The Reviews Parliament Ordered: Deadline-Day Compliance, Four Reviews With No Public Trace, and a Definition Amended 321 Days Before Its Review Began
Between 2012 and 2020 the Commonwealth Parliament passed 303 principal Acts. 43 of them order a review of the law itself — 51 obligations in all. Where the status can be resolved from the public record, the system mostly delivers: 19 of 30 resolved obligations were met. But among the 14 that met a hard calendar deadline, the median margin was 8 days, on statutory windows that ran from about six months to five and a half years — three had zero days to spare. Five reviews arrived 430 to 984 days after soft triggers, and for four obligations whose dates have passed, no review can be located in the sources this analysis searched. The fuel-reporting review is the sharpest case: Parliament amended the definition the review was directed to examine 310 days after the review fell due, review work began 321 days after that — and the report reproduced the superseded definition and recommended no change.
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