33 Finding Queensland Legislation

Queensland legislation by the Office of Queensland Parliamentary Counsel provides access to official Acts and subordinate legislation. The website can be searched or browsed to find legislation. If unsure about the title of the legislation you are after, refer to:

Finding Queensland Acts

Current Acts

To find the most current version of an Act go to In force legislation. Browse alphabetically if you know the title of the Act or choose the year it came into force.

Researching amendments to Queensland Acts

You can check if an Act has been amended two different ways on the Queensland Legislation website.

History notes

When you are looking at an Act, make sure the History notes on the top menu are turned on. When you navigate to the relevant section the amendment notes will be listed at the bottom of the page in green. Click the link to view the amending Act.

Legislative history

You can also view a list of the sections of an Act that have been amended by going to Legislative history. Click on List of legislation to view the full list. Click the link to view the amending Act. If a section is not listed, there have been no amendments.

Abbreviations for amendments

Table 9: Abbreviations and their meanings

Abbreviation	Meaning
ad	added
amd (or am)	amended
ins	inserted
om	omitted
renum	renumbered
rep	repealed

Point-in-time Acts

The ability to find Acts as they looked at a particular point in time is an important skill.

Acts as passed

Use Queensland legislation Acts as passed, to find a copy of an Act as it was originally made.

Reprints of an Act

A reprint consolidates all the amendments made to an Act for a certain period of time. You may need to refer to a reprint of an Act to determine what the legislation stated at a particular point in time. To find a reprint of an Act:

1. