What it does
This Act gives formal domestic approval for Australia to take two discrete international actions in respect of the Genocide Convention of 9 December 1948. Mechanically it does three things.
First, it defines what the Act means by the "Genocide Convention" by importing the full text of the 1948 Convention into the Act as the Schedule (s 3; Schedule). The Schedule reproduces Articles I-XIX of the Convention, including the definition of genocide (Article II), the list of acts to be punished (Article III), and the commitments on legislation, jurisdiction and extradition (Articles V-VII).
Second, the Act authorises the Australian executive to deposit an instrument of ratification of the Convention with the Secretary‑General of the United Nations (s 4). That is an approval by Parliament for the act of ratification to be effected at the United Nations level; the statutory text is limited to that approval and the mechanical act of deposit.
Third, the Act authorises the Australian executive to notify the Secretary‑General of the United Nations that Australia extends the Convention to territories for which it conducts foreign relations (s 5). Section 5 expressly ties that approval to Article XII of the Convention, which permits any Contracting Party to extend the Convention to territories for whose foreign relations it is responsible by notification to the Secretary‑General.
The Act does not itself create domestic criminal offences, nor does it itself prescribe domestic penalties or procedures for prosecuting alleged genocidal conduct. Instead the Convention (reproduced in the Schedule) contains obligations by which Contracting Parties undertake to prevent and punish genocide (Article I) and to "enact, in accordance with their respective Constitutions, the necessary legislation" to give effect to the Convention and "in particular, to provide effective penalties" (Article V). The Act is therefore an approval and enabling statute: it approves instrument deposit/extension and incorporates the international text for reference, but domestic criminalisation and procedural mechanisms are left to subsequent legislation in accordance with Article V and domestic constitutional arrangements.