Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation Repeal and Advisory Councils Act 2024

The Act introduces several distinct legal concepts. First, abolition by operation of law. The Foundation is not wound up under the Corporations Act or any general insolvency regime; it is simply abolished on the commencement day by force of s 5(a). The Foundation’s separate legal personality ends, and its board and CEO go out of office automatically (s 5(b) and (c)). Second, automatic vesting in the Crown. All property and rights that were vested in the Foundation immediately before abolition become vested in the Crown without any conveyance, transfer or assignment (s 5(d)). Similarly, all liabilities (actual, contingent or prospective) become liabilities of the Crown (s 5(e)). Third, substitution of the Crown as a party to proceedings and contracts (s 5(f) and (g)). The Crown steps into the Foundation’s shoes in any pending litigation and any existing arrangement or contract. This substitution is automatic; no novation or court order is required. Fourth, the concept of a transitional regulation power that is unusually broad. Section 6 allows the Governor in Council to make regulations containing provisions of a transitional nature, including application or savings provisions. These regulations can have retrospective effect to the date of Royal Assent, can be targeted at particular persons or classes, can delegate decisions to a specified person, and can exempt persons or things. Most importantly, they override any other Act (other than the Act itself and the Charter) and any subordinate instrument. This means the regulations can modify the operation of other statutes insofar as they relate to the transition. The regulation power has a limited shelf life: Division 3 (which contains s 6) is itself repealed on the second anniversary of its commencement (s 6(4)). That creates a legislative sunset: after that date, no further transitional regulations can be made under this Act, though any regulations already made presumably continue in force unless they contain an earlier expiry. Fifth, the Act also embodies the concept of self‑repeal of amending provisions. Parts 3, 4 and 5, which contained the substantive amendments to other Acts, were themselves repealed on 1 April 2026. The effect is that those amendments were either spent (if they had already been incorporated into the amended Acts) or are no longer in force. The Act therefore demonstrates a legislative technique of using a principal Act both to abolish a body and to amend other Acts, then removing the amending provisions once they have taken effect.

The most directly affected persons are the employees, board members and the chief executive officer of the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation. Section 5(b) abolishes the board and its members go out of office; s 5(c) provides that the CEO goes out of office. The Act does not state what happens to other staff of the Foundation. The Foundation’s staff were not statutory office holders; their employment was likely under the Foundation’s enterprise agreement or common law contracts. Because the Foundation is abolished, those employment contracts are terminated by operation of law, unless the transitional regulations provide for transfer to the Victorian public service or redundancy. The Crown assumes the Foundation’s liabilities (s 5(e)), which would include any outstanding entitlements such as accrued leave, notice pay or redundancy obligations, but the Act does not mandate continuation of employment. The absence of a staff transfer provision creates uncertainty and a potential compliance burden for the Crown and for employees. Contractors, grant recipients and service providers who had agreements with the Foundation now find the Crown substituted as the counterparty (s 5(g)). Those agreements continue in force, but the Crown may not have the same operational capacities or funding appropriations. Parties to pending proceedings in which the Foundation was a litigant now face the Crown as the opposing party (s 5(f)). The gambling industry (venues, operators, clubs) is affected indirectly: the Foundation was a source of research, prevention programs and public awareness. Its abolition removes that dedicated statutory authority. The purposes clause mentions a Gambling Harm Response Fund, but the provisions establishing it were in Part 3, which is now repealed. It is not clear from the text of this Act whether the Fund was ever enacted or, if it was, whether it survives the repeal of Part 3. That uncertainty affects industry compliance with any levy or reporting obligations that may have been created by the Fund’s establishment. The Responsible Gambling Ministerial Advisory Council and the Liquor Control Advisory Council were also abolished by amendments in Parts 4 and 5, but again those parts are no longer in force. Any individuals who served on those councils are affected, as are stakeholders who relied on those advisory bodies for input into policy. The transitional regulation power (s 6) can affect any person or class of persons, because the Governor in Council may make regulations that impose duties, grant exemptions, or modify the operation of other Acts. Because those regulations can have retrospective effect, persons who acted in reliance on the pre‑abolition state of affairs may find their position altered. Lastly, the Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission (VGCCC) is affected: the purposes clause states the Act further provides for the Commission’s functions, but the amendment was in Part 4 (now repealed). It is unclear whether the Commission’s functions have changed. Affected persons must check the current version of the VGCCC Act rather than rely on this Act.

