{"id":"C1973A00135","name":"Superannuation Act (No. 3) 1973","slug":"superannuation-act-no-3-1973","collection":"act","jurisdiction":"commonwealth","status":"repealed","isInForce":false,"actNumber":"135 of 1973","makingDate":null,"administeringDepartment":null,"currentVersion":{"id":2565,"registerId":"commonwealth-C1973A00135-current","compilationNumber":null,"startDate":"2026-03-29","status":"Repealed","reasons":null,"registeredAt":null},"sections":[{"sectionNumber":"1","sectionType":"section","heading":"Superannuation Act (No. 3) 1973","content":"Superannuation Act (No. 3) 1973\n\nNo. 135 of 1973\n\nAN ACT\n\nRelating to the Provision of Superannuation Benefits for Employees of the Darwin Community College.\n\n\\[Assented to 13 November 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 Superannuation Act (No. 3) 1973.\n\n(2) The Superannuation Act 1922-1971, as amended by the Superannuation Act 1973 and by the Superannuation Act (No. 2) 1973 is in this Act referred to as the Principal Act.\n\n(3) Section 1 of the Superannuation Act (No. 2) 1973 is amended by omitting sub-section (4).\n\n(4) The Principal Act, as amended by this Act, may be cited as the Superannuation Act 1922-1973.\n\n  \n\nCommencement.\n\n2. (1) Subject to sub-section (2), this Act shall come into operation on the day on which it receives the Royal Assent.\n\n(2) Section 3 shall be deemed to have come into operation on 19th July, 1973.\n\nInterpretation.\n\n3. Section 4 of the Principal Act is amended—\n\n(a) by omitting from the definition of “Approved authority” in sub-section (1) the words “and the Australian National University” and substituting the words “,the Australian National University and the Darwin Community College”; and\n\n(b) by inserting after sub-section (7) the following sub-section:—\n\n“(8) For the purposes of this Act, the Principal of the Darwin Community College shall be deemed to be employed by the College.”.\n\nValidation of certificates, &c., given in relation to Darwin Community College before date of Assent.\n\n4. Any certificate, recommendation or direction given or made on or after 19th July, 1973, and before the date on which this Act receives the Royal Assent, and purporting to have been given or made for the purposes of sub-section 4 (6) of the Principal Act in relation to a person employed by the Darwin Community College, including the Principal of the College, shall be deemed to be, and to have been, as valid and effective as if the amendments of the Principal Act made by section 3 of this Act had been in force at the time when the certificate, recommendation or direction was given or made.","sortOrder":0}],"analysis":{"issue_detection":{"absurdities":[{"type":"retroactive_impossibility","section":"Section 2(2) read with Section 3","severity":"medium","reasoning":"Retroactive commencement provisions are not unusual in Australian legislation, but they create a genuine logical tension: an amendment cannot, as a matter of strict logic, have been 'in operation' before the Act conferring it was enacted. The law treats this as a legal fiction, but the fiction is internally strained here because Section 4 simultaneously acknowledges that acts taken in that interim period were NOT in fact valid (hence requiring the validation clause). If Section 3 truly operated from 19 July 1973, Section 4 would be entirely superfluous.","confidence":0.82,"description":"Section 3 is deemed to have come into operation on 19 July 1973, but the Act itself only received Royal Assent on 13 November 1973. This means Section 3 purports to amend the Principal Act approximately four months before this amending Act legally existed. The Darwin Community College is retrospectively inserted into the definition of 'Approved authority' at a point in time when the amending provision had no legal existence."},{"type":"self_contradicting","section":"Section 2(2) and Section 4 — combined effect","severity":"low","reasoning":"If s 2(2) successfully deems s 3 operative from 19 July 1973, then any certificate etc. given from that date onward would already be valid by operation of s 3 as retrospectively commenced. Section 4 would then have no work to do. Conversely, the very existence of s 4 as a separate validation clause suggests legislative anxiety that retrospective commencement alone is insufficient — undermining the premise of s 2(2). This is a classic superfluous/contradictory drafting pattern.","confidence":0.78,"description":"Section 2(2) deems Section 3 to have commenced on 19 July 1973, which would logically mean the amendments were in force from that date and all acts taken in reliance on those amendments would automatically be valid. Yet Section 4 separately validates certificates, recommendations and directions made between 19 July 1973 and the date of Royal Assent 'as if' the amendments had been in force — implying the draftsman did not trust that the retrospective commencement alone achieved validity. The two mechanisms are redundant at best and self-contradictory at worst: either the retrospective commencement makes Section 4 unnecessary, or Section 4's existence concedes that retrospective commencement does not achieve what Section 2(2) claims."