{"id":"C1973A00006","name":"Seamen's War Pensions and Allowances Act 1973","slug":"seamen-s-war-pensions-and-allowances-act-1973","collection":"act","jurisdiction":"commonwealth","status":"repealed","isInForce":false,"actNumber":"6 of 1973","makingDate":null,"administeringDepartment":null,"currentVersion":{"id":2525,"registerId":"commonwealth-C1973A00006-current","compilationNumber":null,"startDate":"2026-03-29","status":"Repealed","reasons":null,"registeredAt":null},"sections":[{"sectionNumber":"1","sectionType":"section","heading":"Seamen's War Pensions and Allowances Act 1973","content":"Seamen’s War Pensions and Allowances Act 1973\n\nNo. 6 of 1973\n\nAN ACT\n\nTo amend the Seamen’s War Pensions and Allowances Act 1940–1972.\n\n\\[Assented to 16 March 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 Seamen’s War Pensions and Allowances Act 1973.\n\n(2) The Seamen’s War Pensions and Allowances Act 1940–1972 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 Seamen’s War Pensions and Allowances Act 1940–1973.\n\n \n\nCommencement.\n\n2. Subject to section 7, this Act shall come into operation on the day on which it receives the Royal Assent.\n\nInterpretation.\n\n3. Section 3 of the Principal Act is amended—\n\n(a) by omitting from sub-section (1) the definitions of “child”, “step-son”, “step-daughter”, “widow” and “wife”;\n\n(b) by omitting paragraphs (b) and (ba) of the definition of “dependant” in sub-section (1) and substituting the following paragraph:—\n\n“(b) a child of the mariner; and” and\n\n(c) by inserting after sub-section (1b) the following sub-section:—\n\n“(1c) In this Act, unless the contrary intention appears, ‘child’, ‘step-daughter’, ‘step-son’, ‘widow’ and ‘wife’ have the same respective meanings as in Part III of the Repatriation Act 1920–1973 except that, for the purposes of this sub-section—\n\n(a) a reference in that Part to a member of the Forces shall be read as a reference to an Australian mariner for the purposes of this Act;\n\n(b) ‘widow’ does not include a separated widow; and\n\n(c) ‘wife’ does not include a separated wife.”.\n\nRates of pension on death or total incapacity.\n\n4. Section 18 of the Principal Act is amended by omitting from subsection (4a) the words “Sixty-eight dollars” and substituting the words “Seventy-three dollars ten cents”.\n\nRegulations.\n\n5. Section 59 of the Principal Act is amended by omitting from paragraph (g) of sub-section (1) the words “under the age of twenty-one years”.\n\nFirst Schedule.\n\n6. The First Schedule to the Principal Act is repealed and the following Schedule substituted:—\n\nFIRST SCHEDULE Section 18\n\nGeneral Pension Rates—Death or Total Incapacity.\n\n```html\n

Column 1

Column 2

Column 3

Column 4

Rate of pay per day of the Australian mariner in the currency provided for by the Coinage Act 1909 or that Act as amended

Rate of pension payable per fortnight to widow on death of Australian mariner

Aggregate of rates of pensions payable per fortnight to dependants other than widow and children on death of Australian mariner

Rate of pension payable per fortnight to Australian mariner on total incapacity

£

s.

d.

£

s.

d.

$

$

$

Not exceeding

1

2

6

43.00

14.00

32.00

Exceeding

1

2

6

but not exceeding

1

7

6

43.00

14.00

32.00

Exceeding

1

7

6

but not exceeding

1

15

0

43.00

14.90

32.00

Exceeding

1

15

0

but not exceeding

2

2

6

43.00

16.10

32.00

Exceeding

2

2

6

but not exceeding

2

10

0

43.00

17.30

32.00

Exceeding

2

10

0

..

..

..

..

