Public Employment (Consequential and Transitional) Amendment Act 1999

What this Act does

This Act is the machinery that switches Australia's public service from the old Public Service Act 1922 to the new Public Service Act 1999. It ensures the changeover happens smoothly without anyone losing their job or existing rights.

Key changes

• Repeal of the old system: It wipes out the 1922 Act and the Merit Protection (Australian Government Employees) Act 1984.
• Automatic conversion: When the new Act starts, existing public servants are automatically converted to the new categories:
  • Officers become APS employees (ongoing or non-ongoing).
  • SES officers become SES employees.
  • Department Secretaries become Agency Heads (or just "Secretaries" under the new Act).
• Protecting old rights: People who had redundancy or redeployment rights under the old system (called "first-tier" and "second-tier" persons) keep those rights for a transitional period.
• Updating other laws: It changes references in hundreds of other Acts (like the Crimes Act, Taxation Administration Act, Migration Act, etc.) to replace old terms like "officer of the Australian Public Service" with new terms like or .