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Legislation

Acts

Research legislation at Murdoch University Library

NOTICE: Please be advised that the Legify search tool is currently unavailable. If you cannot find relevant legislation using alternative methods, such as directly via Western Australian Legislation or the Australian Federal Register of Legislation, please Ask our Librarians for assistance.

Acts by title

Each jurisdiction in Australia has an official publisher from which you can obtain legislation. The two you will use most frequently in your studies and beyond are the Federal Register of Legislation, the official publisher for Commonwealth legislation, and Western Australian Legislation, the official publisher for Western Australian legislation.

The free search tool, Legify, allows you to all search all Commonwealth, State and Territory Acts and regulations by title. See the following tabs for searching in Legify and directly in the Federal Register of Legislation and Western Australian Legislation.

Links to these databases can be found on our Databases page:

To search Legify:

  1. Enter the title of the Act into the Legify search bar. Do not include a year or jurisdiction.
  2. On the "Jurisdiction" bar, select the relevant jurisdiction
  3. From the drop down options, select the correct act.

Option 1: Search

  1. In the "Search for" box, type the act name, or words within the name
  2. From the "Search in " dropdown menu, select "Name"
  3. From the "Search using" drop down menu, select "Contains all the words"
  4. Below the search box, from the "Filter by Collection" menu, check "Act"
  5. Click "Search"
  6. From the results list, click on the relevant name

Tip: Check the effective date to access the current legislative instrument,

Option 2: Browse

  1. Select the "Browse" tab
  2. From the "Starting with" tiles, click on the relevant letter
  3. Navigate to act name

To search for Western Australian Legislation for Acts:

  1. Under the "Acts" heading, select "as passed"
  2. Under "Browse Acts by title", select the relevant starting letter
  3. Navigate to the relevant Act
  4. Select "Download PDF" at the far right to view the official version of the Act.

Acts by act number/series details/sessional details

Each jurisdiction in Australia has an official publisher from which you can obtain legislation. The two you will use most frequently in your studies and beyond are the Federal Register of Legislation, the official publisher for Commonwealth legislation, and Western Australian Legislation, the official publisher for Western Australian legislation.

The free search tool, Legify, allows you to all search all Commonwealth, State and Territory Acts and regulations by title. See the following tabs for searching in Legify and directly in the Federal Register of Legislation and Western Australian Legislation.

Links to these databases can be found on our Databases page:

Option 1: Search

  1. In the "Search for" box, type the Act number and year
  2. From the "Search in" drop down menu, select "Contains phrase"
  3. Below the search box, from the "Filter by Collection" menu, check "Act"
  4. Click "Search"
  5. From the results list, click on the Act title

Option 2: Advanced Search

  1. Next to the "Search" button, select "Advanced Search"
  2. Under the filters, select "Year/Number (All)"
  3. Under "Series type", check the box beside "Act"
  4. Add the year and number in the search box, using the following format: YYYY/NNNN
  5. Click "Search"

To search Western Australian Legislation:

  1. Under the "Acts" heading, select "as passed"
  2. Under "Browse Acts by year", select the relevant year
  3. Navigate to the Act number. Acts are in numerical order.
  4. Select the Act
  5. To view all versions of the act, click "Versions of this Act"

To see the changes made between versions:

  1. Select "Versions of this Act"
  2. Select the later version from the table, and open the "Compare (PDF)" version
  3. Use the Bookmarks to navigate through the act to each amendment

You can use the printed annual volumes for the Statutes of Western Australia to source the sessional details/number and year of an Act.

  •  Sessional details of an Act are the unique identifier for an Act.
  •  Numbers are allocated sequentially when an Act receives assent (for example, 198 of 1997 means the 198th Act passed and signed in 1997).

This number is also the location number for an Act on the shelf or in the bound annual volumes. The Statutes of Western Australia are towards to the south-eastern corner of the Honourable Michael Murray Law Library, at call number R 348.9410221 W527 1.

