Special Recreational Vessels Amendment 2023

✦ Plain-English Summary

# Special Recreational Vessels Amendment 2023

**What it does**
This is a quick fix to the Special Recreational Vessels Act 2019 that pushes back a deadline from 2023 to 2025. The exact details of what that deadline covers aren't spelled out in this excerpt, but it's clearly giving the boating industry or regulators extra time to meet some requirement.

**Why it matters**
If you own a recreational boat or work in the boating sector, this two-year extension means you've got longer to comply with whatever regulation was set to kick in. Without this change, people or businesses could have faced penalties for non-compliance starting this year.

**Key details**
- The change takes effect the day after the bill receives Royal Assent (the Governor-General's sign-off)
- It only modifies one specific section (Section 17) of the 2019 Act, so it's a surgical change rather than a overhaul
- The bill passed the House, so it's now law — no further parliamentary votes needed

Official Description

Amends the Special Recreational Vessels Act 2019 to extend the sunset date from 30 June 2023 to 30 June 2025 to enable foreign special recreational vessels (also known as superyachts) to continue to opt into the coastal trading regulatory regime and obtain temporary licenses to operate charters in Australia.

Full bill PDF →APH page →

Audit History

Introduced

22 Mar 2023

Last updated on APH

10 Apr 2026

Outcome date

28 June 2023

Last checked by Crossbench

yesterday

Full text indexed

yesterday

🗳️

No formal division recorded

This bill passed by voice vote — parliament agreed without calling a formal count. A division is only recorded when a member explicitly requests one.

Constituent votes

Voting is closed — this bill has been decided by parliament.

No votes yet.

No votes were recorded for this bill.

🔒 Voting closed — this bill has been decided by parliament