{"id":"C1936A00002","name":"Wheat Growers Relief Act 1936","slug":"wheat-growers-relief-act-1936","collection":"act","jurisdiction":"commonwealth","status":"repealed","isInForce":false,"actNumber":"2 of 1936","makingDate":null,"administeringDepartment":null,"currentVersion":{"id":3772,"registerId":"commonwealth-C1936A00002-current","compilationNumber":null,"startDate":"2026-03-30","status":"Repealed","reasons":null,"registeredAt":null},"sections":[{"sectionNumber":"1","sectionType":"section","heading":"Wheat Growers Relief Act 1936","content":"WHEAT GROWERS RELIEF.\n\nNo. 2 of 1936.\n\nAn Act to provide for Financial Assistance to the States in the provision of Relief to Wheat Growers.\n\n\\[Assented to 20th March, 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 Wheat Growers Relief Act 1936.\n\nDefinition.\n\n2. In this Act, unless the contrary intention appears—\n\n“wheat grower” means any person who has sown wheat for the production of grain during the year One thousand nine hundred and thirty-five.\n\nAppropriation.\n\n3. There shall be payable out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund, which is hereby appropriated accordingly, the sums necessary to provide for the payments authorized to be made under this Act.\n\nGrant of financial assistance to States.\n\n4. There shall be granted to the States specified in this section, by way of financial assistance to those States, the amounts respectively specified opposite the names of those States:—\n\n|                                                             | £       |\n| ----------------------------------------------------------- | ------- |\n| New South Wales..........................................   | 565,284 |\n| Victoria................................................    | 441,948 |\n| Queensland..............................................    | 42,835  |\n| South Australia...........................................  | 432,146 |\n| Western Australia.......................................... | 392,850 |\n| Tasmania...............................................     | 3,483   |\n\nAssistance to wheat growers in Territory for the Seat of Government.\n\n5. There shall be made available a sum not exceeding Three hundred and sixty pounds for distribution, in the manner determined by the Minister, among wheat growers in the Territory for the Seat of Government.\n\n  \nPayments to wheat growers by the States.\n\n6. Any amount granted to a State in accordance with the provisions of section four of this Act shall be paid on condition that it is applied by the State in providing relief to wheat growers in such manner as is approved by the Minister after recommendation by the prescribed authority of that State.\n\nExecutors and trustees.\n\n7. Where—\n\n(a) any person—\n\n(i) is the legal personal representative of a person (since deceased); or\n\n(ii) is the trustee of the estate of a person,\n\nwho has, during the year One thousand nine hundred and thirty-five, sown wheat for grain; or\n\n(b) any person, being the legal personal representative of a deceased person or a trustee has, during that year, sown wheat for grain on account of the estate of the deceased person or of the trust estate,\n\nany amount payable under this Act in respect of the wheat so sown shall, notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, be paid to the legal personal representative or trustee on account of the estate of the deceased person or of the trust estate, as the case may be.\n\nPayment to be made only to a wheat grower.\n\n8. Subject to the last preceding section, any amount due and payable to a wheat grower under this Act shall not be paid to any person other than the wheat grower.\n\nClosing date for receipt of applications for assistance.\n\n9. The prescribed authority in any State may fix a date after which applications from wheat growers for assistance under this Act will not be received.\n\nShare-farmers.\n\n10.—(1.) Any amount payable under this Act in respect of any wheat which is sown in pursuance of a share-farming agreement shall be divided between the parties to that agreement in proportion to their respective interests under the agreement in the wheat or the proceeds thereof:\n\nProvided that, where the agreement provides for the division of the wheat or the proceeds thereof between the parties to the agreement on other than a proportionate basis, the amount payable under this Act shall be divided between the parties in such manner as is determined in each case by the prescribed authority.\n\n(2.) For the purposes of this section, wheat shall not be deemed to be sown in pursuance of a share-farming agreement unless two or more persons agree to contribute towards the sowing of the wheat by the provision of either land, labour, material or plant and to divide among them the proceeds of the wheat so sown.\n\nRegulations.