University of New South Wales - Library - Guide to Legal Research Materials

Guide to Legal Research Materials

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Australian Law

Legislation: Bills / Parliamentary Debates / Acts / Subordinate Legislation
Case Law: Common Law / Jurisdiction / State Decisis & Precedent / Court system / Law Reports / Unreported Judgements
Secondary Sources: Digests / Encyclopedias / Loose-leaf / Texts / Government Publications / Royal Commissions / Law Reform Commissions / Dictionaries / Words & Phrases / Legal Research Publications

Bills

A Bill is essentially a proposal for a law or a change to the law and is presented to Parliament in the form of a draft Act. Proposals for new or amending legislation may come from any number of sources. Some of these are:

Cabinet: the group of Ministers directly responsible for the Government's policies.
Government departments: suggestions from the department are referred to the Minister responsible, who may then put the proposal before Cabinet.
Political Parties: after an election, the new government will often introduce proposals based upon its election platform.
Law Reform Commissions: often advocate for either new legislation for an area not adequately covered, or propose amendments to current legislation.
Royal Commissions: often recommend new legislation or amendments to existing legislation in their Final Reports.
Members of Parliament: also known as Private Member's Bills, individual members of Parliament propose new legislation or recommend amendments to current Acts.

Format of a Bill

The first page of a Commonwealth Bill provides the following information:

the year(s) of the Parliamentary session
the Parliament and the House
the number of the reading
the portfolio of the Minister introducing it
the short and long title

The first page of a New South Wales Bill provides:

the number of the printing
the short title
contents

As a Bill is a draft of an Act, its text is set out in much the same way. The provisions of a Bill are numbered and are called clauses. These may be divided into sub-clauses and paragraphs. Most Bills are issued with an explanatory memoranda, which explain the content and purpose of the Bill. For New South Wales, the explanatory memoranda is issued as part of the physical Bill, being the pages preceding the Bill itself.

Passage of Bills

Bills are usually introduced into the lower house of Parliament. The progress of a Bill now follows several stages:
First Reading:
The title only is read. A date is set for the second reading and copies are ordered to be printed.
SecondReading:
The Minister who introduced the Bill explains its general principles and purpose. The explanatory memorandum to the Bill is also presented to the House.
2nd Reading Debate: This is the main debate on the principles of the Bill. This debate may extend over several days and is reported in the relevant parliamentary debates.
Consideration in detail: This is where the text of the Bill is considered clause by clause. Amendments may be moved at this stage.
Third Reading: This stage is usually a formality whereby the Minister moves the motion "That this Bill be read a third time". If this motion is agreed to, the Clerk reads out the long title of the Bill, signifying that the Bill has passed the House.

The Bill is then sent to the upper house of the Parliament, the house of review, where the procedure outlined above is repeated. Assent

When a bill has passed both Houses, it is presented to the Governor General (for Commonwealth bills) for assent. At this point the bill becomes an Act of Parliament. An Act may be operational on assent, at a date specified in the Act, or on a date to be proclaimed. If no commencement date is given, the Act becomes operational 28 days after assent.

The date of assent is printed on the Act and a notice of the date appears in the appropriate government gazette.

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Parliamentary Debates

A Bill's progress through both Houses of Parliament and the debates on it, are recorded in the Parliamentary Debates, commonly referred to as Hansard.

Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates are located in the Law Library at:

L/KH5/A1 Senate
Senate Hansard

L/KH11/A1 House of Representatives
House of Representatives Hansard

The Commonwealth Parliament BillsNet has a link to the second reading speeches (look under the name of the bill).

Commonwealth Statutes Annotations contains a Table of Parliamentary Debates for Acts passed from 1984 to date.
Held in the Law Library at L/KH15/F73.

New South Wales Parliamentary Debates are located in the Law Library at:
L/KH62.3/N1 for both Houses. Debates are also available online via the NSW Parliament web site (look under Hansard).

Second reading speeches are an extremely useful source in interpreting statutes. The dates of these speeches are printed at the end of each act. This began for the:
Commonwealth - in 1985
New South Wales - in 1988
For debates prior to these dates, check Hansard for the year(s) you think the Bill would have been debated. Look under Bills in the index.

For New South Wales the online version of the bill also gives the dates of second reading speeches.