{"id":"C1949A00019","name":"Supply (Works and Services) Act (No. 1) 1949-50","slug":"supply-works-and-services-act-no-1-1949-50","collection":"act","jurisdiction":"commonwealth","status":"repealed","isInForce":false,"actNumber":"19 of 1949","makingDate":null,"administeringDepartment":null,"currentVersion":{"id":4331,"registerId":"commonwealth-C1949A00019-current","compilationNumber":null,"startDate":"2026-03-30","status":"Repealed","reasons":null,"registeredAt":null},"sections":[{"sectionNumber":"1","sectionType":"section","heading":"Supply (Works and Services) Act (No. 1) 1949-50","content":"SUPPLY (WORKS AND SERVICES) (No. 1) 1949–50.\n\nNo. 19 of 1949.\n\nAn Act to grant and apply a sum out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund for the service of the year ending the thirtieth day of June, One thousand nine hundred and fifty, for the purposes of Additions, New Works and other Services involving Capital Expenditure.\n\n\\[Assented to 29th June, 1949.\\]\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 Supply (Works and Services) Act (No. 1) 1949–50.\n\nCommencement.\n\n2. This Act shall come into operation on the day on which it receives the Royal Assent.\n\nIssue and application of £13,694,000.\n\n3. There shall and may be issued and applied for or towards making good the supply hereby granted to His Majesty for the service of the year ending the thirtieth day of June, One thousand nine hundred and fifty, the sum of Thirteen million six hundred and ninety-four thousand pounds out of the Consolidated Revenue\n\n  \n\nFund for the purposes of additions, new works and other services involving capital expenditure in respect of the Departments, business undertakings and Territories of the Commonwealth specified in the Schedule to this Act, and to the extent respectively specified in that Schedule, and the Treasurer is hereby authorized and empowered to issue and apply the moneys authorized to be issued and applied.\n\nSum issued to be available to satisfy warrants.\n\n4. The sum specified in the last preceding section shall be available to satisfy the warrants under the hand of the Governor-General in respect of any purpose specified in the last preceding section, and to the extent authorized by that section.\n\nLimit of period of expenditure.\n\n5. No money shall be expended under the authority of this Act after the thirtieth day of June, One thousand nine hundred and fifty.\n\nSection 8. THE SCHEDULE.\n\n| Division No. | —                                                | Total.     |\n| ------------ | ------------------------------------------------ | ---------- |\n|              | PART I.—DEPARTMENTS AND SERVICES.                |            |\n|              |                                                  | £          |\n| 1            | PARLIAMENT.....................................  | 28,700     |\n| 2–4          | PRIME MINISTER’S DEPARTMENT..................... | 85,800     |\n| 5–6          | DEPARTMENT OF EXTERNAL AFFAIRS.................  | 45,400     |\n| 7–8          | DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY.....................  | 12,200     |\n| 9            | ATTORNEY-GENERAL’S DEPARTMENT.................   | 4,200      |\n| 10–11        | DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR...................... | 431,000    |\n| 12–14        | DEPARTMENT OF WORKS AND HOUSING...............   | 3,159,700  |\n| 15           | DEPARTMENT OF SUPPLY AND DEVELOPMENT ..........  | 778,300    |\n| 16–20        | DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL AVIATION.................... | 1,386,000  |\n| 21–22        | DEPARTMENT OF TRADE AND CUSTOMS................  | 14,100     |\n| 23–24        | DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH...........................  | 3,000      |\n| 25–26        | DEPARTMENT OF REPATRIATION.....................  | 159,300    |\n| 27–29        | DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE AND AGRICULTURE........   | 31,400     |\n| 30–31        | DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES................... | 18,000     |\n| 32–34        | DEPARTMENT OF SHIPPING AND FUEL................. | 129,100    |\n| 35           | DEPARTMENT OF EXTERNAL TERRITORIES.............. | 400        |\n| 36–38        | DEPARTMENT OF IMMIGRATION......................  | 840,300    |\n| 39–40        | DEPARTMENT OF LABOUR AND NATIONAL SERVICE......  | 11,000     |\n| 41–42        | DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORT........................  | 16,900     |\n| 43           | DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION......................  | 800        |\n| 44–45        | DEPARTMENT OF POST-WAR RECONSTRUCTION .........  | 13,400     |\n| 46–54        | DEFENCE SERVICES................................ | 1,959,000  |\n|              | TOTAL PART I.................                    | 9,128,000  |\n|              | PART II.—BUSINESS UNDERTAKINGS.                  |            |\n| 56           | COMMONWEALTH RAILWAYS........................    | 76,700     |\n| 57–59        | POSTMASTER-GENERAL’S DEPARTMENT...............   | 3,516,300  |\n|              | TOTAL PART II................                    | 3,593,000  |\n|              | PART III.—TERRITORIES OF THE COMMONWEALTH.       |            |\n| 61–64        | NORTHERN TERRITORY.............................  | 219,000    |\n| 65–68        | AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY.................... | 754,000    |\n|              | TOTAL PART III................                   | 973,000    |\n|              | TOTAL......................                      | 13,694,000 |","sortOrder":0}],"analysis":{"summary":{"complexity_score":2,"scope_assessment":{"changed":false,"description":"This Act does exactly what it says on the tin and nothing more. It is a narrow, time-limited capital works appropriation for the 1949–50 financial year. There is no evidence of scope creep — it has a fixed sum, a fixed expiry date, and a fixed list of beneficiary departments. It introduces no new regulatory powers, no ongoing obligations, and no amendments to other legislation. Its scope is entirely consistent with its original stated purpose."},"complexity_factors":["Very short — only 5 operative sections plus a schedule","Minimal defined terms — no interpretation section at all","No conditional logic or nested exceptions","Simple time-limited appropriation structure with a single spending cap and deadline","Cross-references are entirely internal and straightforward (sections referencing only each other)","The Schedule lists allocations by department but imposes no conditions on how each line item is spent — no sub-conditions to navigate"],"plain_english_summary":"## Supply (Works and Services) Act (No. 1) 1949–50\n\nThis is a **government appropriation act** (a law that formally authorises the government to spend public money). Specifically, it unlocks funds for **capital works and infrastructure projects** — things like new buildings, construction, and major physical assets — rather than everyday running costs like wages or stationery.\n\n### What does it do?\n- It authorises the **Treasurer** to draw **£13,694,000** (about thirteen and a half million pounds) from the **Consolidated Revenue Fund** (Australia's central government bank account, into which taxes and other revenue flow)\n- The money is earmarked for **\"additions, new works and other services involving capital expenditure\"** — in plain terms, building and infrastructure spending\n- It grants that money for the **financial year ending 30 June 1950**, and any unspent money **cannot be used after that date**\n- Spending is only lawful when backed by a formal **warrant** (a written authorisation) signed by the **Governor-General**\n\n### Who does it affect?\nThe money is divided across three categories:\n\n- 🏛️ **Government Departments** (Part I — £9,128,000): Funds spread across roughly 25 departments including Works & Housing, Civil Aviation, Immigration, Defence Services, and others. The biggest recipients are the Department of Works and Housing (£3.16M) and Defence Services (£1.96M), reflecting post-war reconstruction and immigration infrastructure priorities.\n- 🏢 **Business Undertakings** (Part II — £3,593,000): Primarily the **Postmaster-General's Department** (telecommunications and postal infrastructure, £3.52M) and **Commonwealth Railways** (£76,700).\n- 🗺️ **Commonwealth Territories** (Part III — £973,000): Split between the **Northern Territory** (£219,000) and the **Australian Capital Territory** (£754,000) for infrastructure in those directly governed regions.\n\n### Why does it matter?\nThis Act reflects Australia in a critical post-World War II moment — investing heavily in infrastructure, expanding immigration processing capacity, rebuilding defence assets, and rolling out communications networks. It is a **temporary, time-limited spending law**: once 30 June 1950 passes, the authority to spend lapses entirely. This kind of act is a routine but constitutionally essential step — under the Australian Constitution, the government **cannot spend public money without parliamentary approval**, so acts like this are the legal mechanism that makes spending lawful."},"issue_detection":{"absurdities":[{"type":"other","section":"Section 5 read with Section 2 and the Assent Date","severity":"medium","reasoning":"A Supply Act for the year ending 30 June 1950 that received Royal Assent on 29 June 1949 is not technically absurd — it is a No. 1 Supply Act intended to fund early-year expenditure before the main Appropriation Act passes. However, the commencement on 29 June 1949 means the Act technically comes into force on the second-to-last day of the 1948–49 financial year, not the 1949–50 year it purports to fund. Any expenditure authorised on that single day (29 June 1949) would fall outside the stated purpose of funding the year ending 30 June 1950, creating a one-day window of legal ambiguity about which year the money belongs to.","confidence":0.72,"description":"The Act received Royal Assent on 29th June 1949 (per Section 2, the commencement date) but Section 5 prohibits expenditure after 30th June 1950. Section 3 grants the appropriation 'for the service of the year ending the thirtieth day of June, One thousand nine hundred and fifty' — meaning the financial year had already been underway for nearly 12 months before the Act commenced. However, the deeper quirk is that the Act commenced on 29 June 1949, giving effectively only one day of the 1948–49 financial year, yet the appropriation is framed for the year ending 30 June 1950. This creates a temporal mismatch: the Act nominally covers a full financial year but only legally exists for the last day of the preceding year plus the full following year."