.\n5—Rights to salary apart from this Act not affected\nNothing in this Act shall affect any right to salary in respect of a public office that would exist had this Act not been enacted.\n6—Interpretation\nIn this Act, unless the contrary intention appears—\ncommencing date in relation to a retro-active determination, means the date as from which the determination is expressed to have effect;\npublic office means an office or place—\n\t(a)\tconstituted or created by, or pursuant to, an Act; or\n\t(b)\tto which a person has been appointed by the Governor in the exercise of his executive authority; or\n\t(c)\tbeing any prescribed office or place;\nretro-active determination means any award or determination (whether of a judicial or administrative nature) purporting to increase the salary payable to the holder of a public office as from a day earlier than the day on which the award or determination is made;\nretro-active period, in relation to a retro-active determination, means the period commencing on the commencing date and ending on the date on which the determination is made;\nsalary includes wages and allowances and any other form of remuneration in the nature of salary, wages or allowances.\n7—Retro-active increases in salary\n\t(1)\tWhere—\n\t(a)\ta retro-active determination is made in relation to a public office; and\n\t(b)\ta person occupied that office for some time during the retro-active period but had ceased to occupy that office on or before the date on which the determination was made,\nthat person shall be entitled to be paid a salary as so increased by that determination, in respect of the period, subsequent to the commencing date, for which he occupied that office.\n\t(2)\tSubsection (1) of this section shall apply to and in relation to every retro-active determination made after the commencement of this Act whether the retro-active period in relation to that determination commenced before, on or after the commencement of this Act.\n8—Regulations\nThe Governor may make such regulations as are necessary or expedient for the purposes of this Act.\nLegislative history\nNotes\n\t•\tFor further information relating to the Act and subordinate legislation made under the Act see the Index of South Australian Statutes or www.legislation.sa.gov.au.\nLegislation repealed by principal Act\nThe Salaries Adjustment (Public Offices) Act 1976 repealed the following:\nSalaries Adjustment (Public Service and Teachers) Act 1960\nSalaries Adjustment (Public Service and Teachers) Act Amendment Act 1975\nPrincipal Act\nYear\nNo\nTitle\nAssent\nCommencement\n1976\n37\nSalaries Adjustment (Public Offices) Act 1976\n21.10.1976\n9.12.1976 (Gazette 9.12.1976 p1880)\nProvisions amended\nNew entries appear in bold.\nEntries that relate to provisions that have been deleted appear in italics.\nProvision\nHow varied\nCommencement\nLong title\namended under Legislation Revision and Publication Act 2002\n\nss 2 & 3\nomitted under Legislation Revision and Publication Act 2002\n\n","sortOrder":0}],"analysis":{"summary":{"complexity_score":1,"scope_assessment":{"changed":false,"description":"Scope assessment is not possible as the legislative text was not available. The page returned a 404-style error due to a website migration. No determination can be made about whether the Act's scope changed from its original intent."},"complexity_factors":["No actual legislative text was retrievable — only a website error page was provided","Analysis is limited to inference from the Act's title alone","Cannot assess operative provisions, definitions, schedules, or amendments","Historical 1976 legislation may have been repealed or substantially amended, adding unknown complexity"],"plain_english_summary":"The Salaries Adjustment (Public Offices) Act 1976 (SA) appears to set a statutory mechanism for changing pay for holders of public offices, letting salaries be updated without fresh legislation. It would primarily affect statutory office-holders in South Australia and the public funds that pay them. (Full text unavailable from the government website; search legislation.sa.gov.au.)"},"flash_summary":{"complexity_score":2,"scope_assessment":{"changed":true,"description":"The Act replaced earlier Salaries Adjustment Acts (1960 and 1975) and later had internal provisions omitted (ss 2 & 3 omitted under the Legislation Revision and Publication Act 2002). Those changes indicate the statutory text and scope have been altered since original enactment, though the published extract does not show the omitted provisions so the precise substantive change in scope is not specified in this source."