Acts by topic

Each jurisdiction in Australia has an official publisher from which you can obtain legislation. The two you will use most frequently in your studies and beyond are the Federal Register of Legislation, the official publisher for Commonwealth legislation, and Western Australian Legislation, the official publisher for Western Australian legislation.

Links to these databases can be found on our Databases page:

  1. On the Federal Register of Legislation home page, click the "Advanced Search" link located beside the search button
  2. In the "Search for" box, type the topic. (E.g., amend legislation courts litigation migration)
  3. From the "Search in" drop down menu, select "Name and text"
  4. From the "Search using" drop down menu, select "Contains all the words"
  5. Click "Search".
  6. The results will include Acts and Legislative Instruments (Determinations, Rules and Regulations) that fit the search parameters you have set. Select the result that is an Act.
  7. 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

  • From the Filters options, expand Collections
  • From the drop down menu, check the box beside Act
  • Click on the Search button
  • Note: Specifying that you only wish to retrieve Acts should exclude regulations and other statutory instruments.

If you need help putting together a search string, see:

On the Western Australian Legislation home page:

  1. Under the "Search" heading in the left hand side column, select "Acts and Subsidiary Legislation"
  2. Type in the exact phrase you're looking for
  3. Tick or untick the boxes next to the "Category", "Search", and "Status" boxes to change what and how you search.

  4. Click "Search"

If you need help putting together a search string, see:

Sessional details of an Act

Sessional details are the number and year of the Act. They are in the format XX of XXXX and can enable you to identify the Act by number alone without reference to the long or short title of the Act.

You will need to use the sessional details/number and year:

  • To determine the title of a piece of legislation when all you have is the sessional details;
  • When an Act has never been reprinted and you need to look at the Act in its original form;
  • Where the Act is an amending Act and you need to see how the amendments were structured and what other amendments were made at the same time;
  • When you need to look at the original, unamended Act for historical analysis;
  • When you need to determine how an Act has changed over the years.

Once you have found an Act in Western Australian Legislation, use the following steps to identify the Act's sessional details.

  1. Locate the Act's record on the Western Australian Legislation website
  2. Locate the number and the year for that particular record. For example, the Bread Act has the corresponding number 006 and the year 1903. This means the sessional details for the Bread Act are 6 of 1903.

You can use the printed annual volumes for the Statutes of Western Australia to source the sessional details/number and year of an Act.

  1. Use Library Search to locate Statutes of Western Australia
  2. Note the location of Statutes of Western Australia in the library and find it on the shelf
  3. Numbers are allocated sequentially when an Act receives assent (for example, 198 of 1997 means the 198th Act passed and signed in 1997).

This number is also the location number for an Act on the shelf or in the bound annual volumes. The Statutes of Western Australia are towards to the south-eastern corner of the Honourable Michael Murray Library, at call number R 348.9410221 W527 1.

History of an Act

The easiest way to see an overview of the history of an Act (how it has been amended since it first passed into law) is to open the "History of this Act" document, located on the Title/Home page of an Act.

Operational status of an Act

  1. Navigate to the "Endnotes" section at the end of the Act.
  2. Navigate to "Endnote 3 - Legislation History"
  3. The Legislation History table will tell you the date of assent (the date the Act was signed by the Governor General) and the commencement date (the date the Act came into force). Note: It is common for different sections of an Act to come into force at different times.

Act amendments

  1. Find the Act on the Federal Register of Legislation
  2. In the "Table of Contents" pane on the left, scroll down to "Endnotes" (you may need to expand the last chapter by clicking on the + symbol to find it)
  3. Expand the Endnotes by clicking on the + symbol
  4. Select "Endnote 4 - Amendment history"
  5. Locate the section number to find the amending Act
  6. Within the Act, use Ctrl+F to search for the section number
  7. To see the original wording to compare changes:
    • Select "View series"
    • Read the Start and End dates for each version
    • Select the version of the Act prior to the change

Act sections amendments

  1. Navigate to Endnote 4 of the Act
  2. Under the "Provision affected" column you will find the number of any sections that have been amended
  3. To get a full picture of the history of this section, you need to go to the original Act and compare it to each of the following Acts to see what changes were made to the section in question.

