Second-Hand Dealers and Pawnbrokers (Fees) Regulations 2019

The Regulations use a small set of structural concepts to achieve their purpose. The dominant concept is the fee unit. Most prescribed fees are expressed as a number of fee units rather than fixed dollar amounts (regulations 6 to 10). The fee-unit approach delegates the annual dollar valuation of a unit to the Treasurer under the Monetary Units Act 2004; the Explanatory details state the value for 2019-20 (one fee unit = $14.81) and require publication of future values before 1 June in the preceding financial year. The Regulations therefore separate the policy decision about what level of fee (in fee-unit terms) applies to each statutory step from the administrative decision that updates the dollar equivalent annually.

A second concept is statutory cross-reference. Each prescribed fee is expressly linked to a particular subsection of the primary Act. For example, regulation 6 prescribes the fee for the purposes of s 7(2)(c) of the Act; regulation 8 links to s 10A(3)(b); regulation 9 to s 11(1); regulation 12 to s 13(3). That linkage determines when the amount is payable because it ties the financial consequence to a listed operation in the Act rather than to an open-ended administrative discretion.

A third concept is negative prescription. The Regulations explicitly set certain fees at nil: the annual endorsement fee under s 11AA(1) is nil (regulation 10) and the fee for late payment or lodgement under s 11A(4) is nil (regulation 11). Express nil amounts are material because they alter the relative cost of different statutory steps and therefore the incentives of regulated persons.

A fourth concept relates to temporal application and repeal. The Regulations come into operation on a fixed date (23 November 2019, regulation 3) and revoke an earlier statutory instrument (the 2008 Regulations, regulation 4). The Endnotes record the date of making and the sunset provision: the instrument will sunset ten years after the day of making on 19 November 2029, under the Subordinate Legislation Act 1994.

An interpretive concept from the Interpretation of Legislation Act 1984 is recorded in the Endnotes. It indicates that headings, notes and examples in a Statutory Rule made on or after 1 January 2001 form part of the rule, and sets out rules on punctuation and provision numbers. The Endnotes therefore confirm that the drafting conventions and the explanatory details are intended to be read as part of the statutory instrument in a particular way.

Finally, there is a practical conversion concept: where the Regulations prescribe fee amounts in fee units, the Monetary Units Act 2004 provides the calculation method. The Explanatory details cite s 7 of that Act for multiplying the number of fee units by the value of a fee unit, and permit rounding to the nearest 10 cents.

These concepts together make the Regulations an instrument that fixes the nominal scale of the statutory fees while preserving an automated mechanism for dollar-value updates and a small number of policy choices that shape incentives through the level or nilness of particular fees.

The Regulations affect the set of participants who are parties to transactions or processes governed by the Second-Hand Dealers and Pawnbrokers Act 1989. This includes prospective registrants, existing registrants, operators seeking permissions, and members of the public who request copies of the register. The Regulations name the relevant Act in regulation 5 and attach specific fees to the precise statutory steps in that Act, which determines who is required to pay.

Applicants for registration are directly affected because regulation 6 prescribes a fee of 21.5 fee units for applications under s 7(2)(c) of the Act. Entities covered by the Act who request registration permission under s 10A(3)(b) must pay the higher fee of 47.5 fee units prescribed by regulation 8. Persons who hold registrations and who seek a variation or revocation of conditions on their registration are subject to the fee prescribed by regulation 7 of 3 fee units. Registered businesses pay an annual registration fee prescribed by regulation 9 at 7.6 fee units. Those seeking endorsements that would otherwise attract an annual charge under s 11AA(1) are affected by the negative decision in regulation 10 which sets that annual endorsement fee at nil; this alters the recurrent cost profile for endorsements relative to registration fees.

Members of the public and third parties who require a copy of the register under s 13(3) are affected by regulation 12, which fixes a flat $5 fee for a register copy. That provision imposes a small transactional cost on information users.

The regulation of late payment or lodgement is relevant to registrants and applicants, because regulation 11 prescribes the fee for late payment or lodgement under s 11A(4) as nil, which changes the fee-based deterrent or cost for late performance relative to a positive fee.