\n\n11. The Governor-General may make regulations, not inconsistent with this Act, prescribing all matters which by this Act are required or permitted to be prescribed, or which are necessary or convenient to be prescribed, for carrying out or giving effect to this Act.","sortOrder":0}],"analysis":{"issue_detection":{"absurdities":[{"type":"retroactive_impossibility","section":"Section 2 (Definition of 'wheat grower')","severity":"low","reasoning":"While retrospective definitions are not inherently absurd in relief legislation (they are, in fact, deliberate here — the Act is designed to relieve hardship from a past growing season), it is logically notable that the class of eligible persons is permanently and irrevocably closed at the moment of commencement. No future conduct can satisfy the definition. This is a design feature, not a flaw, but it does mean the Act is a one-shot instrument with a frozen beneficiary class.","confidence":0.55,"description":"The definition of 'wheat grower' is entirely retrospective — it captures only persons who sowed wheat during 1935, a year that had already concluded before the Act was assented to on 20 March 1936. No person can ever newly qualify as a 'wheat grower' under this Act after the Act comes into force."},{"type":"impossible_compliance","section":"Section 6","severity":"high","reasoning":"The phrase 'prescribed authority' appears in sections 6, 9, and 10 but is never substantively defined in the Act. Section 11 allows regulations to prescribe 'all matters which by this Act are required or permitted to be prescribed.' Until such regulations exist, the condition in s6 (Ministerial approval 'after recommendation by the prescribed authority') cannot be fulfilled. This creates a structural dependency where the primary operative provision is contingent on subordinate legislation that may not exist. While regulations were presumably made in practice, as a matter of pure textual analysis the Act is unworkable without them.","confidence":0.82,"description":"Section 6 conditions State payments on Ministerial approval 'after recommendation by the prescribed authority,' but 'prescribed authority' is never defined in the Act itself — only promised to be prescribed by Regulations under section 11. If no regulations are made prescribing the authority, the entire payment mechanism is inoperable: States cannot satisfy the condition precedent and no funds can flow."},{"type":"other","section":"Section 5","severity":"low","reasoning":"The Territory is not a State and cannot receive grants under s4's framework, so s5 is a separate provision. However, the absence of any procedural safeguard (no prescribed authority, no conditions analogous to s6) means the Minister could distribute Territory funds entirely without external recommendation. This is an internal inconsistency in the Act's procedural framework, though possibly deliberate given the Territory's smaller allocation (£360 vs millions to States) and its direct Commonwealth administration.","confidence":0.7,"description":"The Territory for the Seat of Government (the ACT) fund of £360 is to be distributed 'in the manner determined by the Minister,' with no requirement for a 'prescribed authority' recommendation — unlike the States under section 6. This creates an asymmetry where the Minister has unfettered discretion over Territory distributions but is constrained by the prescribed authority process for State distributions, with no principled basis for the distinction."},{"type":"self_contradicting","section":"Section 8 read with Section 6","severity":"medium","reasoning":"The architecture of the Act is: Commonwealth pays States (s4), States distribute to growers (s6). Individual growers have no direct statutory entitlement against the Commonwealth. Section 8's anti-assignment rule ('shall not be paid to any person other than the wheat grower') presupposes that growers hold a direct statutory right to payment under the Act, which the Act never establishes. Section 7 has the same issue — it redirects payments 'payable under this Act' to trustees/executors, but no payment to an individual grower is ever created by the Act itself. Both ss7 and 8 appear drafted as if there were a direct Commonwealth-to-grower payment stream that simply does not exist in the Act.","confidence":0.78,"description":"Section 8 says amounts 'due and payable to a wheat grower under this Act' shall not be paid to anyone other than the wheat grower (subject to s7). However, under sections 4 and 6, amounts are paid to States, not directly to wheat growers. The wheat grower never has an amount 'due and payable' to them directly 'under this Act' — the Act creates rights in favour of States, not individual growers. Section 8 therefore operates on a class of payments that this Act never actually creates."}],"contradictions":[{"severity":"medium","section_a":"Section 6","section_b":"Section 9","confidence":0.72,"description":"Section 6 requires the Minister to approve how funds are applied 'after recommendation by the prescribed authority.' Section 9 allows the prescribed authority to unilaterally fix a closing date for applications without any Ministerial approval or involvement. This creates a tension in the relative authority of the Minister and the prescribed authority: the prescribed authority cannot recommend uses of funds without Ministerial sign-off (s6), but can independently bar eligible wheat growers from accessing funds by closing the application window (s9) — a decision with equivalent practical effect — without any Commonwealth oversight."