EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
BOUNTY (SHIPS) ACT 1980
BOUNTY (SHIPS) (RESERVATION OF BOUNTY) REGULATIONS
(AMENDMENT)
1988 NO. 176
ISSUED BY THE AUTHORITY OF THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR SCIENCE, CUSTOMS AND SMALL BUSINESS
Statutory Rules 1987 No. 116 of 1987 amended the Bounty (Ships) (Reservation of Bounty) Regulations, to permit the Comptroller-General of Customs to (amongst other things):
• reject applications for reservation of bounty that do not comply with the formalities prescribed by Regulation 3 of the Regulations;
• reject applications reserving additional amounts of bounty;
• reduce the amount of bounty reserved by the claimant; and
• cancel the reservation of bounty, pursuant to one of the conditions prescribed in regulation 10 of the Regulations
Should the Comptroller take any of these actions, a registered repairer would be ineligible to be paid bounty for performing the repair that was the subject to the claim for bounty.
The Senate Standing Committee on Regulations and Ordinances was concerned that the Comptroller-General’s discretion to reject applications and to cancel reservations of bounty could not be reviewed on its merits by an independent body.
The attached proposed Statutory Rules discharges an undertaking made to the Committee by the Minister for Science, Customs and Small Business on 19 November 1987 to give a person affected by a decision the right to have the Comptroller’s discretion reviewed by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
The appeal right is deemed to have commenced on 15 June 1987, the date of commencement of Statutory Rules 1987 No. 116 which inserted the Comptroller-General’s discretions now proposed to be eligible for review by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
As this provision confers a benefit, subsection 48(2) of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 is not offended by the retrospective commencement date.
These proposed amendments to the Regulations also remove a reference to “associate of the owner” contained in regulation 3(1) of the Regulations. As from the date of Gazettal of the Regulations, shipbulders who are associates of the owner of the ship under construction may reserve amounts of bounty.
The regulations provide as follows:
Commencement
Regulation 1 provides that regulation 5 is deemed to have come into operation on 15 June 1987.
• the remaining regulations contained in the Statutory Rules will commence from the date the Statutory Rules have been Gazetted.
Principal Regulations
Regulation 2 identifies the Bounty (Ships) (Reservation of Bounty) Regulations as the Principal Regulations being amended by these Statutory Rules.
Application of additional amounts
Regulation 3 amends subregulation 3(1) of the regulations by removing the words “or associate of the owner” contained in the subregulation.
• This has the effect of permitting registered shipbuilders who are “associates of the owner” (a term defined in subsection 3(3) of the Act) to reserve amounts of bounty.
Reservation of additional amounts
Regulation 4 is a minor technical amendment clarifying that the conjuction “and” that was removed from paragraph 7(4)(c) of the Regulations by Statutory Rules 1987 No. 116 was the “and” that came between paragraph 7(4) (c) and paragraph 7(4) (d), which was repealed by Statutory Rules 1987 No. 116.
Regulation 5 Adds new regulations 14 and 15 to the Regulations, which allow for certain decisions of the Comptroller-General of Customs to be reviewed by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, as follows:
Application for review
• New regulation 14 permits a person to apply to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for review of the Comptroller-General of Custom’s decision to:
- refuse an application for reservation of bounty; (paragraph 14(1)(a))
- refuse an application to reserve an additional amount of bounty (paragraph 14(1)(b))
- vary the amount of bounty reserved by the applicant (paragraph 14(1)(c)); or
- cancel the reservation for bounty for one of the reasons contained in regulation 10 of the regulations (paragraph 14(1)(d)
• A new regulation 15 obliges the Comptroller to advise a person whose interests are affected by a decision of the Comptroller pursuant to the new regulation 14 (discussed above) of the Regulations of his or her right to have the decision reviewed by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
- new subregulation 15(21) provides that a failure to issue the notice will not itself invalidate the decision of the Comptroller.