{"id":"C1935A00033","name":"Special Annuity Act 1935","slug":"special-annuity-act-1935","collection":"act","jurisdiction":"commonwealth","status":"repealed","isInForce":false,"actNumber":"33 of 1935","makingDate":null,"administeringDepartment":null,"currentVersion":{"id":3767,"registerId":"commonwealth-C1935A00033-current","compilationNumber":null,"startDate":"2026-03-30","status":"Repealed","reasons":null,"registeredAt":null},"sections":[{"sectionNumber":"1","sectionType":"section","heading":"Special Annuity Act 1935","content":"SPECIAL ANNUITY.\n\nNo. 33 of 1935.\n\nAn Act to provide for the Payment of an Annuity to the Widow of the late Senator the Honourable Sir Walter Kingsmill.\n\n\\[Assented to 27th September, 1935.\\]\n\nPreamble.\n\nBE it enacted by the King’s Most Excellent Majesty, the Senate, and the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Australia, for the purpose of appropriating the grant originated in the House of Representatives, as follows:—\n\nShort title.\n\n1. This Act may be cited as the Special Annuity Act 1935.\n\nAnnuity to widow of the late Senator the Honourable Sir Walter Kingsmill.\n\n2.—(1.) Subject to this Act, there shall be payable, out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund, which is hereby appropriated accordingly, to the widow of the late Senator the Honourable Sir Walter Kingsmill, an annuity at the rate of One hundred and fifty-six pounds per annum.\n\n(2.) The annuity provided by this Act shall cease to be payable in the event of the re-marriage of the annuitant.","sortOrder":0}],"analysis":{"kimi_summary":{"_metrics":{"model":"kimi-k2.5","source":"moonshot-batch","completionTokens":1415},"content_quality":"ok","complexity_score":1,"scope_assessment":{"changed":false,"description":"The Act remains strictly limited to its original purpose of providing a specific annuity to the named widow. It has not expanded beyond this single beneficiary."},"complexity_factors":["Only 2 operative sections","No defined terms or interpretation section","Zero cross-references to other legislation","Single, clear condition for termination (remarriage)"],"plain_english_summary":"This Act creates a one-off government pension (called an **annuity**) for a single specific person: the widow of former Senator Sir Walter Kingsmill.\n\n**What it does:**\n- Pays the widow £156 per year for life from public funds (the Consolidated Revenue Fund)\n- **The catch:** Payments stop immediately if she remarries\n\n**Why this exists:**\nThis is a \"private Act\"—legislation passed to benefit a specific individual rather than the general public. Before modern superannuation schemes, Parliament often passed special laws like this to support the families of deceased politicians who had no other means of support."},"issue_detection":{"absurdities":[{"type":"circular_definition","section":"Section 2(1)","severity":"low","reasoning":"The Act creates an entitlement in favour of a person described by a relational status ('widow'). That status is inherently contingent: remarriage dissolves it. The Act uses the status both as the identifier of the payee AND as the condition for cessation, creating a mild circularity — the moment she remarries she is definitionally not 'the widow' and so was arguably never entitled under the Act's own terms at the point of remarriage, rather than forfeiting an accrued right. This is a low-stakes drafting quirk common to annuity legislation of the era, but it is a genuine logical oddity.","confidence":0.72,"description":"The annuity is payable to 'the widow of the late Senator the Honourable Sir Walter Kingsmill' — a class of person that is, by definition, fixed at exactly one individual and is already determined at the time of enactment. However, the cessation clause in s 2(2) contemplates that the annuitant might 'remarry', which would cause her to cease being a widow. Yet the Act continues to define the payee solely as 'the widow', meaning that if she remarries, she is no longer the widow and therefore never was the payee to begin with — she simply exits the defined class of beneficiary rather than forfeiting a right she holds."