43.10

17.60

32.00

\n```\n\n \n\nApplication of certain amendments.\n\n7. The amendments made by sections 4 and 6—\n\n(a) shall be deemed to have come into operation on the seventh day of December, 1972; and\n\n(b) apply in relation to an instalment of a pension falling due on that date and to all subsequent instalments.","sortOrder":0}],"analysis":{"issue_detection":{"absurdities":[{"type":"retroactive_impossibility","section":"Section 6 (First Schedule, Column 1)","severity":"high","reasoning":"The Schedule purports to set current pension rates by reference to a mariner's 'rate of pay per day... in the currency provided for by the Coinage Act 1909.' By 1973, no one was being paid in pre-decimal currency. The Schedule's trigger conditions (pay brackets expressed in £ s. d.) could never be satisfied by any contemporary mariner, making it practically impossible to determine which row of the table applies to a serving or recently serving mariner. While the pay brackets were inherited from the original 1940 Act and the conversion provisions presumably existed elsewhere, this 1973 amending Act replaces the Schedule entirely (s. 6 says 'the following Schedule substituted') without converting the Column 1 pay brackets into decimal currency, creating an absurd situation where the operative pension-rate table is anchored in a currency that ceased to exist seven years earlier.","confidence":0.85,"description":"The First Schedule uses pre-decimal currency (pounds, shillings and pence — £, s., d.) to define the pay brackets that determine pension entitlements, despite Australia having converted to decimal currency (dollars and cents) on 14 February 1966 — over seven years before this Act was passed in 1973. No Australian mariner could have been receiving wages denominated in £ s. d. at the time this Schedule was operative."},{"type":"circular_definition","section":"Section 3(c) — inserted s. 1c(b) and (c)","severity":"medium","reasoning":"The provision carves out 'separated widow' and 'separated wife' as exceptions to the imported definitions, but provides no definition of 'separated' in this Act. Part III of the Repatriation Act 1920–1973 may itself define these terms, but by choosing to exclude them as a carve-out rather than simply importing the full definition including any exclusions, the drafting creates an ambiguity: if Part III defines 'separated widow' in one way and common law or another statute defines it differently, it is unclear which meaning governs here. A reader must cross-reference an external Act to understand a carve-out in a definition that was itself sourced from that external Act.","confidence":0.7,"description":"The definitions of 'widow' and 'wife' are imported wholesale from Part III of the Repatriation Act 1920–1973, but are then immediately carved back by excluding 'separated widow' and 'separated wife' — terms that are not defined anywhere in this Act. The meaning of 'separated' is entirely left to implication, creating a circular dependency: you need to know what 'separated widow/wife' means to apply the definition of 'widow/wife', but neither term is defined here or in the incorporated Part III."},{"type":"retroactive_impossibility","section":"Section 7","severity":"medium","reasoning":"Retrospective pension increases are generally benign (they benefit recipients), but the drafting creates a logical problem: s. 2 says the Act commences on Royal Assent, while s. 7 says specific provisions are 'deemed to have come into operation' months earlier. This means that for the period 7 December 1972 to 16 March 1973, the Act simultaneously did and did not exist. Administrators would have needed to recalculate and back-pay pension instalments based on a law that had no legal existence at the time those instalments fell due. While Parliament clearly intended this and retrospective legislation is lawful, the internal logic of the Act — where s. 2 establishes commencement and s. 7 immediately contradicts it for two of the Act's six operative sections — is structurally incoherent.","confidence":0.75,"description":"Section 7 deems the amendments in sections 4 and 6 to have come into operation on 7 December 1972 — over three months before Royal Assent on 16 March 1973. Section 2 states that the Act comes into operation on the day it receives Royal Assent. The retrospective commencement in s. 7 is therefore in direct tension with the general commencement in s. 2, and it creates a retroactive obligation: pension instalments falling due from 7 December 1972 onwards are affected by a law that did not exist until March 1973."}],"contradictions":[{"severity":"medium","section_a":"Section 2","section_b":"Section 7","confidence":0.9,"description":"Section 2 provides that the Act shall come into operation on the day of Royal Assent (16 March 1973). Section 7 provides that the amendments made by sections 4 and 6 'shall be deemed to have come into operation on the seventh day of December, 1972' — nearly three and a half months earlier. These two provisions directly contradict each other as to when sections 4 and 6 took effect."},{"severity":"low","section_a":"Section 4 (amending s. 18(4A) of the Principal Act)","section_b":"Section 6 (First Schedule)","confidence":0.55,"description":"Section 4 amends the maximum pension rate in s. 18(4A) of the Principal Act to $73.10 per fortnight. Section 6 substitutes the First Schedule, which sets out general pension rates for death or total incapacity — the highest widow's pension rate in the new Schedule is $43.10 per fortnight and the highest total incapacity rate is $32.00 per fortnight. It is unclear how the $73.10 figure in s. 4 relates to or is reconciled with the rates in the new Schedule, creating ambiguity about which figure caps or governs pension calculations under s. 18."}]},"summary":{"complexity_score":3,"scope_assessment":{"changed":false,"description":"This Act stays squarely within the original purpose of the 1940 legislation — providing pensions and allowances to Australian merchant mariners and their dependants for war-related death or incapacity. The amendments are purely technical and financial in nature: updating pension rates, replacing a schedule, tidying up definitions by cross-reference, and making a minor regulatory adjustment. No new classes of beneficiaries, no new heads of power, and no expansion into unrelated subject matter."},"complexity_factors":["Short amending Act with only 7 operative sections","Borrowing defined terms by cross-reference to another Act (Repatriation Act 1920–1973) adds a layer of interpretive complexity","Pension rate schedule uses dual-currency format (pre-decimal pounds/shillings/pence for pay brackets; decimal dollars for pension amounts), which requires contextual knowledge to interpret","Backdating provision in section 7 introduces a temporal condition requiring careful reading","Minor conditional logic: exclusions for 'separated widow' and 'separated wife' within borrowed definitions"],"plain_english_summary":"The Seamen's War Pensions and Allowances Act 1973 amends the 1940–1972 law to modernize who counts as a dependent (aligning definitions with the Repatriation Act while excluding separated wives/widows), convert pension schedules to Australian dollars, and raise a fortnightly pension from $68.00 to $73.10 (backdated to 7 December 1972). It also removes an age limit on a children-related regulation.\n\nIt affects Australian merchant mariners injured or killed in wartime, their widows and dependants, and ensures payments and definitions are up to date and consistent."}},"importantCases":[],"_links":{"self":"/api/acts/seamen-s-war-pensions-and-allowances-act-1973","history":"/api/acts/seamen-s-war-pensions-and-allowances-act-1973/history","analysis":"/api/acts/seamen-s-war-pensions-and-allowances-act-1973/analysis","conflicts":"/api/acts/seamen-s-war-pensions-and-allowances-act-1973/conflicts","importantCases":"/api/acts/seamen-s-war-pensions-and-allowances-act-1973/important-cases","documents":"/api/acts/seamen-s-war-pensions-and-allowances-act-1973/documents"}}