Legislation

This study guide has been designed to help you find information about Australian legislation, including bills, explanatory memoranda, second reading speeches, consolidated acts etc. The guide provides tables that help you to identify which resources are available online or in hard copy. Links are provided to the databases that provide online access to legislative materials. There is also a brief explanatory section that explains the terminolgy used in the life cycle of legislation.

Legislative Services

Legislative Materials

Acts / Statutes: Laws made by Parliament and given royal assent by the crown (Commonwealth and State)

Bills : A legislative document in the form of a proposed Act of Parliament that has not yet been passed by parliament or received royal assent

Delegated Legislation: Laws made by persons or authorities to whom parliament has delegated "law-making" authority within an act of Parliament

Explanatory memoranda (EM): Document explaining the aims and operation of a statute, if the meaning of a provision in an Act is ambiguous or obscure

Hansard: Provides a record of parliamentary debates and speeches made by of members of the houses of parliament

Parliamentary Papers: Reports of government departments and committees

Commonwealth Legislation

Service	Acts	Bills	EM's	Hansard
Austlii [1]	1973	1995	1996
Comlaw [2]	1973	1995	1996
LawOne [3]	1998	2003	2003	2003 2nd Reading Speeches
ParlInfoWeb [4]		1996		1996 HoR [5] or Senate [6]
Hardcopy	344.94022/1	344.94015/2	344.94015/2 Interfiled with Bills	328.9402/2 (HoR) 328.9402/3 (Senate)

LawOne: Point in Time Commowealth Legislation

Point in time services allow the user to view legislation as it stood on a particular day so that you can compare historical versions of any provision. LawOne provides access to point-in-time services: for:

Corporations Law [7]	Excise Act 1901 [8]	Migration Act 1958 [9]
Commonwealth Criminal Law [10]	GST Service [11]	Trade Practices Service [12]
Customs Act 1901 [13]	Income Tax Service [14]	Student Assistance Act 1973 [15]

Statue Annotations provide access to historical information about Acts including: date of latest reprint, names of amending acts, regulations under the Act, amended sections, case notes, annotations and relevant journal articles. They are availalbe in hardcopy and electronic format via LexisNexis.au
Federal Statutes Annotations [16] 344.94021/4

New South Wales Legislative Services

Acts in Force	Acts as Made	Bills & EN's	Hansard
Parliament of NSW [17]	1990 [18]	1997 [19]	1988 [20]-
LawOne [3]	1998	2003	2003 2nd reading Speeches
Austlii [1]	1990	1999
Hardcopy	344.944022/1	344.944015/1 EN's Interfiled with the Bills	328.94402/1

The Parliament of NSW also have Records of Legislative Proceedings from 1824 - 1856.
Includes access to selected earlier Reports of Parliamentary Debates

NSW Statute Annotations [21] (LexisNexis.au)
344.944021/5

State Legislative Services

Australian Capital Territory [22]

New South Wales [18](Includes Point in Time)

Northern Territory

Queensland [23]

South Australia [24]

Tasmania [25] (Includes Point in Time)

Victoria [26]

Western Australia [27]

Legislation Judicially considered (Cases referring to legislation)

Casebase [28] | Firstpoint
[29]

Legislation by Subject (Commonwealth & State)

Lawone [30]| LawLex [31]

Wicks Subject Index to Commonwealth Legislation
344.94023/2 (CC)

Subject Index to the Acts & Regulations of New South Wales
344.944021/3 (CC Reserve)