Note: An Act will always keep the year it first came in to force in its title - the Act does not change the year each time it is updated. Therefore, the Australian Citizenship Act 2007 (Cth), for example, will always have this title, regardless of how many amendments or updates it has, or when these changes were made.

Compilations & versions

  1. Find the Act on the Federal Register of Legislation
  2. Select the "All Versions" link from the activity menu located below the deep blue band and above the Act name. This will give you the list of numbered compilations for this Act.
  3. Select the compilation/version relevant to the time period you are researching. The notes at the end of the compilation will list the commencement dates for amendments, providing additional information to work out what the law was on a particular date.

Note: If you require an authorised version of a compilation, it will always be in a PDF file format and can be identified by the words "Authorised version", "ComLaw Authoritative Act", "Federal Register of Legislative Instruments" or "Explanatory Statement to" [unique identifier of the instrument it relates to] on the electronic or printed copy. An authorised version is taken to be a reliable source of information by a court or tribunal unless proven to the contrary. 

Amendments since most recent compilation

  1. From the Act's homepage on the Federal Register of Legislation, click on the "All versions" link
  2. Uncheck the box besides "Hide possible future amendments" to see any unincorporated amendments
  3. New amendments listed here have not yet commenced (except in very exceptional circumstances).
  4. It is good practice to also check the Endnotes section of the Act, as described above, to see if the provisions have commenced.

Operational status of amendments made since most recent reprint

  1. Find the Act on the Federal Register of Legislation
  2. Locate the current version of the Act and check to see that it has the tick logo which marks it as an authoritative compilation, stamped with the unique identifier
  3. Look at the Endnotes section to see the list of amending Acts. Endnote 3 contains the details of each law that has amended the Act, Endnote 4 includes information about amendments at the provision (section) level, and Endnote 5 contains a list of uncommenced amendments.

Keeping up to date

The Federal Register of Education provides an alerting service in the My Account feature to which you can subscribe to keep up to date with legislative changes. Some government departments also provide information about updates to legislation in particular areas. The Parliament of Australia also provides a service called My Parliament that allows you to track the progress of Bills:

Some individual publishers also provide legal alerts for their customer - check the publisher's help guide for further assistance.

  1. Find the Act on Western Australian Legislation.
  2. For a brief overview of the history of the Act, select "History of this Act" below the Act record.

See the instructions below for finding more details on the history of an Act. 

Operational status of an Act

  1. Navigate to the Notes section at the end of the Act
  2. Within the Notes section, navigate to the compilation table
  3. The compilation table will tell you the date of assent (the date the Act was signed by the Governor of Western Australia) and the commencement date (the date the Act came into force). Note: It is common for different sections of an Act to come into force at different times.
  4. After the commencement date there will usually be a note in brackets, e.g., (see s. 2). This means "See section 2", which is the section of the Act that gives the commencement details. Navigate to the section given to read the commencement details.
  5. If section 2 (or any other section) does not give any information about when the Act is to come into force then check the rules given in the Interpretation Act 1984 s 20(2) (WA). The rule for current legislation is that where no commencement date is provided in the Act, it will come into force 28 days after Assent.

Act amendments

To find an amendment for a WA Act:

  1. Find the Act on Western Australian Legislation
  2. Navigate through the Act to the clause
  3. Amendment history is located immediately below each clause. Note the amendment dates.
  4. Return to the list of Versions
  5. Read the currency start and end dates, and select the version of the Act that contains the amendment date
  6. From the "Compare" column, select the PDF version of the Act
  7. Use the bookmarks to quickly navigate to the section to see the change in wording

Note: To see why an amendment was made, source the amending Act's explanatory memorandum and second reading speech.