The Regulations also affect the Department or agency administering the Act because their revenue streams, billing, accounting and administrative processes must reflect these prescribed amounts, the conversion of fee units to dollars each financial year, and the rounding rule. The Explanatory details require the Treasurer to publish fee-unit values before 1 June in the preceding financial year. That publication requirement imposes an information-disclosure step that administrative units must monitor to calculate the exact dollar amounts payable in a given year.

Finally, the Regulations affect advisers and compliance practitioners who must calculate and record fees accurately. Because five of the seven monetary prescriptions are expressed in fee units, the dollar amounts owed change each financial year when the Treasurer fixes a new fee-unit value. Those advisers must therefore check the Monitary Units Act value for the relevant year before advising clients on the dollar cost of applications, annual fees, or variations.

The Regulations do not create duties in the sense of operational or behavioural obligations beyond prescribing what sums are payable in particular statutory circumstances. Their operative effect is to define the monetary component of duties placed by the Act. The key duties that flow from the Regulations are therefore the financial obligations that attach to certain statutory acts identified in the Act.

Duty to pay application fees: Regulation 6 prescribes that an application for registration that falls within s 7(2)(c) of the Act must be accompanied by a fee of 21.5 fee units. The legal duty to include the fee with the application is derived from that cross-reference: the Act requires an application and the Regulations specify the monetary amount for that application step. Similarly, regulation 8 prescribes the fee for applications for registration permission under s 10A(3)(b) of the Act at 47.5 fee units. A person lodging an application in either category must calculate and pay the appropriate fee denominated in fee units and converted to dollars in accordance with the Monetary Units Act 2004, as explained in the Explanatory details.

Duty to pay variation fees: Regulation 7 prescribes a fee of 3 fee units for varying or revoking conditions imposed on a registration under s 8B(3) of the Act. That fee is payable when the statutory mechanism for variation or revocation in the Act is invoked.

Duty to pay annual registration fee: Regulation 9 prescribes an annual registration fee of 7.6 fee units for the purposes of s 11(1) of the Act. Registrants therefore have the recurrent duty to pay the annual fee, in the amount set in fee units and converted as required.

Right to a nil-fee endorsement: Regulation 10 prescribes that the annual endorsement fee under s 11AA(1) is nil. That is a legal entitlement for anyone falling within the endorsement provision of the Act: they are not required to pay an annual monetary fee in respect of that endorsement, as a matter of these Regulations.

Right to nil-fee for late lodgement: Regulation 11 prescribes that the fee for late payment or lodgement under s 11A(4) is nil. The consequence is that, insofar as the Act permits the levying of a late lodgement fee, the Regulations set that amount to zero. Practitioners should note that regulation 11 addresses only the fee and does not in itself address other consequences of late performance that may be established by the Act or other instruments; users should consult the Act for non-fee sanctions.

Right to obtain register copies on payment of $5: Regulation 12 prescribes a flat $5 fee for a copy of the register under s 13(3). That creates a small, clearly stated user-charge right: a copy of the register is available on payment of the enumerated amount.

Administrative and informational duties: The Explanatory details require the Treasurer to fix the fee-unit value for future years under the Monetary Units Act 2004 and to publish it in the Government Gazette and a Victorian newspaper before 1 June in the preceding financial year. That creates a duty on the Treasurer and on agencies to monitor and use the published figure to calculate dollar amounts for prescribed fee units. The Explanatory details further declare that calculated amounts may be rounded to the nearest 10 cents, which is a technical duty for administrators when they produce billing figures.

Delegation and decision-rights: The Regulations were made by the Governor in Council under s 31 of the Act (regulation 2 and the Endnotes). They therefore represent executive-level delegated legislation within the statutory framework of the Act. The Regulations do not themselves delegate further decision-making power to third parties; they simply fix numbers. The key decision-right that remains in official hands is the Treasurer’s exercise under the Monetary Units Act 2004 to set the fee-unit dollar value each financial year, and the Governor in Council’s power to make or remake subordinate legislation under s 31 of the Act.

