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Act Of Parliament : The Queensland Minister For Consumer Affairs

Decent Essays
Question 2
As the Queensland Minister for Consumer Affairs, Anne introduced a bill into Parliament to outlaw some real estate scams that have been exposed by TV journalists. Yet during its first reading, Anne realised that the bill has serious defects when answering an Opposition question. Before discussing whether it is too late for Anne to fix this problem, I will first give a brief introduction of the law making in Australia, specifically, the bills.

Main concepts of bills
According to Davenport and Parker (2012), there are two basic sources of law in Australia, statute law (Acts of Parliament) and judge-made law (decisions of judges). Statute law is the Acts or legislation passed by parliaments. In Parliament, a bill is a proposal
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Bills may originate in different ways. For instance, government departments may make many suggestions for bills. A department may advise its minister about a specific problem that exists. The minister may then arrange for a bill to be drafted to fix the problem. In the question, Anne introduced her bill in this way. Under some other circumstances, community groups, political parties and the parliament committee may also suggest to introduce a bill (Parliamentary Education Office, 2014).

Usually a Minister who wishes to introduce a bill gives written notice (advance warning) of his or her intention to the Clerk of the House, who arranges for the bill to be listed on the Notice Paper (the House’s agenda of business) for the next sitting day. Then the Minister/member in charge of the bill will move for the Bill’s introduction and first reading, and present a copy of the bill and an Explanatory Memorandum. It is at the completion of this stage that the Bill and Explanatory Memorandum become public documents, and are released by the State Law Publisher and attached to the Parliament’s Internet site for public access.

Then in the second reading, the member in charge of the bill will explain the reasons for introducing the bill and outline the principles of the bill and its benefits to society in general. If these basic rules of the bill are agreed to, the bill may directly proceed to the third reading. Otherwise, it needs to go through the committee stage
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