Act sections amendments

The legislative history of each section of an Act is noted in italics at the end of the section. For example, at the end of section 17 of the Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972 (WA), the text reads [Section 17 inserted by No. 8 of 1980 s. 6; amended by No. 24 of 1995 s. 18.].

This means the section was not in the original Act. It was inserted in 1980, by section 6 of an Act with the sessional details 8 of 1980. Additionally, it was amended once in 1995, by section 18 of an Act with the sessional details 24 of 1995.

You can then use the sessional details given to locate the amending Act/s. In this example, the "new" section 17 was inserted by section 6 of an Act with the sessional details 8 of 1980. Once you have found the Act, you can read section 6 to see the new text that was added. Repeat with any other amending Acts. 

Once you have found all the amending Acts as well as the original, you can combine them to see the current version of the Act.

Reprints & versions

  1. Find the relevant Act on Western Australian Legislation
  2. Under the Act record, select "Versions of this Act (includes consolidations, Reprints and "As Passed" versions")
  3. Select either "Reprints" or "Consolidated Versions", depending on your requirements (don't forget consolidated versions are not authorised and cannot be used in court)
  4. Looking at the reprint date/s (for reprints) or currency date/s (for consolidated versions) will allow you to access the Act at a particular point in time.

Note: You can also find this information in the compilation table in the "Notes" section at the end of an Act.

Amendments since most recent reprint

  1. Navigate to the compilation table within the "Notes" section at the end of the Act
  2. Find the details of the last reprint
  3. Below the details of the last reprint you will find amendments made to an Act since that reprint.

Note: You can also find amendments made to an Act since the last reprint listed in the "History of this Act" section, which is listed on the landing page of each Act.

Operational status of amendments made since most recent reprint

To ascertain the operational status of amendments made since the most recent reprint:

  1. Navigate to the compilation table within the "Notes" section at the end of the Act
  2. Find the last reprint in the compilation table, and use the table to determine whether any amendments have been made since the last reprint
  3. Determine the operational status of the amendments
  4. Take note of the section in the Notes titled "Provisions that have not come into operation". This will show any amendments that have not yet come into force.

Cases considering Acts (judicial consideration)

Different databases have different ways of deciding whether or not a particular case is relevant or judicially considers part of an act. As such, more than one database should be consulted to find relevant case law as each database is likely to show you different results.

In each database:

  • Select Cases Advanced Search 
  • Select relevant jurisdiction
  • Complete the Legislation name and provision text boxes
  • Select relevant Court, if required 

See the following tabs for instructions for the most commonly used databases.

You can access legal databases via our Databases page:

Option 1: LawCite

  1. Select LawCite (located at the far right on the red band)
  2. Complete "Legislation Considered" field e.g., Legal Profession Uniform Law Application Act
  3. Complete "Section" field e.g., 141
  4. Click "Search". You will then see a list of cases that have considered the relevant act.

Option 2: NoteUp

  1. Select the relevant jurisdiction from the black ribbon on the AustLII homepage
  2. Type the act title and section number in the "Search selected databases" box. Example: Legal Profession Uniform Law Application Act 2022  141. Tip: AustLII does not like punctuation, so do not include brackets.
  3. Select the magnifying glass to search
  4. Select relevant Act and Section from the Results list
  5. From the task menu on the right of screen, select the "NoteUp references" link. NoteUp searches for all materials on AustLII referring to this case. Tip: Sort the results by Database to easily identify cases
  1. Select "Jade Browser" tab
    • Select "Legislation Collection"
    • Select "By legislature"
  2. Select "Western Australian Legislation - Acts (WALegAct)"
    • Navigate to the relevant Act
    • Select Le
    • Select Legal Profession Uniform Law Application Act
  3. Navigate to relevant section
    • Select section title
    • Select relevant citations

Tip: Sign up for Jade Professional using your Murdoch student email address.

