{"id":"C1972A00123","name":"United States Naval Communication Station (Civilian Employees) Act 1972","slug":"united-states-naval-communication-station-civilian-employees-act-1972","collection":"act","jurisdiction":"commonwealth","status":"repealed","isInForce":false,"actNumber":"123 of 1972","makingDate":null,"administeringDepartment":null,"currentVersion":{"id":2512,"registerId":"commonwealth-C1972A00123-current","compilationNumber":null,"startDate":"2026-03-29","status":"Repealed","reasons":null,"registeredAt":null},"sections":[{"sectionNumber":"1","sectionType":"section","heading":"United States Naval Communication Station (Civilian Employees) Act 1972","content":"United States Naval Communication Station (Civilian Employees)\n\nNo. 123 of 1972\n\nAn Act to make further modifications of the Compensation (Commonwealth Employees) Act 1971–1972 for the purposes of the United States Naval Communication Station (Civilian Employees) Act 1971 in consequence of the enactment of the Compensation (Commonwealth Employees) Act 1972.\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 United States Naval Communication Station (Civilian Employees) Act 1972.\n\n(2.) The United States Naval Communication Station (Civilian Employees) Act 1971, as amended by this Act, may be cited as the United States Naval Communication Station (Civilian Employees) Act 1971–1972.\n\nCommencement.\n\n2. This Act shall come into operation on the date of commencement of the Compensation (Commonwealth Employees) Act 1972.\n\nSchedule.\n\n3.—(1.) The Schedule to the United States Naval Communication Station (Civilian Employees) Act 1971 is amended by inserting after the words—\n\n| “Section 5(1.).................... | At the end of the definition of ‘outworker’, insert ‘or of the Government of the United States of America’.” |\n| ---------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |\n| the words—                         |                                                                                                              |\n| “ Section 5(7.)................... | After ‘the Commonwealth’, insert ‘or the Government of the United States of America’.”.                      |\n\n(2.) The Schedule to the United States Naval Communication Station (Civilian Employees) Act 1971 is further amended by inserting after the words—\n\n| “Section 36(2.) and (3.)............. | After ‘the Commonwealth’, insert ‘ or the Government of the United States of America’.”                      |\n| ------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |\n| the words—                            |                                                                                                              |\n| “Section 45(2b.)..................    | After ‘the Commonwealth’ (wherever occurring), insert ‘or the Government of the United States of America’.”. |","sortOrder":0}],"analysis":{"issue_detection":{"absurdities":[{"type":"circular_definition","section":"Section 2","severity":"medium","reasoning":"Section 2 provides that this Act 'shall come into operation on the date of commencement of the Compensation (Commonwealth Employees) Act 1972.' This creates a parasitic commencement — the operative date of this Act is wholly dependent on an external Act whose own commencement may be subject to proclamation, delay, or contingency. If the Compensation (Commonwealth Employees) Act 1972 never commences, or its commencement date is itself uncertain at the time of royal assent of this Act, then this Act is in a state of perpetual legal limbo. Notably, this Act received royal assent on 2 November 1972, but there is no guarantee the trigger Act commenced on that date or had a fixed commencement date determinable at that time.","confidence":0.72,"description":"The Act's commencement date is defined entirely by reference to the commencement date of another Act (the Compensation (Commonwealth Employees) Act 1972), which is not defined within this Act and may itself be undefined, delayed, or never proclaimed."},{"type":"other","section":"Section 3(1) and 3(2)","severity":"medium","reasoning":"Section 3 does not amend the Compensation (Commonwealth Employees) Act directly. Instead, it amends the Schedule to the 1971 Act, which itself contains textual amendment instructions to the Compensation Act. The result is a third-order legislative instruction: this Act amends a Schedule that amends another Act. If the Schedule's amendments to the Compensation Act have already been fully executed and the Compensation Act's text already updated, the Schedule to the 1971 Act is spent and amending it has no further operative legal effect. The amendment would be adding instructions to an already-executed instrument, like adding steps to a recipe after the dish has been served.","confidence":0.78,"description":"The Act purports to amend a Schedule to the 1971 Act by inserting words 'after' specific existing text, but the amendment mechanism is an amendment-of-an-amendment — it modifies a Schedule that itself contains instructions to amend a third Act (the Compensation (Commonwealth Employees) Act 1971–1972). This creates a deeply nested and potentially incoherent legislative instruction with no direct operative effect on any substantive law."