History
The Act was the second of the 1st Parliament in its first session and "the first substantive Commonwealth act to be enacted.".
When introduced in 1901, it was modelled on and adopted many of the rules set out in the Interpretation Act 1889 (Imperial) and also adopted "some of the special provisions of the New South Wales Interpretation Act of 1897". In some cases, the rules of the Imperial Parliament at Westminister were preferred: for example, the New South Wales statute provided that distance be measured according to the nearest route ordinarily used, but the Commonwealth adopted the Imperial provision of a straight line on a horizontal plane. In other cases, it preferred the colonial New South Wales rules: for example, the financial year was made to end on 30 June, not, as in England and Wales, on 31 March. Some rules did not mandate a uniform national standard but made allowances for local variations: for example, references to time were to be read so that "such time shall, unless it is otherwise specifically stated, be deemed in each State or part of the Commonwealth to mean the standard or legal time in that State or part".
Read more about this topic: Acts Interpretation Act 1901
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