},{"severity":"low","section_a":"Section 7","section_b":"Section 8","confidence":0.65,"description":"Section 8 states that amounts due to a wheat grower 'shall not be paid to any person other than the wheat grower,' expressly subject to section 7. Section 7 in turn allows payment to legal personal representatives and trustees. The phrase 'notwithstanding anything contained in this Act' in s7 and the 'subject to the last preceding section' in s8 create a circularity: s7 overrides s8, and s8 is subordinate to s7 — which is internally consistent — but the combined effect is that the anti-assignment rule in s8 is stated as a general rule then immediately hollowed out by s7 for the most common real-world scenarios (deceased estates and trusts). In practice, any grower who died before payment could be redirected outside s8's rule, making s8's protective purpose largely illusory for a 1935 growing season where many growers may have since died by 1936."},{"severity":"low","section_a":"Section 4","section_b":"Section 3","confidence":0.5,"description":"Section 3 appropriates 'the sums necessary to provide for the payments authorised to be made under this Act.' Section 4 specifies fixed, exact amounts for each State (totalling £1,878,546). The appropriation in s3 uses open-ended language ('sums necessary') suggesting a demand-driven or variable appropriation, yet s4 fixes exact caps. If any State fails to draw down its full allocation, the 'sums necessary' language in s3 is wider than the actual fixed entitlements in s4, creating minor ambiguity about whether the Commonwealth could be asked to pay more than the s4 amounts."}]},"summary":{"complexity_score":2,"scope_assessment":{"changed":false,"description":"The Act is a discrete, self-contained piece of emergency relief legislation. Its original intent — to distribute a fixed pool of Commonwealth money to 1935 wheat growers via the States — is exactly what all 11 sections deliver. There is no evidence of amendment or scope creep; the Act does precisely and only what its title and preamble promise."},"complexity_factors":["Only one defined term ('wheat grower') in the interpretation section","Narrow, single-purpose scope — a one-off financial grant with no ongoing regulatory regime","Minimal conditional logic: the main conditions are simply that payments must go to eligible growers and be State-approved","Share-farmer provision (section 10) introduces modest complexity with a proportionality rule and a proviso for non-standard arrangements","Cross-references are limited and shallow — sections reference each other only a handful of times","Regulation-making power is broad in form but substantively constrained by the Act's narrow subject matter","Short Act of only 11 sections with plain, direct drafting style typical of 1930s Commonwealth legislation"],"plain_english_summary":"## Wheat Growers Relief Act 1936\n\n**What this law does**\n\nThis Act provides emergency financial assistance to wheat farmers across Australia who were struggling during the Great Depression era. Specifically, it directs Commonwealth money to the States (and the Australian Capital Territory) to be handed on to wheat growers who planted a crop in 1935.\n\n**Who gets the money?**\n\nAny person who sowed wheat for grain production during 1935 is a \"wheat grower\" for the purposes of this Act. The money flows like this:\n- The **Commonwealth** pays fixed lump sums to each State from the national Consolidated Revenue Fund (the government's main bank account).\n- Each **State** then distributes that money to individual wheat growers in a way approved by the responsible Commonwealth Minister.\n- A small additional pool (up to £360) is set aside for wheat growers in what is now the ACT.\n\n**How much goes where?**\n\nThe fixed grants to each State are:\n- **New South Wales** — £565,284\n- **Victoria** — £441,948\n- **South Australia** — £432,146\n- **Western Australia** — £392,850\n- **Queensland** — £42,835\n- **Tasmania** — £3,483\n\n**Important rules about who can receive payments**\n- Payments must go **directly to the wheat grower** — they cannot be redirected to another person (for example, a creditor trying to collect a debt).\n- If a wheat grower has **died**, their legal personal representative (executor) or trustee can receive the payment on behalf of the estate.\n- If the wheat was grown under a **share-farming arrangement** (where two or more people pool land, labour, or equipment and split the proceeds), the payment is split between those parties in proportion to their share of the crop. A State authority can determine the split if the arrangement was not on a straightforward proportional basis.\n\n**Who oversees this?**\n- The Commonwealth **Minister** must approve how each State distributes the money.\n- A **\"prescribed authority\"** in each State (defined by regulations) plays a recommending role and can set a deadline after which applications will no longer be accepted.\n- The **Governor-General** can make regulations to fill in any practical details needed to run the scheme.\n\n**Why it matters**\n\nThis Act is a snapshot of Depression-era cooperative federalism — the Commonwealth stepping in to support a struggling agricultural sector by channelling emergency relief through the States, with built-in protections to ensure the money actually reaches the farmers it was intended to help."}},"importantCases":[],"_links":{"self":"/api/acts/wheat-growers-relief-act-1936","history":"/api/acts/wheat-growers-relief-act-1936/history","analysis":"/api/acts/wheat-growers-relief-act-1936/analysis","conflicts":"/api/acts/wheat-growers-relief-act-1936/conflicts","importantCases":"/api/acts/wheat-growers-relief-act-1936/important-cases","documents":"/api/acts/wheat-growers-relief-act-1936/documents"}}