The Regulations are not a primary source of criminal or civil sanctions. They prescribe monetary amounts; they do not, on their face, create offences, penalties, enforcement mechanisms, or enforcement agencies. Accordingly, the Regulations should be read as financial parameters that operate within the enforcement architecture established by the Second-Hand Dealers and Pawnbrokers Act 1989 and any other relevant statutes.

Because the Regulations themselves provide nil amounts for the annual endorsement fee (regulation 10) and the fee for late payment or lodgement (regulation 11), they remove fee-based financial penalties in those specific categories. Regulation 11’s express prescription of nil for late payment or lodgement means that any fee-based sanction that the Act might otherwise permit in s 11A(4) is fixed at $0 by this instrument. If the Act contains non-fee enforcement measures, such as suspension or cancellation powers, these Regulations do not displace them; the Regulations only affect fee amounts. The text supplied does not list or create any monetary penalty amounts beyond the fees and the nil entries, and the Explanatory details do not add penalty mechanisms.

Enforcement action that relies on receipt of fees, such as refusal to accept an application that is not accompanied by the prescribed fee, is a practical consequence of the combination of the Act and these Regulations. Regulation 6 states the fee “to accompany application for registration” and regulation 8 states the fee “to accompany application for registration permission.” Those phrases indicate that payment is an antecedent administrative requirement for lodging the relevant application. The Regulations do not lay out the procedural consequences of non-payment, for example whether an application is treated as invalid, whether it is returned, or whether it attracts interest; those procedural consequences, if any, would arise from the Act or administrative practice.

The Explanatory details also require publication of the fee-unit value before a set date in the preceding financial year. Failure by the Treasurer to publish the required fee-unit value might create administrative ambiguity about the dollar equivalents administrators should charge; however, the Regulations themselves do not prescribe remedies for a failure to publish.

Finally, the Regulations are subject to the sunset mechanism in the Subordinate Legislation Act 1994. The Endnotes state that these Regulations will sunset ten years after the day of making on 19 November 2029. At sunset the legal force of the Regulations will cease unless remade or saved by statutory means. That creates an automatic future enforcement and compliance discontinuity risk that administrators and regulated persons must anticipate.

The Regulations operate as subordinate legislation made under s 31 of the Second-Hand Dealers and Pawnbrokers Act 1989, and therefore must be read in conjunction with that Act. Each prescribed fee is expressly linked to a discrete subsection of the Act: regulation 6 for s 7(2)(c), regulation 7 for s 8B(3), regulation 8 for s 10A(3)(b), regulation 9 for s 11(1), regulation 10 for s 11AA(1), regulation 11 for s 11A(4) and regulation 12 for s 13(3). The Regulations supply the monetary figures that the Act’s procedural provisions require or allow, but they do not alter the substantive scope of the Act.

The Regulations also interact with the Monetary Units Act 2004. Five of the monetary prescriptions are denominated in fee units and the Explanatory details explicitly rely on that Act for the calculation methodology, citing s 7 of the Monetary Units Act 2004. The effect is that dollar amounts change automatically in line with the Treasurer’s annual valuation of a fee unit under s 5 of the Monetary Units Act 2004; the Explanatory details restate the requirement that such a value be published in the Government Gazette and a Victorian newspaper before 1 June in the preceding financial year. That statutory relationship shifts the operational burden of setting dollar-equivalent fees from the Governor in Council to the Treasurer’s annual administrative decision.

The Regulations are also linked to the Subordinate Legislation Act 1994 by the Endnotes, which record the instrument’s sunset date. That Act determines how long the subordinate instrument remains in force absent further action, and imposes the ten-year expiry mechanism that is recorded in the Endnotes.

The Interpretation of Legislation Act 1984 is referenced in the Endnotes to confirm drafting and interpretive conventions that apply to statutory rules made on or after 1 January 2001. These conventions affect how headings, notes, punctuation and provision numbers are treated as part of the Statutory Rule for interpretation purposes. The Endnotes therefore make clear that the explanatory and formatting material should be given statutory effect in line with the ILA.

