Legislation

All current Australian legislation and a great deal of superseded and repealed legislation can be found on the websites of the various Australian parliaments and governments.  Legislation is also found on AustLII, although it is not as authoritative as the government sites (but you may find it more user-friendly). 

The record of parliamentary debates, known as Hansard, is also found on the parliamentary websites - see the table below. 

You will learn how to determine the version of an Act that was in force at a particular point in time and how to locate "extrinsic materials," which aid the court in interpreting the words of an Act of Parliament, such as explanatory notes and speeches in Hansard.  (You aren't expected to be able to do any of these tasks in orientation).

There are some specialized library resources that help with these tasks:

• Lawlex - a portal for searching all Australian jurisdictions and quickly finding explanatory notes or memoranda and second readings speeches
• LawNow - similar to Lawlex, it also enables you to find cases that consider or apply a  particular section of an Act
• Annotated Acts and specialized commentaries - these focus on particular pieces of legislation, often in depth.  They can be accessed from the Library's Dictionaries, Encyclopedias & Commentaries subject guide.

If you want to know more about what these terms mean see this fact sheet on the legislative process in Queensland or one of the introductory texts in the Library, such as Laying Down the Law.