{"id":"C1936A00045","name":"Special Annuity Act 1936","slug":"special-annuity-act-1936","collection":"act","jurisdiction":"commonwealth","status":"repealed","isInForce":false,"actNumber":"45 of 1936","makingDate":null,"administeringDepartment":null,"currentVersion":{"id":3810,"registerId":"commonwealth-C1936A00045-current","compilationNumber":null,"startDate":"2026-03-30","status":"Repealed","reasons":null,"registeredAt":null},"sections":[{"sectionNumber":"1","sectionType":"section","heading":"Special Annuity Act 1936","content":"SPECIAL ANNUITY.\n\nNo. 45 of 1936.\n\nAn Act to provide for the payment of an Annuity to the Widow of the late William James McWilliams, Esquire.\n\n\\[Assented to 12th October, 1936.\\]\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 1936.\n\nAnnuity to widow of the late W. J. McWilliams.\n\n2.—(1.) Subject to this Act, there shall be payable, as on and from the first day of October, One thousand nine hundred and thirty-six, out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund, which is hereby appropriated accordingly, to the widow of the late William James McWilliams, Esquire, sometime a member of the House of Representatives, 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":{"summary":{"complexity_score":1,"scope_assessment":{"changed":false,"description":"This Act has not changed in scope at all — it was enacted for a single, narrow purpose (paying a specific annuity to a specific individual) and remains exactly that. There is no evidence of amendment or expansion beyond its original intent. Its scope is as minimal as legislation can possibly be."},"complexity_factors":["Only 2 operative sections total","A single defined condition (cessation upon remarriage)","No cross-references to other legislation","No defined terms beyond standard constitutional language","No exceptions, schedules, or regulatory powers","Straightforward appropriation of a fixed annual sum"],"plain_english_summary":"## Special Annuity Act 1936\n\nThis is a very short, single-purpose piece of legislation that does one simple thing: **it directs the Australian Government to pay a regular income (called an \"annuity\") to the widow of William James McWilliams**, a former member of the House of Representatives (i.e., a former federal MP).\n\n**Key details:**\n- **Who benefits:** The widow of the late William James McWilliams\n- **How much:** £156 per year (roughly equivalent to a modest living allowance in 1936 terms)\n- **When payments start:** From 1 October 1936\n- **Where the money comes from:** The Consolidated Revenue Fund — this is the main government bank account from which Commonwealth expenditure is drawn\n- **When payments stop:** If the widow remarries, the annuity ends immediately\n\n**Why does this matter?**\nIn this era, it was not uncommon for Parliament to pass individual Acts to grant financial support to the widows of deceased parliamentarians or notable public figures, as there was no general superannuation (retirement savings) scheme for MPs. Rather than using an existing welfare or pension framework, Parliament created a bespoke (one-off, specially tailored) law just for this person.\n\nThis Act has **no ongoing policy significance** — it is a relic of a very different era in public administration, when personal financial support required an individual Act of Parliament rather than being handled through a standard entitlements system."},"issue_detection":{"absurdities":[{"type":"retroactive_impossibility","section":"Section 2(1)","severity":"medium","reasoning":"An Act cannot create a legal payment obligation for a period before the Act was enacted. The Consolidated Revenue Fund cannot be lawfully appropriated by an Act that did not yet exist. While retrospective legislation is not inherently invalid in Australian law, the practical absurdity is that the annuitant was legally owed money for 11 days during which there was no legal basis to pay it. The appropriation mechanism only activates upon assent, so the Fund could not have been 'hereby appropriated accordingly' for those 11 prior days at the moment of appropriation.","confidence":0.82,"description":"The Act was assented to on 12 October 1936 but purports to make the annuity payable 'as on and from the first day of October, One thousand nine hundred and thirty-six' — 11 days before the Act legally existed."},{"type":"other","section":"Section 2(1)","severity":"low","reasoning":"The Act identifies the recipient solely by her relational status to a deceased man. She has no legal name recorded in the Act itself. While in 1936 this was presumably unambiguous in practice, it is logically imprecise — the provision is definitionally contingent on establishing both that McWilliams is 'late' (deceased) and that the claimant is his widow, yet neither fact is legally verified within the Act. The Act also does not address what happens if the widowhood itself were contested.","confidence":0.65,"description":"The annuity is payable to 'the widow of the late William James McWilliams' but the Act never identifies or defines who this person actually is by name, creating an identification problem if the identity of the widow were ever disputed."},{"type":"other","section":"Section 2(2)","severity":"low","reasoning":"The term 're-marriage' is undefined. In common usage it simply means marrying again after the end of a prior marriage, so in practice this provision is clear enough. However, the logical imprecision is real: the Act never defines 're-marriage', and a sufficiently motivated annuitant could argue the term is ambiguous. This was a common drafting convention of the era, but it remains a minor logical flaw.","confidence":0.55,"description":"The cessation of the annuity upon 're-marriage' creates a logical absurdity: to re-marry, one must have been married before. The widow's prior marriage (to McWilliams) ended by death, not divorce. Depending on the strict reading of 're-marriage', a widow marrying again could be characterised as simply 'marrying' for the second time, not 're-marrying' in the sense of remarrying the same person. More absurdly, if she had previously been divorced before marrying McWilliams, her marriage after his death could be her third marriage — making 're-marry' ambiguous as to which prior marriage it references."}],"contradictions":[]},"kimi_summary":{"_metrics":{"model":"kimi-k2.5","source":"moonshot-batch","completionTokens":1187},"content_quality":"ok","complexity_score":1,"scope_assessment":{"changed":false,"description":"This is a targeted private bill providing a specific benefit to one named individual. The scope remains exactly as stated—providing an annuity to the widow of W.J. McWilliams—with no expansion beyond this specific purpose."},"complexity_factors":["Only 2 operative sections (short title and annuity provision)","No definitions section or technical terms","Single, named beneficiary (no classes of persons)","Only one conditional provision (remarriage terminates payments)","No cross-references to other Acts or delegated legislation"],"plain_english_summary":"This Act creates a one-off lifetime pension for a specific individual—the widow of William James McWilliams, a former Member of Parliament. \n\n**What it does:**\n- Pays £156 per year to Mrs. McWilliams, starting from 1 October 1936\n- The money comes from general government revenue (the Consolidated Revenue Fund)\n- Payments stop if she remarries\n\n**Why it exists:**\nThis is a \"private Act\"—legislation passed to benefit one specific person rather than the public at large. Parliament occasionally passed these in the 1930s to provide for the families of deceased politicians who had served the country but left no pension provision."}},"importantCases":[],"_links":{"self":"/api/acts/special-annuity-act-1936","history":"/api/acts/special-annuity-act-1936/history","analysis":"/api/acts/special-annuity-act-1936/analysis","conflicts":"/api/acts/special-annuity-act-1936/conflicts","importantCases":"/api/acts/special-annuity-act-1936/important-cases","documents":"/api/acts/special-annuity-act-1936/documents"}}