No other statutory instruments are named, aside from the revoked Second-Hand Dealers and Pawnbrokers Regulations 2008 and the reference to the Monetary Units Act 2004. The Regulations therefore form a small but specific part of a wider statutory network: they are the fee schedule within the Act’s regulatory regime and the Monetary Units Act supplies the valuation mechanism.

Practically, that means a practitioner must consult three sources to determine a current payable dollar amount: the primary Act to determine which statutory step is being taken, these Regulations to determine the fee expressed in fee units (or dollars for a register copy), and the current fee-unit valuation published by the Treasurer under the Monetary Units Act 2004 to convert fee units into the correct dollar total for the relevant financial year. The Endnotes also make clear that calculated fees may be rounded to the nearest 10 cents.

The text supplied contains an explicit record of the instrument’s amendment status up to the stated version date. The Table of Amendments provided in the Endnotes states that there are no amendments made to the Second-Hand Dealers and Pawnbrokers (Fees) Regulations 2019 by statutory rules, subordinate instruments or Acts as at the version date. The section “Amendments Not in Operation” similarly reports there are none at the date of publication. That means the statutory numbers and the design choices embodied in regulations 6 to 12 remained unchanged from the instrument’s making on 19 November 2019 through the version date of 23 November 2019.

Regulation 4 expressly revokes the earlier Second-Hand Dealers and Pawnbrokers Regulations 2008 (S.R. No. 140/2008 as amended) and the Explanatory details list the earlier 2008 instrument and the S.R. amendment history for that instrument. The new instrument therefore replaced an older subordinate instrument; the Endnotes record the earlier instrument’s S.R. number and the dates of intervening amendments to the 2008 instrument. The revocation is mechanical: the 2019 Regulations take over the role of prescribing fees.

The Explanatory details also record the statutory mechanics for fee units. They state that the value of a fee unit for the financial year commencing 1 July 2019 was $14.81 and reiterate the Treasurer’s role in fixing the value for future financial years under the Monetary Units Act 2004. The requirement to publish the fee-unit value in the Government Gazette and in a Victorian newspaper before 1 June in the preceding financial year is recorded as an administrative constraint that will govern future dollar-value adjustments.

The Endnotes additionally record the instrument’s making date and the date it came into force: made on 19 November 2019 by the Governor in Council under s 31 of the Act and came into operation on 23 November 2019 (Endnotes, General information). They also record the instrument’s sunset ten years after making on 19 November 2029 under s 5 of the Subordinate Legislation Act 1994.

There is no subsequent amendment history recorded in the supplied text. Accordingly, between 19 November 2019 and the version date supplied, the instrument’s fee figures and the policy choices embodied in the nil entries remain intact. Practitioners should note, however, that the dollar equivalents of the fee-unit-denominated amounts will change each financial year in line with the Treasurer’s published fee-unit value and that a substantive amendment to the instrument could be made at any later date by the Governor in Council.

The Regulations and their Endnotes do not record any litigation, judicial review proceedings or decisions bearing on the content, validity or application of these Regulations. The Table of Amendments and “Amendments Not in Operation” sections record no subordinate instruments, statutory rules or Acts altering the Regulations within the version date supplied, and there is no mention of legal proceedings in the Explanatory details or Endnotes.

Because the supplied statutory text contains no cases, determinations or litigation references, there is no adjudicative history to summarise from the source material. The absence of reported litigation in the instrument and its explanatory material does not preclude subsequent legal challenges; it simply records that at the time of publication there were no recorded judicial outcomes attached to this instrument.

For practitioners, the practical implications of the absence of litigation in the record are: (1) there is no judicially expounded interpretive guidance in the instrument itself as to how the fee provisions interact with the Act’s procedural machinery; (2) disputes about validity, reasonableness or administrative application of the fees are unreported in this text; and (3) any interpretive ambiguities would have to be resolved by reference to the Act, the Monetary Units Act 2004, the Interpretation of Legislation Act 1984, and administrative practice until and unless a court decision is made.