},{"type":"other","section":"Section 1(3)","severity":"low","reasoning":"Excising a sub-section of a different Act from within the short title provision of this Act, without any explanatory context, is opaque drafting. It is not logically absurd per se, but it is the kind of provision that creates genuine interpretive confusion because it is hidden in a place a reader would not expect to find substantive amendment of another Act.","confidence":0.65,"description":"Section 1(3) of this Act amends Section 1 of the Superannuation Act (No. 2) 1973 by omitting sub-section (4) of that section. However, this Act is concerned with Darwin Community College superannuation, and there is no explanation within the Act of what sub-section (4) of the Superannuation Act (No. 2) 1973 contained or why its removal is necessary. If that sub-section dealt with the citation chain or another substantive matter, its silent excision here — buried in the short title and citation section of an unrelated amending Act — is an anomalous drafting choice that makes it impossible for a reader of this Act alone to understand its effect or purpose."}],"contradictions":[{"severity":"medium","section_a":"Section 2(2)","section_b":"Section 4","confidence":0.8,"description":"Section 2(2) retrospectively deems Section 3 (the definitional amendment adding the Darwin Community College as an 'Approved authority') to have been in operation since 19 July 1973. If that retrospective commencement is legally effective, then any certificate, recommendation or direction given on or after 19 July 1973 in relation to Darwin Community College employees would already be valid by force of the retrospectively operative s 3. Section 4, however, treats those same acts as requiring independent statutory validation, implying they were NOT automatically valid — directly contradicting the premise of s 2(2). The two sections cannot both be correct simultaneously: either s 2(2) makes s 4 redundant, or s 4's necessity exposes s 2(2) as insufficient."}]},"summary":{"complexity_score":2,"scope_assessment":{"changed":false,"description":"This Act does not change the scope of the principal legislation in any meaningful way. It simply extends an existing mechanism — the 'approved authority' list — to cover one additional institution, the Darwin Community College. This is entirely consistent with the original purpose of the Superannuation Act 1922, which was always intended to provide Commonwealth superannuation coverage across a range of government-connected employers. Adding one more institution is an incremental and in-scope expansion, not a shift in legislative purpose."},"complexity_factors":["Very short — only 4 operative sections","Narrow and singular purpose: adding one institution to an approved list","One retrospective (backdating) provision requiring careful reading but straightforward in effect","Relies on cross-references to the principal Superannuation Act 1922 and two earlier 1973 amending Acts, but does not engage deeply with their provisions","One deeming provision (treating the Principal as an employee) but it is simple and unconditional","Minimal defined terms — only references pre-existing definitions in the principal Act"],"plain_english_summary":"## Superannuation Act (No. 3) 1973 — Plain English Summary\n\nThis is a short and narrow piece of legislation with one clear purpose: **to make employees of the Darwin Community College eligible for Commonwealth superannuation (retirement savings) benefits**.\n\n### What it does\n\n- **Adds the Darwin Community College to the list of \"approved authorities\"** under the main Commonwealth superannuation law (the Superannuation Act 1922). Being an \"approved authority\" means the organisation's employees can join the Commonwealth superannuation scheme — essentially, the government's retirement savings program.\n- **Specifically includes the College's Principal** (i.e., its head) as a person deemed to be employed by the College for superannuation purposes. This was needed because the Principal's employment status may have been legally ambiguous.\n- **Backdates these changes to 19 July 1973**, meaning employees who were already being treated as eligible — and any official paperwork (certificates, recommendations, or directions) already processed for them between 19 July 1973 and when this law passed — are all confirmed as valid. No one misses out and no one needs to redo their paperwork.\n- **Tidies up a minor drafting issue** in an earlier 2023 Act (the Superannuation Act (No. 2) 1973) by removing a subsection that is no longer needed.\n\n### Who it affects\n\n- **Employees of the Darwin Community College**, including its Principal, who were not previously covered by the Commonwealth superannuation scheme.\n\n### Why it matters\n\nWithout this amendment, Darwin Community College staff would have been left out of the Commonwealth superannuation scheme — meaning they had no access to the government-backed retirement savings plan available to employees of similar institutions. This Act closes that gap and ensures those employees are treated consistently with staff at comparable bodies (like the Australian National University), which was already on the approved list."}},"importantCases":[],"_links":{"self":"/api/acts/superannuation-act-no-3-1973","history":"/api/acts/superannuation-act-no-3-1973/history","analysis":"/api/acts/superannuation-act-no-3-1973/analysis","conflicts":"/api/acts/superannuation-act-no-3-1973/conflicts","importantCases":"/api/acts/superannuation-act-no-3-1973/important-cases","documents":"/api/acts/superannuation-act-no-3-1973/documents"}}