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Commonwealth act
This Act has been repealed and is no longer in force. It is retained for historical reference.
The Statute Law Revision Act 1973 is a housekeeping Act — legislation whose entire purpose is to tidy up and modernise the statute book (the official collection of all Commonwealth laws). It does not create new rights or duties for everyday Australians. Instead, it makes technical corrections and removes outdated or spent legislation across hundreds of existing Acts.
This Act operates through five main mechanisms:
Schedule 1 — Amendments: Makes targeted, word-level corrections to a very large number of existing Acts. Most of these changes fall into a small number of recurring patterns:
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Direct links to the current provisions in Statute Law Revision Act 1973.
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View on official registerSourced from the Federal Register of Legislation (legislation.gov.au), CC BY 4.0.
Schedule 2 — Citation Updates: Updates the official short titles of approximately 280 Acts to reflect their new amended state (typically adding "–1973" to the end of the citation).
Schedule 3 — Repeal of Acts: Repeals hundreds of Acts that are no longer needed — including decades of spent Supply Acts, Appropriation Acts, Loan Acts, States Grants Acts, and old Bounty Acts. These laws had served their purpose and were cluttering the statute book.
Schedule 4 — Repeal of Tax Acts: Repeals a series of historical income tax imposition Acts (the Acts that actually imposed the tax rate each year), while preserving their legal effect through a saving provision.
Schedule 5 — Repeal of Amending Acts: Repeals Acts whose only purpose was to amend another Act — since those amendments were long since incorporated, the amending Acts themselves serve no further purpose. Importantly, the Act confirms this repeal does not undo any of the amendments those Acts made.
The Act includes important protections ensuring nothing is accidentally undone:
This Act primarily affects lawyers, public servants, and anyone working with Commonwealth legislation. It has no direct practical impact on ordinary citizens' rights or obligations. It is purely about making the law easier to read, find, and work with.
Statute law revision is essential maintenance. Without it, the law becomes cluttered with outdated language, redundant references, and spent provisions — making it harder for everyone to understand what the law actually says and requires.