Accordingly, legal advisers should not rely on judicial clarifications when advising clients on these Regulations unless they have searched beyond the supplied instrument for subsequent case law. The instrument’s Endnotes provide internal stability markers,no amendments and the revocation of the 2008 Regulations,but do not supply adjudicative content.

Several detail-level features of these Regulations can produce surprising or materially important outcomes if overlooked.

1. Fee units not fixed dollars. Most prescribed amounts are expressed in fee units rather than dollars (regulations 6 to 9 and 7). That means the dollar cost for an applicant or registrant depends on the Treasurer’s annual determination of the fee-unit value under the Monetary Units Act 2004. The Explanatory details state the 2019-20 fee-unit value was $14.81 and permit rounding to the nearest 10 cents. Do not assume the dollar figures quoted in these notes remain current in later years; always check the Treasurer’s published fee-unit value for the relevant financial year before calculating an amount.

2. Rounding to nearest 10 cents. The Explanatory details explicitly permit rounding to the nearest 10 cents. Rounding can change the payable amount by a few cents on many transactions, and across a large population of registrants those cents aggregate. Administrators and accountants should apply the rounding rule consistently and document the rounding method used.

3. Nil fees in important places. The Regulations set the annual endorsement fee at nil (regulation 10) and the fee for late payment or lodgement at nil (regulation 11). If the Act contemplates a late fee charge under s 11A(4), these Regulations replace that potential charge with zero. The practical effect is that fee-based deterrence via positive late fees is not available under these Regulations; any deterrence must come from other non-fee consequences that may be in the Act or administrative policy. Practitioners should not presume that “nil” eliminates all consequences of late or defective performance; it only eliminates a specific prescribed fee.

4. Flat-dollar register copy fee. The fee for a copy of the register is a flat $5 (regulation 12). This small fixed amount is not indexed by fee units and therefore does not move automatically with fee-unit valuations. It creates a separate administrative bucket that remains constant until the Regulations are amended.

5. Multiple statutory cross-references. Each fee is applied “for the purposes of” a particular subsection of the Act. That means identifying the correct payable fee requires mapping the client’s transaction precisely to the Act’s relevant subsection. An incorrect identification of which subsection applies will produce an incorrect fee calculation.

6. Revocation of the 2008 Regulations. The Regulations revoke the earlier 2008 instrument (regulation 4). If an adviser is comparing fees against earlier historical practice, they must use these Regulations rather than the 2008 instrument for post-commencement transactions.

7. Sunset. The instrument will sunset ten years after the day of making, on 19 November 2029, unless remade or otherwise preserved under the Subordinate Legislation Act 1994. That creates a future discontinuity risk for systems that hard-code fees: those systems must either be updated prior to sunset or extended by replacement instrument.

8. Procedural silence. The Regulations do not specify payment mechanics, time frames for payment beyond the cross-reference to the Act, or the administrative consequences of non-payment. The absence of procedural detail means administrators and regulated parties must consult the Act and agency guidance to understand whether applications will be rejected, held as incomplete, or otherwise processed when the fee is not properly paid.

9. Dependence on Treasury publication timing. The Explanatory details require Treasury’s fee-unit value to be published before 1 June in the preceding financial year. If Treasury delays publication, administrators and applicants face an information gap for early-june and July lodgements. The Regulations do not contain an express fallback rule for such a contingency.

10. Dollar conversions provided in Explanatory details only. The Explanatory details give the 2019-20 fee-unit dollar value, but the legislative text itself uses fee units. Any dollar-figure summaries derived from the 2019-20 value are explanatory and not the operative text. Practitioners must convert at the current fee-unit value, not rely on static dollar examples.

Being attentive to these technical details,fee-unit conversion, rounding, nil fees, procedural silence, and sunset mechanics,will prevent mispricing, administrative delays, and compliance failures.

Compliance with the Regulations is primarily a matter of correctly identifying which fee applies under the Second-Hand Dealers and Pawnbrokers Act 1989 and then calculating and paying the correct dollar amount derived from the fee-unit prescription or the flat-dollar entry for a register copy. The following practical steps reflect the mechanics in the Regulations and the Explanatory details; they should be followed and documented by applicants, registrants and advisers.