The Act does not create new substantive duties or rights for private persons. Its primary legal effect is to transfer existing rights and liabilities from the Foundation to the Crown and to end the offices of the board and CEO. The key right created is the Crown’s right to all property and rights formerly vested in the Foundation (s 5(d)). The Crown also acquires the right to be substituted in proceedings and contracts (s 5(f) and (g)). Correspondingly, any person who had a right against the Foundation now has a right against the Crown. That substitution preserves the content of the right - the same terms, performance obligations and enforcement mechanisms - but the debtor is now the Crown. This may affect practical enforcement: suing the Crown may involve different procedural rules, limitations periods or sovereign immunity considerations, though the Crown has submitted to the jurisdiction of Victorian courts in many contexts. The Act also confers a right on the Governor in Council to make transitional regulations (s 6(1)), and a power to delegate matters to a specified person or class. Persons affected have a right to be dealt with according to those regulations, but the regulations may limit or modify existing statutory rights because they override other Acts. The Act does not create a right to compensation for board members, the CEO or staff who go out of office. Whether they have contractual entitlements depends on their pre‑existing agreements, which the Crown now inherits as liabilities (s 5(e)). The Act does not impose any obligation on the Crown to continue the Foundation’s programs, fund research, or provide harm‑minimisation services. That is a significant omission: the Foundation was created to address gambling harm; its abolition ends that statutory mandate unless the Crown voluntarily continues the activities. The transitional regulation power may be used to preserve certain programs or transfer them to another agency, but that is discretionary. Persons who relied on the Foundation for services (such as counselling, helplines or community education) have no statutory right to continuation. The Act also does not impose any new obligations on gambling industry participants, such as increased levies or reporting. The Gambling Harm Response Fund mentioned in the purposes clause would have created such obligations, but the amending provisions are no longer in the Act. Therefore, the Act creates no new duties for the private sector. The only duty that arises is an incidental one: any person who was a party to a contract with the Foundation must now deal with the Crown as the contracting party, and must look to the Crown for performance.

The Act contains no penalty provisions. It is not a regulatory statute; it is an abolition and machinery Act. There are no offences, no civil penalties, no infringement notices and no enforcement mechanisms. The transitional regulation power (s 6) could create obligations enforceable by penalty if the Governor in Council chooses to include penalty provisions in the regulations, but that would require the regulations to be made under a separate authority or to rely on the general penalties in the Subordinate Legislation Act 1994. The Act itself does not authorise penalties. The only potential “enforcement” aspect is the automatic operation of the statutory transfer provisions. If a former Foundation employee or contractor refuses to recognise the Crown as the new counterparty, the Crown can rely on s 5 as a statutory vesting of rights and liabilities. Disputes about the scope of property or liabilities transferred would be resolved in court or tribunal proceedings, with the Crown as the party. Similarly, if a person holding Foundation property refuses to deliver it to the Crown, the Crown can assert its ownership under s 5(d). But the Act does not create a specific offence for failure to deliver property. The regulation power may provide for enforcement mechanisms, but those would be created by regulation, not by the primary Act. For legal practitioners and compliance professionals, the absence of penalties means the Act’s compliance focus is on ensuring that internal records, contracts and litigation files are updated to reflect the Crown substitution, and that any transitional regulations are monitored. There is no specific penalty for failing to update documents, but failure to recognise the Crown as the proper party could lead to procedural errors in litigation or breach of contract claims. The repeal of the Foundation Act itself means that references to the Foundation in other legislation may now be inoperative, but the Act does not create a penalty for failing to comply with such references. The Act’s self‑repealing provisions (e.g., repeal of Part 3, 4, 5 and Division 3) are not penalised; they automatically happen on the specified dates.

The Act directly repeals the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation Act 2011 (s 4). That repeal means that any rights, powers or obligations that existed solely under that Act are extinguished. The Foundation’s constitutive Act is gone. The Act also directly interacts with the Gambling Regulation Act 2003, the Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission Act 2011 and the Liquor Control Reform Act 1998 through amendments that were originally contained in Parts 3, 4 and 5. However, because those parts have been repealed by the Act itself as of 1 April 2026, it is not possible to determine from the text of this Act alone whether those amendments were ever in force or, if they were, whether their repeal restores the previous text of those Acts. Practitioners must consult the current authorised versions of those three Acts to ascertain the current law. The Act does not amend any other statutes directly. The transitional regulation power in s 6(3) gives regulations a supremacy clause: they have effect despite anything to the contrary in any Act (other than this Act or the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006) or any subordinate instrument. This means that a transitional regulation can override provisions of, for example, the Public Administration Act 2004 (regarding transfer of staff), the Financial Management Act 1994 (regarding disposal of assets), or the Fair Trading Act 1999 (regarding contracts). This is a very broad delegation. The only limits are the Charter and the Act itself. The Charter is not overridden, so regulations must be compatible with human rights. The Act itself probably limits the regulation power to transitional matters; a regulation that went beyond transition might be ultra vires. The Act also interacts with the Interpretation of Legislation Act 1984 (ILA). The ILA’s provisions on repeal of Acts and savings are relevant, but s 6(3) overrides them unless they are part of the Charter. The Act does not preserve any rights that would normally be saved under s 15 of the ILA upon repeal of the Foundation Act; instead, the transitional regulations may provide savings. If no regulations are made, the default position under the ILA would be that rights accrued under the Foundation Act survive its repeal. But the Act does not expressly state that the ILA’s savings provisions are excluded; it only says regulations override other Acts. This creates potential ambiguity about whether, in the absence of a regulation, the ILA’s default savings apply. The Act also interacts with the Public Sector Act 2022 and industrial instruments. Staff of the Foundation were likely not public servants unless the Foundation was a public sector body. The Act’s silence on staff transfer means the Crown must deal with employment liabilities as a matter of contract and industrial law. The transitional regulations could clarify this, but if none are made, affected employees would rely on common law and the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth), which the Victorian Act cannot override (s 6(3) only applies to Victorian Acts). So the regulation power cannot affect federal law.

