Legislation

Finding Australian and Foreign legislation

Australian legislation

Legislation indexes are useful tools for identifying legislation relevant to a particular topic.

LawOne (TimeBase) This link opens in a new window
Indexes and classifies all Commonwealth and State legislation, and provides links to the full-text of the legislation. Links to cases relating to the legislative instrument are also provided.
Lawlex This link opens in a new window
Lawlex indexes and classifies all Commonwealth and State legislation; links to the full-text of the legislation. Information includes commencement dates, proclamation notices, amendments and regulations made under an Act, with links to second reading speeches, bills and explanatory memoranda. Search by act, keyword, Subjects of Interest or Browse Legislation

Legify
Legify is a free search tool that links directly to authoritative legislation, as published on the official publishers' websites for State, Commonwealth and Territories jurisdictions.
Wicks subject index to Commonwealth legislation
Print. Located next to Commonwealth legislation, lower ground floor, Law Library
Subject Index to South Australian Legislation
This index includes subject matter of principal public Acts of South Australia. Updated to 31 Dec 2014. NOTE: the index does not include the content of Regulations or Rules.

South Australian Legislation This link opens in a new window
An Index of principal Acts, annotated with information including commencement dates, legislative history (listing all amending Acts), regulations promulgated under the Act, and any associated proclamations and notices.

Federal Register of Legislation Acts
Browse or search Acts in force or as made. The Federal Register of Legislation is the authorised version of legislation for the Commonwealth.
LawNow
Acts, subordinate legislation, and Bills from all Australian jurisdictions as published by Lexis+. Also contains assent and commencement information, current Acts by subject, keywords in titles and defined terms.
Federal Statutes Annotations
Print copy on ly - Case annotations since 1977, compiled by Jean Malor. Updated twice a year. Available lower ground floor, Law Library.

Free sources of legislation

AustLII This link opens in a new window
Useful for full-text searching, but check currency on official government websites. Contains South Australian Acts by year/number.

JADE - legislation
Free. Legislation in JADE gives you the current text and part or section-by-section identification of cases citing the relevant provision. This feature requires Professional access which is available to students on request to editors@jade.io.

The Australian Constitution
Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act
Constitution of South Australia
Constitution Act 1934
Official Record of the Debates of the Australasian Federal Convention 1890s
The records of the Australasian Federation Conference of 1890 and the Australasian Federal Conventions of 1891 and 1897/8 are among the most significant founding documents of the Australian nation. The Australian Constitution was contained in the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Bill, which was endorsed by the voters of each Australian colony at referendums in 1898, 1899 and 1900, passed by the British Parliament, and given Royal Assent on 9 July 1900.
This web site provides access to the following documents:
Debates and Proceedings of the Australasian Federation Conference, Melbourne, 6-14 February, 1890
Debates of the National Australasian Convention, Sydney, 2 March–9 April 1891
Debates of the Australasian Federal Convention of 1897/8 in three sessions:
o First session, Adelaide, 22 March – 5 May 1897
o Second session, Sydney, 2-24 September 1897
o Third session, Melbourne, 22 January-17 March 1898

Acts - Key points

also known as statutes
Acts are legislation that has passed through Parliament
all Acts are numbered (eg. 12 of 2014)
Acts can only be amended by Parliament
an Act might even expressly repeal another Act which means that the earlier Act is no longer in force

What is legislation?

Legislation consists of Acts of Parliament and subordinate (or delegated) legislation made under Acts of Parliament. Legislation can refer to a single law (statute or act) or a collection of laws. Laws and rules made by the Parliament, together with, the process by which those that have been delegated the authority enforce the rules.

Understanding legislation:

Information is available to help you gain a better understanding of an Act.

Secondary materials, within legal encyclopedia, text books and journal articles.
Extrinsic materials, such as second reading speeches (in Hansard) and explanatory memoranda (interstate).

More information on the legislative process can be found here:

South Australian Legislative process

Commonwealth - Parliament and Government
(from the Parliament of Australia)

Legislation Handbook
(from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet)

Legislative process

The legislative process is outlined in the Parliament of Australia links below:

The Senate and Legislation - Parliament of Australia
This guide explains the process of how a bill becomes an Act. It also explains delegated legislation and statutory interpretation.
Making Laws InfoSheet - Parliament of Australia

Most Acts have Regulations or Rules that accompany them. For Commonwealth legislation, these are known as Legislative Instruments. For SA Legislation the regulations and rules are known as subordinate legislation.

You always need to check the currency of an Act or a Regulation. Use Lawlex or LawOne to search for the specific piece of legislation you need.

Some Acts commence on assent and some on proclamation. Sometimes different parts of an act become operative at different times.

Acts and Regulations are progressively amended over time. The current versions that you see on SA Legislation and the Federal Register of Legislation are consolidated. This means that amendments up to date have been incorporated into the most current version. Sometimes it is necessary to refer to a piece of legislation as at a date in the past. This can be done using SA Legislation showing 'ceased' and 'acts of limited application', and viewing 'historical'. On the Federal Register of Legislation the older versions of an act are listed under 'acts - historical' links.