Self Paced Lesson - Migration - Legislation - Subject Guide: 2: Sourcing an Act

Short cut to sourcing legislation by title

Use Legify.com.au when you know the name of an Act.

Legify links you to the current authoritative version an Australian Act.
Legify provides access to legislation (Acts and Regulations) from all States and Territories in Australia.

Source a Commonwealth Act by title

In this example we will source the Australian Citizenship Act 2007 (Cth).

Step 1:  Access the Federal Register of Legislation 

Step 2:  Click the light blue Acts In Force box.
              This will take you to the Browse Acts by Title screen.

Step 3:  Select Au (first two letters of an Act's title) from the A cube
              This will take you to an alphabetical list of Acts starting with Au

Step 4:  Scroll through the list until you locate the Australian Citizenship Act 2007

It can be quicker to filter results by the Act title, than to Browse:

Step 1:  In the Filter results box in the left hand menu, locate the Filter by Title search box

Step 2: Type Australian Citizenship into the textbox

Step 3:  Select  Apply filter

The results page will now show you the Acts that have the words Australian Citizenship in the title.

View Options:

Select the title of the Act to view the text of the latest (current) version of the Act.

Select the Download button to download the Act (not recommended, as the Act is regularly updated).

Select View Series to view the Compilation page with all versions of the Australian Citizenship Act 2007 (Cth).

Step 4:  Select View Series
             This will take you to the Compilation page, which has the series list of past versions, as well as the latest version, of an Act.

Compilation page:

Each version is known as a 'compilation'.

Every time an Act is amended, a new compilation, incorporating the new amendments, is listed.

Each compilation is given its own number.

Each compilation except for the Latest (current) has Superseded written underneath it.

Amendments unincorporated in the Latest version, or yet to commence, are listed on the left.

Tip: Bookmark or save the Compilation page to your Favorites, rather than the current version of the Act's page.
This way, you can be sure to always access the current version, or be prompted to look for the version for the time period you require.

To access the Act:

Step 1:  Click on the title of the Latest compilation of the Australian Citizenship Act 2007  
              From this page you can view the text of the Act or download a copy of the most current compilation of the Act.

Step 2:  Click on EXPAND on the left
              Here you can see that, although this Act has been amended with updates, the year the Act was first passed into law is still kept in the title.

Source a Commonwealth Act by topic

If you need to find a Commonwealth Act on a particular topic, you can use the Advanced Search option on FROL.

In this example, we are going to look for an Act that is on the following topic: "amend legislation in relation to courts and litigation, particularly in migration matters, and for related purposes".

Step 1: On the FROL homepage click the Search link in the upper right hand side of the screen. Then select Advanced Search.

Step 2: Enter your search terms into the search boxes provided in the search form.

Step 3: Scroll down and click Search.

Step 4: Look at the search results. These results will include any First Readings of Bills, Explanatory Memoranda and Acts that fit the search parameters you have set. 

Here, as we are looking for an Act on this topic, select the result that is an Act. In this case, select the Migration Litigation Reform Act 2005 (Cth).

You can limit your search to certain categories of document by ticking or clearing the boxes to limit pre-set categories:

• The Advanced Search options are extensive, so look at all the options available and limit your search as required;
• Click on the + next to the Choose type(s) option (as shown below) to expand the types of documents you can select;
• Click on Search at the bottom of the page;
• Note: Specifying that you only wish to retrieve acts should exclude regulations and other statutory instruments.

A note on Boolean Operators

The Boolean operators, 'AND', 'OR' and 'NOT' play a major role in constructing search strategies.  Each of these Boolean operators has a profound effect on the number of results you will obtain for any given search. 

'AND' will limit the number of results you get by obliging all search terms to appear;

'OR' will broaden the search by obliging only one of the search terms to appear; 

'NOT' will limit the search by only retrieving results that do not contain a specified term.

To search for a phrase, put "inverted commas" around the words that make up the phrase.

If you look at the FROL advanced search screen, you can see that some of this logic has been incorporated into the search fields. 

The "with all the words" field has the same effect as the 'AND' connector, as all the words must be present in the document for it to be found. 

The "with the exact phrase" field has the same effect as putting inverted commas around the words of a phrase.

The "with at least one of the words" is the same as the 'OR' connector. 

The "without the word(s)" field is the equivalent of 'NOT'. 

In the example above, the "with the exact phrase" field has been used, which will find far fewer items, but will be more precise.  You would only use this field if you knew exactly the phrase for which you were looking.  If you weren't sure if it was precisely correct, you would use the "with all the words" fields.  If this found nothing, you could try "with at least one of the words".  Each of these fields is getting progressively wider, but less precise.

Now you know how to use FROL to find Commonwealth Acts by title and subject.

After you have read through the information on this page, attempt the self-test question to gauge your understanding of the topic.