The Act (No. 25 of 2024) received Royal Assent on 25 June 2024 and came into operation on 1 July 2024. It is the amending Act, not itself an amended statute. The Table of Amendments in the endnotes shows that the Act has been amended by its own provisions: the Act repealed Parts 3, 4 and 5 on 1 April 2026. The Act also contains a self‑repealing provision for Part 2, Division 3 (the transitional regulation division) on the second anniversary of its commencement (s 6(4)). That anniversary is 1 July 2026, given the commencement was 1 July 2024 (see endnote: “came into operation on 1 July 2024”). After that date, Division 3 is repealed. The Endnotes also record that the Act was amended by a Special Gazette (No. 345) on 25 June 2024 for commencement. The Act has no other amendments from external Acts. The version as at 1 April 2026 (Version No. 002) reflects the repeal of Parts 3, 4 and 5. The Act’s history is therefore one of immediate operation followed by gradual self‑repeal of its operative parts. By mid‑2026, the Act will consist only of Part 1 (Preliminary) and Part 2, Division 1 (Repeal) and Division 2 (Abolition), with Division 3 (Transitional) removed. The Act will then have accomplished its main purpose and will be largely spent. The amendment history reveals that the drafters used a “sunset and repeal” technique for the amending provisions, perhaps to clean up the statute book once the amendments had been effective for about 18 months. The practical effect is that anyone looking at the Act after April 2026 will not see the Fund establishment or the advisory council abolitions; they will need to look at the amended Acts. This may be a trap for the unwary who rely solely on this Act for the current law. The Act’s amendment history is thus a cautionary tale for legal researchers.

The source text contains no references to any litigation concerning this Act. The Act has been in force only since July 2024, and the version available is as at April 2026. Given the Act is a machinery abolition Act, it is unlikely to generate significant litigation on its own terms. However, disputes could arise under the transitional regulations (if any are made) or concerning the interpretation of the transfer provisions in s 5. For example, there may be litigation about whether a particular asset or liability falls within the definitions of “property”, “rights” or “liabilities” (including contingent and prospective liabilities). Section 3 defines these terms broadly, but there may be boundary disputes with persons claiming rights against the Crown that were not part of the Foundation’s property. There could also be litigation about the validity of transitional regulations, especially if they are retrospective and affect vested rights. The Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 is not overridden by regulations, so litigants could argue that a retrospective regulation infringes property rights or fair hearing rights. Another potential area is employment: former Foundation employees may bring claims for unfair dismissal, redundancy or breach of contract against the Crown. The Crown may argue that the abolition terminated contracts by operation of law, but employees may argue that the Crown assumed the liabilities and thus should honour the contracts. The Act’s silence on employment transfer leaves room for litigation. Contract parties may also dispute whether a contract was “entered into by or on behalf of” the Foundation (s 5(g)) - if it was with a third party on behalf of the Foundation, it might not be captured. The regulation power itself could be challenged as an excessive delegation of legislative power if it is used to create rights or obligations that are not truly transitional. The High Court and Victorian Supreme Court have considered limits on such Henry VIII clauses; s 6(3)’s ability to override other Acts may be scrutinised. As of the version provided, no litigation is recorded in the source, so this section must note that there is no cited case law but potential areas for future disputes.

