Australia's Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) (‘the Act’) makes several exceptions to the exclusive rights of copyright owners. The effect of these exceptions is to confer an immunity from legal liability for acts which would otherwise constitute an infringement of copyright. Some of the statutory exceptions relate specifically to the use of copyright material by agents of government. Other exceptions are of more general application, though they may be relied upon by agents of government in circumstances not covered by the more specific exceptions.

This article examines not merely the statutory exceptions which relate to and bear upon the acts of agents and organs of government. It examines also the protections against liability for infringement of copyright which are afforded by the laws of parliamentary privilege, legislation concerning printing and publication of parliamentary papers, and freedom of information legislation. Some constitutional issues are also considered.

The issue of simplification of taxation law has been an important part of the fiscal agenda in Australia since the establishment of the Tax Law Improvement Project (TLIP) back in December 1993. The TLIP, which aimed to simplify income tax legislation embodied in the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 (Cth) through the use of shorter and clearer sentences and the use of plain English, was conceived in response to widespread criticism that the income tax legislation was difficult to read and understand.

It has been contended that this inherent difficulty in understanding income tax legislation due to the length and complexity of the legislation led to increased costs, both for the taxpayer in the form of increased tax compliance costs, and for the Federal Government in the form of increased tax administration costs. The TLIP's role was to rewrite the primary income tax legislation which culminated in the development of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (Cth).

Upon reading the Migration Legislation Amendment Bill (No 6) 2001 (Cth) to the House of Representatives for a second time, the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs ('the Minister’) stated that,

The Migration Legislation Amendment Act (No 6) 2001 (Cth) (the ‘No 6 Act’) became law on 1 October 2001. It was one of a number of amending statutes (passed by both Houses of Parliament in late September 2001) that were intended to fundamentally alter procedural and substantive areas of immigration and refugee law in Australia. This paper discusses aspects of the No 6 Act which amended the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) (the ‘Migration Act’) by inserting a new Subdivision AL into Part 2, Division 3.

Imagine a Westminster common law jurisdiction without a bill of rights. As things stand at present, all important social policy decisions in this jurisdiction, including decisions about how rights are to be balanced against one another and against overall community welfare claims, rest with the elected legislature and executive. Not everyone in this jurisdiction is happy with this arrangement, however. There are some politicians who are not averse to joining the world-wide trend by adopting some sort of bill of rights. A handful of them in fact, mostly from the main left of centre political party, are positively keen on the idea. They see the post-Second World War Americanisation of constitutional law, with its emphasis on formalising the role and place of human rights in a legal instrument the judges oversee, as an unambiguously good thing. They would like an entrenched, justiciable model.