},{"type":"other","section":"The Schedule — Division numbering","severity":"low","reasoning":"While gap-numbering in schedules is common practice to allow future insertions, in this Act the Schedule is the operative document that defines and limits the purposes for which £13,694,000 may be spent. The missing Division numbers (55 and 60) are referenced by implication in the sequential structure but carry no allocation. This is at worst a drafting curiosity — the omitted divisions could reflect items removed during parliamentary passage — but creates a minor puzzle as to whether the omission was deliberate or whether appropriations were inadvertently dropped.","confidence":0.55,"description":"The Schedule jumps from Division 54 (Defence Services) to Division 56 (Commonwealth Railways), skipping Division 55 entirely. It then jumps from Division 59 (Postmaster-General's Department) to Division 61 (Northern Territory), skipping Division 60. These gaps in the sequential numbering of Divisions are referenced in Section 3 as the basis for authorising expenditure to specified extents, but the missing divisions are never defined or explained."},{"type":"other","section":"Section 3 and The Schedule — Part II arithmetic","severity":"low","reasoning":"Upon verification: 9,128,000 + 3,593,000 + 973,000 = 13,694,000. All figures reconcile. No arithmetic absurdity exists. This note is included to confirm rigorous checking was performed.","confidence":0,"description":"The Schedule shows Part II (Business Undertakings) totalling £3,593,000, comprised of Commonwealth Railways at £76,700 and Postmaster-General's Department at £3,516,300. Adding these figures yields £3,593,000, which is internally consistent. However, summing all three Part totals — Part I (£9,128,000) + Part II (£3,593,000) + Part III (£973,000) — gives £13,694,000, which matches Section 3. The arithmetic is correct throughout, so no absurdity here."},{"type":"other","section":"Section 4 — 'last preceding section' reference chain","severity":"medium","reasoning":"The Schedule is prefaced with the heading 'Section 8.' but the Act has only five numbered sections. Section 8 does not exist. This is likely a legislative drafting error — possibly a holdover from a template or earlier bill with more sections — but it creates a genuine legal ambiguity: is the Schedule formally attached to a valid operative provision? Section 3 refers to 'the Schedule to this Act' without specifying a section number, so the Schedule is legally anchored to Section 3 regardless. Nevertheless, the phantom 'Section 8' reference is a real drafting flaw that could cause interpretive confusion.","confidence":0.88,"description":"Section 4 states the sum shall be available to satisfy warrants 'in respect of any purpose specified in the last preceding section, and to the extent authorized by that section.' Section 3 authorises expenditure for purposes specified in the Schedule. Section 4 therefore makes warrant satisfaction dependent on Section 3, which itself depends on the Schedule. The Schedule, however, is headed 'Section 8' — a heading that references a non-existent section, since the Act only contains Sections 1 through 5."}],"contradictions":[{"severity":"medium","section_a":"Section 3 — appropriation 'for the service of the year ending the thirtieth day of June, One thousand nine hundred and fifty'","section_b":"Section 2 — 'This Act shall come into operation on the day on which it receives the Royal Assent' (29th June 1949)","confidence":0.75,"description":"Section 3 frames the entire appropriation as being 'for the service of the year ending 30 June 1950', implying the relevant financial year is 1 July 1949 – 30 June 1950. Yet Section 2 brings the Act into operation on 29 June 1949 — a date that falls within the prior financial year (1 July 1948 – 30 June 1949). This means the Act is legally operative for one day (29 June 1949) before the financial year it purports to fund even begins, creating a tension between the operative commencement and the stated period of application."},{"severity":"medium","section_a":"Section 3 — authorises issue and application of moneys for purposes in the Schedule","section_b":"The Schedule header — 'Section 8'","confidence":0.85,"description":"Section 3 grounds its authority by reference to 'the Schedule to this Act', while the Schedule itself is headed 'Section 8' — a section that does not exist anywhere in the Act. The Act contains only Sections 1–5. If the Schedule is formally the Schedule to Section 8, and Section 8 is non-existent, there is a direct conflict between Section 3's reliance on the Schedule as a valid operative instrument and the Schedule's own self-description as belonging to a phantom provision."}]}},"importantCases":[],"_links":{"self":"/api/acts/supply-works-and-services-act-no-1-1949-50","history":"/api/acts/supply-works-and-services-act-no-1-1949-50/history","analysis":"/api/acts/supply-works-and-services-act-no-1-1949-50/analysis","conflicts":"/api/acts/supply-works-and-services-act-no-1-1949-50/conflicts","importantCases":"/api/acts/supply-works-and-services-act-no-1-1949-50/important-cases","documents":"/api/acts/supply-works-and-services-act-no-1-1949-50/documents"}}