Act 5 (Utilities)

Act 5 (Utilities)
Proposed	20 September 2008
Imperial Consent given on	20 September 2008
Imperial Consent given at	Parliament Hall, Wrythe
Imperial Consent given by	HRH Emperor Terry I

Act 5 (Utilities) of the Parliament of Austenasia was an Act of Parliament passed on 20 September 2008 and repealed on 22 September 2011. It gave official status to the British public utilities which provided the infrastructure of Wrythe.

Act 5 was passed within several hours of Austenasia declaring independence alongside five other Acts - Act 2 (Food and Trade), Act 3 (Subjects) Act 4 (Taxes), Act 6 (Honours) and Act 7 (Emergency Services). These were all given Imperial Consent by Emperor Terry I at the same time, but became law over the period of a few hours due to the then requirement of the Emperor reading out new laws to the assembled population of Wrythe; to prevent the Imperial Family from getting bored, the Acts were not read out uninterruptedly but with breaks between each, and so took several hours for all of them to become law.

British Gas were designated the "official suppliers of electricity and gas", British Telecom the "official suppliers of the phone line", and Sutton and East Surrey Water the "official suppliers of water" to Austenasia by Act 5. These three companies were named as such due to providing said services to the Imperial Residence at the time of the Empire's founding. The Act did not make it compulsory for Austenasians to purchase the said services from the respective utilities, but simply bestowed the status of the Empire's "official" service provider on the companies.

Act 5 is the earliest Act passed to not have been amended at all before the implementation of the Austenasian Constitution of 2011. As with all Acts of Parliament passed before the implementation of the 2011 Constitution, Act 5 was repealed on 22 September 2011.