},"complexity_factors":["Short, narrowly focused statute with few operative sections (ss 1, 4–8).","Clear defined key terms (e.g. \"retro‑active determination\", \"public office\", \"commencing date\") reducing interpretive ambiguity (s 6).","Covers retroactive pay for former office‑holders, which requires administrative calculation and payment processes (s 7).","Exclusion of Superannuation Act 1974 creates a doctrinal boundary that may require cross‑reference (s 4).","Regulation‑making power vested in the Governor introduces limited executive discretion over implementation details (s 8).","Some residual ambiguity in terms like \"prescribed office\" and operationalisation of the \"commencing date\" can create minor compliance uncertainty (s 6).","Legislative history notes omissions and repeals (ss 2 & 3 omitted; prior Acts repealed), which can complicate historical scope analysis."],"plain_english_summary":"This Act requires that when an award or determination increases the salary of a public office from an earlier date, a person who held that office during the retro‑active period but had left before the determination must be paid the higher salary for the time they served (s 7). It does not affect matters under the Superannuation Act 1974 (s 4). Payments are made by the employer (the government); determinations may be judicial or administrative and the Governor may make regulations (s 6, s 7, s 8)."},"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":"The legislation remains tightly focused on its original purpose of ensuring backdated salary adjustments apply to former public office holders. The 1976 Act replaced earlier specific legislation covering public service and teachers with a broader \"public offices\" definition, but this was a consolidation and expansion of coverage rather than scope creep. The current text shows no significant expansion beyond the core back-pay mechanism."},"complexity_factors":["Very short statute (8 sections, approximately 500 words)","Only 5 defined terms in the interpretation section (commencing date, public office, retro-active determination, retro-active period, salary)","Single operative provision (section 7) with straightforward conditional logic (two-part test in subsection (1))","No cross-references to other legislation except exclusionary references (sections 4 and 5)","No nested exceptions or complex temporal calculations beyond simple date ranges","Standard regulation-making power (section 8) without unusual constraints or procedures"],"plain_english_summary":"**What this law does:**\n\nThis Act ensures that public servants in South Australia get paid salary increases even if those increases are announced after they've already left their jobs.\n\n**The problem it solves:**\n\nSometimes, wage negotiations or court decisions (called \"awards\" or \"determinations\") result in pay rises that are backdated — meaning they apply from a date in the past. If a public servant had already resigned or finished their job before that decision was made, they might miss out on the back pay they earned while working there. This law fixes that gap.\n\n**Who it affects:**\n\n- **Public office holders** — people working in government positions created by legislation, appointed by the Governor, or prescribed by regulation (this includes public servants, teachers, and other government employees)\n- **Former employees** — specifically those who left their public sector job before a backdated pay rise was officially decided\n\n**How it works:**\n\n- If a pay increase is backdated (the law calls this a \"retro-active determination\"), and you worked during that backdated period but left before the decision was made, you are still entitled to the extra pay for the time you worked\n- This applies regardless of whether the backdated period started before or after this law came into effect\n\n**Important protections:**\n\n- The law doesn't affect superannuation entitlements (separate rules apply under the *Superannuation Act 1974*)\n- It doesn't take away any other salary rights people already had\n\n**Why it matters:**\n\nWithout this law, public servants who changed jobs or retired could lose out on pay rises they had effectively earned — simply because the paperwork took longer than their employment lasted. It ensures fairness in backdated wage adjustments across the South Australian public sector."},"issue_detection":{"absurdities":[],"contradictions":[]}},"importantCases":[],"_links":{"self":"/api/acts/salaries-adjustment-public-offices-act-1976","history":"/api/acts/salaries-adjustment-public-offices-act-1976/history","analysis":"/api/acts/salaries-adjustment-public-offices-act-1976/analysis","conflicts":"/api/acts/salaries-adjustment-public-offices-act-1976/conflicts","importantCases":"/api/acts/salaries-adjustment-public-offices-act-1976/important-cases","documents":"/api/acts/salaries-adjustment-public-offices-act-1976/documents"}}