Not sure where you get the idea that it will “lapse”, Leaddie.
If it’s a legislative instrument it has to be laid before (‘tabled’ in) each House within 6 days of the instrument being made. Each House then has 15 sitting days in which to move a motion to disallow. According to Odger’s: “Where a session of the Parliament ends because the House of Representatives is dissolved or expires, or the Parliament is prorogued, and a notice of motion to disallow has not been withdrawn or otherwise disposed of, the instrument in question is deemed to have been laid before the relevant House on the first sitting day of the new session. The opportunity to move disallowance is then renewed.”
Note that the instrument is in force for the entire period, which can be months. And note that if a motion to disallow is not moved in either House, the instrument continues in force even if there’s a change in government.
Making subordinate law - e.g. a legislative instrument - in the lead up to an election can therefore be a very ‘clever’ (translation: ‘sneaky arsehole’) bureaucratic tactic to make a controversial law while the pollies are focussed on re-election and the 15 sitting days can span months. By the time the post-election dust settles, the law has done months of damage and the new government is usually focussed on the ‘big picture’ (consolidating itself by, if necessary, making deals with cross-benchers) rather than trivia like subordinate legislation that’s been in force for months and done damage that won’t make any political difference, given that the next election is a couple of years away.
This is, after all, the lucky country.