},{"type":"other","section":"Section 1(2)","severity":"low","reasoning":"The citation of an Act with a hyphenated year range conventionally signals a substantive amendment to the principal Act. Here, the only change is to the Schedule — a table of textual instructions directed at yet another Act. The 1971 Act's own operative provisions are untouched. Elevating this to a new citation may overstate the significance of the amendment and create bibliographic confusion for practitioners seeking to understand what the 1971–1972 Act actually does differently from the 1971 Act.","confidence":0.55,"description":"The citation provision allows the 1971 Act 'as amended by this Act' to be cited as the 1971–1972 Act, but since this Act only amends the Schedule (which contains amendment instructions) rather than the substantive body of the 1971 Act, it is questionable whether this constitutes a meaningful amendment warranting a new consolidated citation."}],"contradictions":[{"severity":"low","section_a":"Section 2 (commencement tied to Compensation (Commonwealth Employees) Act 1972)","section_b":"Section 3 (Schedule amendments with immediate operative language)","confidence":0.6,"description":"Section 2 defers the entire Act's commencement to the commencement of the Compensation (Commonwealth Employees) Act 1972, yet Section 3's amendments to the 1971 Act's Schedule are framed in unconditional present-tense legislative language with no internal acknowledgment of the deferred commencement. This creates a tension between the contingent commencement and the apparently immediate textual amendments — a reader of Section 3 in isolation would have no indication the provision is inoperative until an external trigger event."}]},"summary":{"complexity_score":3,"scope_assessment":{"changed":false,"description":"This Act does not expand or alter the original scope of the 1971 legislation. Its sole purpose is to maintain the status quo — ensuring that civilian workers employed by the US Government at the naval station continue to receive the same workers' compensation protections after the 1972 update to Commonwealth compensation law. The amendments are purely technical and consequential, inserting references to the US Government to mirror existing references to the Commonwealth. No new categories of workers, entitlements, or obligations are introduced."},"complexity_factors":["Purely amending legislation — has no standalone operative effect without reading the 1971 parent Act and the 1972 Compensation Act simultaneously","Nested amendment structure: amends a Schedule that itself contains amendments to a third piece of legislation (the Compensation (Commonwealth Employees) Act 1971–1972)","Requires tracing changes across at least three separate Acts to understand the full legal effect","Very short with minimal defined terms and no conditional logic, keeping overall complexity low","Commencement is tied to an external trigger (the commencement of the Compensation (Commonwealth Employees) Act 1972) rather than a fixed date"],"plain_english_summary":"This short amending Act fixes a technical gap created when Australia updated Commonwealth workers’ compensation laws in 1972. By adding explicit references to the Government of the United States of America alongside the Commonwealth in the 1971 Act’s schedule, it ensures civilian employees at the US Naval Communication Station (Harold E. Holt) who are employed by the US Government continue to be covered by Australian workers’ compensation protections."}},"importantCases":[],"_links":{"self":"/api/acts/united-states-naval-communication-station-civilian-employees-act-1972","history":"/api/acts/united-states-naval-communication-station-civilian-employees-act-1972/history","analysis":"/api/acts/united-states-naval-communication-station-civilian-employees-act-1972/analysis","conflicts":"/api/acts/united-states-naval-communication-station-civilian-employees-act-1972/conflicts","importantCases":"/api/acts/united-states-naval-communication-station-civilian-employees-act-1972/important-cases","documents":"/api/acts/united-states-naval-communication-station-civilian-employees-act-1972/documents"}}