  1. Select "Legislation" from the Explore pod
  2. From the drop down menu, select "Western Australia"
  3. Under the "Acts" column in the table, select "All Acts by title"
  4. Use the alphabetic index to select the relevant Act title
  5. Select "View legislation citator".

Option 1: Global search 1

  1. Type the Act title and section number in the global search box, then wait for suggestions to appear. (Example: Legal Profession Uniform Law Application Act 2022 141)
  2. From the drop down suggestions, select the linked section title
  3. From the "Citing References" tab, select "Cases"

Option 2: Global search 2

  1. Search by Act title in double inverted commas and section number to be within 10 words of Act title (e.g. "Legal Profession Uniform Law Application Act 2022" /10 141)

  2. Select "Cases"
    • Option 1: Select View All Cases
    • Option 2: Select Cases from the "Content types" menu

Option 3: Advanced search

  1. Select "Content type", then "All Cases"
  2. Select "Advanced Search"

  3. Complete "Legislation Cited (Title)" and "Legislation Cited (Provision)" fields (Tip: Do not include a designation abbreviation
    - just the number)

Journal articles considering Acts

Legal databases have different ways of finding journal articles that consider a particular Act. 

You can access legal databases via our Databases page:

Option 1: LawCite

  1. Select "LawCite" (located at the far right on the red band)
  2. Add the act title in the "Legislation considered" field (e.g., Legal Profession Act 2008)
  3. Add the provision number in the "Section" field (e.g., 141)
  4. Select "Search"
  5. From the top menu, select "Law journal articles matching this search"

Option 2: Database search

  1. Select "Journals & Scholarship" from the red ribbon
  2. Add the Act title within double inverted commas to the search box (located in the top right corner). Example: "Legal Profession Act 2008".
  3. Click on the magnifying icon to Search
  4. Results can be sorted:
    • By relevance
    • By citation frequency
    • By database
    • By date
    • By title
  1. Search by Act title in double inverted commas and jurisdiction. E.g., "Legal Profession Uniform Law Application Act" AND (Western OR WA)
  2. Under "Limit to" in the left hand menu, select "Full text only"
  1. From the "Advanced search" dropdown menu, select "Secondary materials"
  2. Add the Act title to the "Legislation title" field, then select the correct Act from the drop down menu. Alternatively, add the provision number to the "Provision Name/Number" field
  3. Select "Search"
  4. The results will show any secondary materials referring to the Act. If necessary, use the filters to narrow the search down further.
  1. In the search box, enter the Act title in double inverted commas. Following the Act title, type "/10", followed by the act number. E.g., "Legal Profession Uniform Law Application Act" /10 141. This will instruct Westlaw to search for the section number within 10 words of the Act title.
  2. Select "Search"
  3. Under "Content types" in the left hand side menu, select "Secondary sources"
  4. Under "By type" in the left hand side menu, select "Law Reviews & Journals

Definitions in Acts

Legal databases have different ways of finding definitions in legislation. For more on definitions in legislation, see the "About juducial consideration" section of the Legislation guide.

You can access legal databases via our Databases page:

  1. From the "Advanced search" dropdown menu, select "Legislation"
  2. Add your search term in the "Defined terms" field
  3. Select "Search"
  4. If necessary, use the filters to narrow the search down further.

Option 1: Advanced Search

  1. Under "Content types", select "All Legislation"
  2. To the right of the search bar, select "Advanced"
  3. Navigate down to the "Defined terms" field
  4. Add the term you would like defined
  5. Click on the search icon to the right of the search box
  6. If necessary, narrow the results using the filters on the left hand side

Tip: Select the highlighted hyperlink in the legislation results to go directly to the section in the document.

Option 2: General search

  1. In the search box on the homepage, type (character! OR compris! OR defin! OR describ! OR discuss! OR element! OR expla! OR interpret! OR mean! OR phras!) /15 SearchWord
  2. Select the search icon
  3. From the Results page, select "Legislation" from the "Content types" menu on the left of screen
  4. Alternatively, select "View All" beside the Legislation group