Several features of the Act present traps for the unwary. First, the self‑repeal of the transitional regulation power (s 6(4)) means that after the second anniversary of commencement (on or about 1 July 2026), the Governor in Council loses the ability to make transitional regulations. Anyone relying on the hope of a regulation to fix a transitional problem after that date will be disappointed. Second, the definitions of property, rights and liabilities in s 3 are extraordinarily broad: “liabilities” includes “all liabilities, duties and obligations, whether actual, contingent or prospective”; “rights” includes “all rights, powers, privileges and immunities, whether actual, contingent or prospective”. This means that even remote or conditional interests pass to the Crown. A potential indemnity from the Foundation that had not yet crystallised is now owed by the Crown. Third, the Act does not guarantee continuation of the Foundation’s programs or funding. The Foundation’s research, education and counselling services are not preserved by statute. The government may continue them administratively, but there is no legal obligation. Any organisation that relied on Foundation grants must check with the relevant department. Fourth, the Act’s purposes clause mentions amendments that are now missing because Parts 3‑5 were repealed. A reader who only reads s 1 and not the full Act may assume the Gambling Harm Response Fund exists, but those provisions were removed. The Fund may never have come into effect, or may have been enacted and later repealed - the Act itself does not settle the question. Always check the current Gambling Regulation Act. Fifth, the regulation override provision (s 6(3)) is unusually broad. It allows regulations to override any other Act except the Charter and this Act. This means that rights under the Public Administration Act, the Evidence Act or the Limitations of Actions Act could be modified by transitional regulation, without parliamentary scrutiny beyond the making of the regulation. Practitioners must monitor the Victorian Government Gazette for transitional regulations. Sixth, the Act does not transfer Foundation records or archives expressly. Section 5(d) vests “property” in the Crown, which likely includes records as personal property, but there is no explicit obligation on the Foundation to deliver them. If the Foundation’s data, research or client records are not properly managed, there could be privacy breaches or loss of important information. Seventh, the board and CEO go out of office automatically with no provision for compensation or transitional handover. This could create a governance vacuum if the regulations do not specify who manages the transition. Eighth, the absence of a staff transfer scheme is a major omission. Unlike many statutory abolitions that provide for staff to become public servants under the Public Administration Act (e.g., via an Order in Council), this Act leaves it to the possibility of regulations. If no regulation is made, employees have no automatic right to a government job. Finally, the Crown’s assumption of liabilities may include liabilities that the Foundation insured against. The Crown’s position as self‑insurer may affect the handling of claims.

Because the Act imposes no new duties, “compliance” for most persons is about updating internal records and understanding the new legal landscape. The following steps are advisable.

1. Identify all contracts, grants, leases and licences with the Foundation. Review the end of the contract to confirm the Crown is now the counterparty. Ensure that any performance obligations are addressed to the relevant government department (likely the Department of Justice and Community Safety or the Department of Health, depending on which portfolio assumed the Foundation’s functions). If a contract requires consent to assignment, note that s 5(g) operates by force of law and does not require third party consent. However, it is prudent to notify the other party of the change.

2. Check the Victorian Government Gazette for transitional regulations. Under s 6, regulations may be made that modify the operation of other Acts in relation to the transition. These could impose new obligations, grant exemptions, or set out procedures for transferring property, records or employees. Actively monitor the Gazette and relevant departmental websites.

3. For former Foundation employees and board members. Seek written confirmation from the Crown about continuity of employment, entitlements and termination. If no regulation has been made, rely on contract law and industrial instruments. The Crown is liable for outstanding entitlements as a liability of the Foundation (s 5(e)). Keep records of all communications.

4. For parties to pending litigation. Confirm that the Crown has been substituted as a party. If the court or tribunal has not been notified, file a notice referring to s 5(f). The Act does not require a formal order, but it is prudent to seek an acknowledgment to avoid procedural challenges. Ensure all future pleadings name the Crown as the defendant/plaintiff.

5. For grant recipients and service providers. Continue performing under the agreement. However, be aware that the Crown may wish to vary or terminate the agreement. The Crown’s ability to terminate depends on the contract terms. The Act does not give the Crown a unilateral right to terminate. If the government decides to discontinue a program, the Crown may rely on any force majeure or convenience clause, or may face a claim for damages.

6. Review the current versions of the Gambling Regulation Act 2003, the VGCCC Act 2011 and the Liquor Control Reform Act 1998. Do not rely on this Act to understand the amendments; consult the authorised reprints. If the Gambling Harm Response Fund was established, persons subject to the Gambling Regulation Act may have new levy or reporting obligations.

7. For the Crown. The responsible department should inventory all transferred property, including intangible assets (data, intellectual property, research). Ensure that the Foundation’s records are secured and that privacy obligations under the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 are met. The Crown should also consider issuing a public notice clarifying which department is handling each function formerly performed by the Foundation.

8. Monitor the sunset of the regulation power. After the second anniversary of commencement (1 July 2026), no further transitional regulations can be made. If any transitional matters remain unresolved, the government should act before that date. Private persons should ensure their interests are addressed by regulation before that deadline.

9. For lawyers advising clients. Confirm that any power of attorney or authority given to the Foundation is now void or must be re‑executed in favour of the Crown. Check whether any trust or escrow arrangements involved the Foundation and ensure the Crown is now the trustee/holder.

10. If no transitional regulation is made, the default position is that the ILA’s savings provisions may preserve rights accrued under the Foundation Act, but the Crown substitution under s 5 is automatic. Do not assume that the absence of regulations leads to a legal vacuum; the Act itself operates to transfer everything.