{"id":"C1972A00125","name":"States Grants (Universities) Act 1972","slug":"states-grants-universities-act-1972","collection":"act","jurisdiction":"commonwealth","status":"repealed","isInForce":false,"actNumber":"125 of 1972","makingDate":null,"administeringDepartment":null,"currentVersion":{"id":2513,"registerId":"commonwealth-C1972A00125-current","compilationNumber":null,"startDate":"2026-03-29","status":"Repealed","reasons":null,"registeredAt":null},"sections":[{"sectionNumber":"1","sectionType":"section","heading":"States Grants (Universities) Act 1972","content":"States Grants (Universities)\n\nNo. 125 of 1972\n\nAn Act relating to the Grant of Financial Assistance to the States in connexion with Universities.\n\n\\[Assented to 2 November 1972\\]\n\nBE it enacted by the Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty, the Senate, and the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Australia, as follows:—\n\nShort title and citation.\n\n1.—(1.) This Act may be cited as the States Grants (Universities) Act 1972.\n\n(2.) The States Grants (Universities) Act 1969–1971 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 States Grants (Universities) Act 1969–1972.\n\nCommencement.\n\n2. This Act shall come into operation on the day on which it receives the Royal Assent.\n\nSalary rates.\n\n3. Section 4 of the Principal Act is amended—\n\n(a) by omitting from paragraph (a) of sub-section (1.) the words “Fifteen thousand two hundred and sixty-four dollars” and inserting in their stead the words “Fifteen thousand three hundred and sixty-eight dollars”;\n\n(b) by omitting from paragraph (b) of sub-section (1.) the words “Twelve thousand five hundred and ninety-three dollars” and inserting in their stead the words “Twelve thousand six hundred and ninety-seven dollars”;\n\n(c) by omitting from paragraph (c) of sub-section (1.) the words “Eleven thousand one hundred and thirty dollars” and inserting in their stead the words “Eleven thousand two hundred and thirty-four dollars”;\n\n(d) by omitting from paragraph (d) of sub-section (1.) the words “Nine thousand two hundred and eighty-six dollars” and inserting in their stead the words “Nine thousand three hundred and ninety dollars”; and\n\n(e) by omitting from paragraph (e) of sub-section (1.) the words “Six thousand six hundred and ninety-seven dollars” and inserting in their stead the words “Six thousand eight hundred and one dollars”.\n\n  \n\nFirst Schedule.\n\n4. The First Schedule to the Principal Act is amended by omitting Part III. and inserting in its stead the following Part:—\n\nPart III.\n\nGrants for Recurrent Expenditure for the Year 1972\n\n| First Column                                            | Second Column                | Third Column                                     |\n| ------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------ |\n| University                                              | Fees and State contributions | Maximum financial assistance Under section 3(1.) |\n|                                                         | $                            | $                                                |\n| New South Wales—                                        |                              |                                                  |\n| University of Sydney............................        | 18,628,000                   | 10,069,000                                       |\n| University of New South Wales.....................      | 17,332,000                   | 9,369,000                                        |\n| University of New England........................       | 5,358,000                    | 2,896,000                                        |\n| University of Newcastle..........................       | 3,678,000                    | 1,988,000                                        |\n| Macquarie University............................        | 5,635,000                    | 3,046,000                                        |\n| Victoria—                                               |                              |                                                  |\n| University of Melbourne..........................       | 15,712,000                   | 8,493,000                                        |\n| Monash University.............................          | 13,548,000                   | 7,323,000                                        |\n| La Trobe University.............................        | 5,020,000                    | 2,714,000                                        |\n| Queensland—                                             |                              |                                                  |\n| University of Queensland.........................       | 13,856,000                   | 7,490,000                                        |\n| James Cook University of North Queensland............   | 2,245,000                    | 1,214,000                                        |\n| Griffith University..............................       | 151,130                      | 81,070                                           |\n| South Australia—                                        |                              |                                                  |\n| University of Adelaide...........................       | 8,872,000                    | 4,795,000                                        |\n| Flinders University of South Australia................. | 3,493,000                    | 1,888,000                                        |\n| Western Australia—                                      |                              |                                                  |\n| University of Western Australia.....................    | 8,586,000                    | 4,641,000                                        |\n| Tasmania—                                               |                              |                                                  |\n| University of Tasmania..........................        | 3,913,000                    | 2,115,000                                        |\n|                                                         | 126,027,130                  | 68,122,070                                       |","sortOrder":0}],"analysis":{"summary":{"complexity_score":2,"scope_assessment":{"changed":false,"description":"This amending Act stays squarely within the original purpose of the Principal Act — providing Commonwealth financial assistance to State universities. It makes only mechanical adjustments: updating salary benchmarks and replacing the annual funding schedule for 1972. There is no expansion into new subject matter, no new categories of eligible institutions (beyond those already contemplated), and no new regulatory powers created. Griffith University's appearance in the table is a minor addition reflecting its establishment, but this is consistent with the Act's original intent of funding universities as they come into existence."