PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS (AMENDMENT) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

6.12 p.m.

The Minister for Law and National Development (Mr E. W. Barker): Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

This purely formal Bill seeks to substitute in subsection (2) of section 10 of the Parliamentary Elections Act (Chapter 50) the year "1971" for the year "1967" so as to bring it in line with the amendment made last year by the Parliamentary Elections (Amendment) Act, 1971, and also to delete the reference to the first registers of electors in the said subsection, as that reference is no longer applicable.

Clause 3 of the Bill effects a minor amendment to Form 1, which is the Writ of Election. This amendment would enable the Writ, which is at present required to be signed by the President at the top of the Form, to be signed by him at the same time at the end thereof as well. This would avoid the existing requirement for a separate reference to the Secretary to the Cabinet under section 34 of the Interpretation Act, which provides that the exercise of a power by the President may be signified under the hand of the Secretary to the Cabinet. In short, the amendment proposed at clause 3 would obviate the need for an unnecessary procedural step.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill.-[Mr Barker].

Bill considered in Committee; reported without amendment; read a Third time and passed.