EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
STATUTORY RULES 1987 NO. 210
MATERNITY LEAVE (COMMONWEALTH EMPLOYEES) REGULATIONS (AMENDMENT)
(Issued with the authority of the Minister for Industrial Relations)
Section 5 of the Maternity Leave (Commonwealth Employees) Act 1973 (the Act) extends the Act’s application to, amongst others, “such persons employed by a prescribed authority”. “prescribed authority” is defined in section 3 of the Act as including a body corporate declared by the regulations to be a body corporate in relation to which the Act applies.
Section 15 of the Act provides that the Governor-General “may make regulations, not inconsistent with this Act, prescribing all matters required or permitted by this Act to be prescribed or necessary or convenient to be prescribed for carring out or giving effect to this Act.”.
Regulation 4 of the Maternity Leave (Commonwealth Employees) Regulations provides that a body specified in Schedule 1 to the Regulations is a body corporate for the purposes of the definition of prescribed authorities in relation to the Act. The Australian Atomic Energy Commission is one of the bodies currently specified in Schedule 1 to the Regulations.
On 27 April 1987 the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Act 1987 (Act No. 3 of 1987, assented to on 13 March 1987) came into operation. Amongst other things, that Act provided that the Australian Atomic Energy Commission was to be renamed as the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation.
The Statutory Rules amend the Regulations by omitting the now obsolete reference to the Australian Atomic Energy Commission from Schedule 1 and substituting reference to the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation.