Sometimes you come across legislative drafting that is so bad that there’s no excuse for it: one 152-word sentence that scores 0.0 on the Flesch Reading Ease Test and has a Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level of 63.1.
Section 45 of the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth) provides that corporations must not make arrangements that contain exclusionary provisions or that have the purpose or likely effect of substantially lessening competition.
Section 45A(1) then provides this gem:
Without limiting the generality of section 45, a provision of a contract, arrangement or understanding, or of a proposed contract, arrangement or understanding, shall be deemed for the purposes of that section to have the purpose, or to have or to be likely to have the effect, of substantially lessening competition if the provision has the purpose, or has or is likely to have the effect, as the case may be, of fixing, controlling or maintaining, or providing for the fixing, controlling or maintaining of, the price for, or a discount, allowance, rebate or credit in relation to, goods or services supplied or acquired or to be supplied or acquired by the parties to the contract, arrangement or understanding or the proposed parties to the proposed contract, arrangement or understanding, or by any of them, or by any bodies corporate that are related to any of them, in competition with each other.
So what does it mean? Essentially, section 45A merely provides that arrangements between competitors to fix a price are deemed to substantially lessen competition for the purposes of section 45. So why doesn’t it just say that?
Of course, there are reasons why the section has to be so specific. Contracts, arrangements, and understandings aren’t the same thing. Proposed contracts are not contracts. Fixing, controlling, and maintaining are different concepts. But there is no reason to specify every one of those concepts in one sentence.
Word provides some helpful style advice, as well as some other interesting statistics on section 45A. It scores 0.0 on the Flesch Reading Ease Test and has a Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level of 63.1.
Thanks to Australia’s ageing population, at least 13% of Australians have lived long enough to understand it.