Your first paragraph is broadly accurate. Commonwealth legislation is drafted in the context of, for example, the Commonwealth Acts Interpretation Act and Crimes Act, both of which are different to every equivalent in every other jurisdiction within and outside Australia. For example, the reason for the nauseously-repeated penalty provisions in e.g. CASRs is one measly section of the Commonwealth Crimes Act that talks about penalties being at the "foot of any provision". Nobody could be bothered amending that one section so as to remove the need for the nauseous repetition in many millions of pages of Commonwealth legislation.
But I have to ask: How can a CASR be 'out of date'. They've been working on the f*king things for decades.
(The VFG is not part of the AIP.)