},{"type":"other","section":"Section 2(1) read with Preamble","severity":"low","reasoning":"Once the annuitant dies (without having remarried), there is no longer anyone capable of receiving the annuity, yet the Act remains law and the appropriation technically subsists. This is not impossible to comply with in practice — payments simply stop — but it creates an absurd situation where a live statutory appropriation exists for a beneficiary class that is permanently and irreversibly empty. This was an endemic problem with private member annuity Acts of the Federation era.","confidence":0.85,"description":"The Act appropriates money from the Consolidated Revenue Fund to pay an annuity 'to the widow of the late Senator the Honourable Sir Walter Kingsmill' in perpetuity, with no sunset clause, no maximum duration, and no provision for the annuity to cease upon the annuitant's death other than by the implied operation of there being no surviving payee. This means the appropriation technically remains on foot indefinitely even after the sole possible beneficiary has died, as the Act is never self-repealing and Parliament never expressly wound it up."},{"type":"impossible_compliance","section":"Section 2(2)","severity":"medium","reasoning":"The Commonwealth is obliged to cease payments upon remarriage, yet the Act provides no duty on the annuitant to notify anyone, no power to investigate marital status, and no penalty for non-disclosure. This makes the Commonwealth's compliance with the cessation obligation practically impossible without the annuitant's cooperation. While administrative practice may have filled this gap, the Act as drafted creates a structurally unenforceable obligation on the paying authority.","confidence":0.78,"description":"The cessation-on-remarriage clause imposes a condition that is impossible to monitor or enforce in the absence of any notification, reporting, or verification mechanism. The Act creates a legal obligation for the annuity to cease upon remarriage but provides no mechanism by which the paying authority would ever know that remarriage has occurred, effectively making lawful compliance dependent entirely on the voluntary disclosure of the annuitant."}],"contradictions":[]},"summary":{"complexity_score":1,"scope_assessment":{"changed":false,"description":"The legislation has a single, explicitly stated purpose — paying an annuity to one named individual — and contains exactly the provisions needed to achieve that and nothing more. There is no evidence of scope creep or expansion beyond the original intent. In fact, it is difficult to imagine how such a narrowly drafted Act could ever expand in scope."},"complexity_factors":["Only 2 operative sections — one establishing the annuity, one setting out the single condition for cessation","No defined terms section whatsoever","Zero cross-references to other legislation","A single, simple conditional clause (remarriage terminates payment)","No schedules, regulations, or delegated legislative powers","No discretionary powers granted to any minister or official"],"plain_english_summary":"## Special Annuity Act 1935\n\nThis is a very short, highly specific piece of legislation with one sole purpose: **to provide a government pension (called an \"annuity\") to the widow of Senator Sir Walter Kingsmill**, a former Australian Senator who had passed away.\n\n### What it does:\n- **Grants a payment of £156 per year** (approximately $156 pounds sterling per annum, which in 1935 was a modest but meaningful sum) drawn from Australia's central government money pool (the Consolidated Revenue Fund — the main account the Commonwealth uses to pay its expenses).\n- The payments go directly and exclusively to **Lady Kingsmill**, the widow of the late Senator.\n- **The annuity stops immediately if she remarries.** This was a common condition attached to widow's pensions of the era.\n\n### Who it affects:\n- In practical terms, **only one person**: the widow of Senator Sir Walter Kingsmill. This is as narrow in application as legislation gets.\n\n### Why it matters (historically):\n- This type of legislation reflects a **pre-welfare-state practice** where Parliament would pass individual, named Acts to provide financial support to the widows or dependants of prominent public servants and politicians, rather than relying on a general pension scheme.\n- It demonstrates Parliament's role in directly **appropriating (formally authorising the spending of) public money**, even for very small, individual payments — a constitutional requirement in Australia.\n- Acts like this are largely a **historical curiosity** today, as modern superannuation and parliamentary entitlements schemes have replaced the need for bespoke legislation of this kind."}},"importantCases":[],"_links":{"self":"/api/acts/special-annuity-act-1935","history":"/api/acts/special-annuity-act-1935/history","analysis":"/api/acts/special-annuity-act-1935/analysis","conflicts":"/api/acts/special-annuity-act-1935/conflicts","importantCases":"/api/acts/special-annuity-act-1935/important-cases","documents":"/api/acts/special-annuity-act-1935/documents"}}