1. Identify the operative Act provision. First determine which provision of the Second-Hand Dealers and Pawnbrokers Act 1989 is engaged by the proposed action. The Regulations are tied to specific subsections: s 7(2)(c) (regulation 6) for registration applications, s 8B(3) (regulation 7) for varying or revoking conditions, s 10A(3)(b) (regulation 8) for registration permission applications, s 11(1) (regulation 9) for annual registration, s 11AA(1) (regulation 10) for endorsements, s 11A(4) (regulation 11) for late payment or lodgement, and s 13(3) (regulation 12) for register copies. Precise statutory mapping is required because each fee relates to a distinct Act subsection.

2. Determine whether the prescribed amount is in fee units or dollars. Regulations 6 to 9 and 7 use fee units. Regulation 12 prescribes a flat $5. Regulation 10 and regulation 11 prescribe nil. For fee-unit items continue to the next step.

3. Obtain the current fee-unit dollar value. Under the Monetary Units Act 2004 the Treasurer fixes the value of a fee unit for each financial year (Explanatory details). The Treasurer’s value for future financial years must be published in the Government Gazette and a Victorian newspaper before 1 June in the preceding financial year. Locate the published fee-unit value for the relevant financial year. For the 2019-20 financial year the Explanatory details state that one fee unit equalled $14.81. Do not use the 2019-20 value for later years.

4. Calculate the dollar amount. Multiply the prescribed number of fee units by the published fee-unit dollar value, applying the calculation method in s 7 of the Monetary Units Act 2004 as referred to in the Explanatory details. After performing the multiplication, round the result to the nearest 10 cents because the Explanatory details authorise rounding to the nearest 10 cents. For example, using the 2019-20 fee-unit valuation as illustrative only, 21.5 fee units would convert to $318.40 after rounding; 47.5 fee units would convert to $703.50 after rounding; 7.6 fee units would convert to $112.60 after rounding; 3 fee units would convert to $44.40 after rounding. Those dollar figures are examples reflecting the 2019-20 fee-unit value and should not be used for other years.

5. Apply nil and flat-dollar rules. If the fee is prescribed as nil (regulations 10 and 11), no payment of a monetary fee is required under these Regulations for that item. If a register copy is sought apply the flat $5 charge (regulation 12).

6. Attach the fee to the application or process as required by the Act. The Regulations describe certain fees as “to accompany” an application (see regulations 6 and 8). Consult the Second-Hand Dealers and Pawnbrokers Act 1989 for the procedural requirement as to how the fee must be lodged with an application, and consult agency guidance on acceptable payment methods and submission formats because the Regulations do not prescribe payment mechanisms.

7. Document and retain payment records. Record the statutory basis for the fee (cite the regulation and the subsection of the Act), the fee-unit multiplier used, the fee-unit value published for the year, the rounding performed, and the payment receipt or transaction ID. Administration and audit trails should reference both the relevant regulation number and the Act subsection that triggered the payment.

8. Monitor Treasurer publications annually. Because fee-unit-denominated fees change each financial year, establish a compliance calendar to confirm the Treasurer’s published fee-unit value before 1 June in the year preceding the financial year in which an application or annual fee is payable. Update internal fee schedules, invoices and accounting systems accordingly.

9. Check for regulatory and administrative updates. The Regulations will sunset on 19 November 2029 unless remade. Also monitor for any subsequent amendments to these Regulations, and confirm whether the agency has published guidance about late lodgement handling despite regulation 11 prescribing a nil fee. Because the Regulations do not specify procedural consequences for non-payment, confirm with the administering agency how applications are processed when fees are omitted or partially paid.

10. Coordinate with accounting practice. Ensure accounting codes distinguish between fee-unit denominated fees and flat-dollar items, and that the appropriate rounding and conversion steps are applied. For multi-year budgets remember to use the then-current fee-unit value rather than fixed historical dollar figures.

Following these steps aligns the practical mechanics of fee calculation and payment with the legal prescriptions in regulations 6 to 12, and with the conversion and publication requirements set out in the Explanatory details.