Govt clear as mud on legal clarification

The federal government is trying to make some of its criminal law clearer, but you wouldn't know it from the language that's being used.

Justice Minister Michael Keenan used the word "clarify" or a derivative nine times as he introduced a five-part bill that "will enhance the ability of Commonwealth agencies to investigate and prosecute criminal offences and ... improve the efficiency of various laws relating to criminal justice administration".

The multi-clarifications relate to the intersection of confiscation actions under proceeds of crime law and related criminal proceedings; and how the law deals with drug analogues, that is substances that are structurally similar to listed drugs.

Clarity, however, is in the eyes of lawyers and legislative draftsmen.

Schedule one of the bill, Mr Keenan explained "also clarifies that any application for an exclusion order relating to a restraining order must be heard by a court and finalised prior to the hearing of a forfeiture application".

Go to the bill's explanatory memorandum and you get the additional explanation that it applies to an application "pursuant to Division 3 of Part 2-1 (dealing with restraining orders) of the POC Act".

The law on drug analogues was apparently ambiguous as Mr Keenan said the changes would "clarify an ambiguity" in the definition.

"Under these changes a substance may be a drug analogue of a listed controlled drug, even if the substance is already listed as a border controlled drug (and vice versa)," he said.

The explanatory memorandum simply repeats these words.