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Commonwealth act
What this Act does in plain English
This is a short, highly specific piece of "fix-up" legislation — sometimes called a curative Act — designed to patch a legal problem that arose from a paperwork technicality in how certain laws were notified to the public.
The problem it was solving
Under Australian law, when the government makes a regulation, ordinance, or similar rule (collectively called statutory instruments — meaning laws made by the executive government rather than Parliament), it must formally notify the public by publishing a notice in the Commonwealth Gazette (the official government newspaper). That notice typically had to tell people where they could go to buy a copy of the instrument.
The problem: in some cases, the Gazette notice said copies were available for purchase at certain places — but they actually weren't available there, either at the time of publication or later. Technically, this meant the government had failed to properly notify the public, which could have made those laws invalid or unenforceable.
What the Act does about it
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Zoe can write the in-depth analysis on top of the summary above: how it works, who it affects and what each part actually does.
Direct links to the current provisions in Ordinances and Regulations (Notification) Act 1978.
Zoe has indexed the source text for search and analysis. Use the official register for the original document and download formats.
View on official registerSourced from the Federal Register of Legislation (legislation.gov.au), CC BY 4.0.
Which laws are covered?
The fix applies to two categories of statutory instruments:
The one important exception
There is a carve-out for the Banking (Foreign Exchange) Regulations specifically. If someone had already been charged with an offence under those Regulations before 25 May 1978, and that case hadn't been finalised yet, this Act's cure does not apply to their case. This protects defendants who were already in court — they could still argue the notification was defective. However, for any other legal purposes (including future cases), the Banking (Foreign Exchange) Regulations are also cured.
Who does this affect?