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, the act was modelled on and adopted many of the rules set out in the
Interpretation Act 1889 (Imp) 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 Westminster 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, the act reversed the Common Law. For example, there was a Common Law rule that, when interpreting statutes, courts could not consider "extrinsic material" such as a minister's second reading speech made when the statute was before parliament. The Act, by s.15AB reversed this rule, giving courts access to a wide range of material which would otherwise have been excluded. Where there are conflicting Common Law rules, the act sometimes gives preference to one approach. For example, there is sometimes seen to be a conflict between a "literal" and "purposive" reading of statutes; by s. 15AA, the Act mandates a
purposive approach. ==See also==