},"complexity_factors":["Amending Act only — must be read alongside the Principal Act (States Grants (Universities) Act 1969–1971), creating a cross-referencing dependency","Funding table with 15 rows across 6 states requires careful reading but no conditional logic","Five salary tier amendments are mechanical find-and-replace changes with no conditional triggers","No defined terms introduced in this Act itself","No exceptions, exemptions, or nested conditional clauses","Very short — only 4 operative sections"],"plain_english_summary":"The Act is a short amendment updating the Commonwealth’s university funding rules for 1972: it raises the academic salary benchmark figures slightly and replaces the 1972 funding table that allocates expected fee/State contributions and maximum Commonwealth assistance for 15 universities. \n\nIt affects Australian universities, State governments, and indirectly students and staff. It matters as a routine fiscal update that illustrates the Commonwealth’s capped, cooperative role in higher‑education financing in the early 1970s."},"issue_detection":{"absurdities":[{"type":"retroactive_impossibility","section":"Section 4 – First Schedule, Part III (Griffith University entry)","severity":"high","reasoning":"Griffith University was established under the Griffith University Act 1971 (Qld) but did not open or admit students until 1975. Allocating grants for 'recurrent expenditure for the year 1972' to an institution that had no students, no academic programmes, and was not yet operational creates a retroactive impossibility — the university could not have generated the recurrent expenditure (staff salaries, teaching costs, etc.) that these grants are meant to subsidise. The figures ($151,130 in fees/State contributions and $81,070 in Commonwealth assistance) appear almost token compared to other universities, suggesting drafters may have been aware of its embryonic status, but the legal absurdity remains: you cannot fund recurrent operations of a non-operating institution under a framework premised on actual recurrent expenditure.","confidence":0.92,"description":"Griffith University is listed in the First Schedule as receiving grants for recurrent expenditure for the year 1972, despite the university not having been established or opened until 1975. It did not exist as a functioning institution in 1972 and could not have incurred recurrent expenditure in that year."},{"type":"other","section":"Section 1(2) and 1(3) – Citation and Principal Act reference","severity":"low","reasoning":"The rolling citation convention used in Australian legislation of this era (e.g., '1969–1971' becoming '1969–1972') is a recognised drafting practice, but it creates an inherent ambiguity: a reader citing 'the States Grants (Universities) Act 1969–1972' must trace back through multiple amending Acts to find the operative text. This is not impossible but is a known source of confusion and was eventually abandoned by Australian drafters in favour of compilation-based approaches. The absurdity is mild — it is a systemic drafting convention problem rather than a specific logical flaw in this Act.","confidence":0.65,"description":"The Act purports to amend the 'States Grants (Universities) Act 1969–1971' (the Principal Act) and then provides that the Principal Act as amended may be cited as the 'States Grants (Universities) Act 1969–1972'. However, a consolidated citation spanning 1969–1972 implies continuous amendment, yet this amending Act covers only specific 1972 changes. The citation mechanism creates a logical oddity: the '1969–1971' citation for the Principal Act itself implies prior amendments through 1971, meaning the citation chain presupposes a clean legislative history that may not exist if any intermediate amending Acts are missed from the chain."},{"type":"retroactive_impossibility","section":"Section 3 – Salary rates amendment","severity":"medium","reasoning":"University salary grants under the Principal Act's Section 4 are tied to specific salary rate benchmarks. If these benchmarks are intended to govern 1972 grant calculations (as the First Schedule's 'Year 1972' heading implies), but the Act only comes into force on 2 November 1972, then approximately ten months of the grant year had already elapsed under the old salary figures. Without an explicit retrospective operation clause, the amended salary rates technically only apply from 2 November 1972 onward — creating a mid-year split in the applicable rate that is practically unworkable and almost certainly unintended. Commonwealth financial legislation of this era routinely included retrospective commencement provisions precisely to avoid this problem, and its absence here is a genuine drafting flaw.","confidence":0.82,"description":"Section 3 amends salary figures in Section 4 of the Principal Act by substituting specific dollar amounts, but the Act commenced on the day of Royal Assent (2 November 1972) per Section 2. The salary amendments presumably relate to the 1972 academic/financial year, meaning they may apply retrospectively to a period before the Act commenced. Staff whose salaries were calculated under the old figures for most of 1972 would need retrospective recalculation, yet no retrospectivity provision is included."}],"contradictions":[{"severity":"high","section_a":"Section 2 (Commencement – Royal Assent, 2 November 1972)","section_b":"Section 4 – First Schedule, Part III ('Grants for Recurrent Expenditure for the Year 1972')","confidence":0.85,"description":"The Act commences on 2 November 1972 but authorises grants for recurrent expenditure across the entire calendar year 1972. This means the Act purports to govern financial assistance for a period (1 January – 1 November 1972) before it legally existed, without any retrospectivity clause to give it that effect. The commencement provision and the grant year are therefore in direct tension."},{"severity":"medium","section_a":"Section 3 (amending salary benchmarks in s.4(1) of the Principal Act)","section_b":"Section 4 – First Schedule, Part III (grant amounts calculated for the full year 1972)","confidence":0.75,"description":"Section 3 substitutes new (higher) salary rates into the Principal Act's grant calculation mechanism, while Section 4's Schedule sets fixed dollar amounts for 'the Year 1972' that appear to have been calculated on a full-year basis. If the new salary benchmarks only apply from 2 November 1972 (per Section 2), the fixed Schedule amounts are internally inconsistent — they cannot simultaneously reflect both the old rates (for most of 1972) and the new rates (for the last two months). There is no blended or transitional calculation methodology provided."}]}},"importantCases":[],"_links":{"self":"/api/acts/states-grants-universities-act-1972","history":"/api/acts/states-grants-universities-act-1972/history","analysis":"/api/acts/states-grants-universities-act-1972/analysis","conflicts":"/api/acts/states-grants-universities-act-1972/conflicts","importantCases":"/api/acts/states-grants-universities-act-1972/important-cases","documents":"/api/acts/states-grants-universities-act-1972/documents"}}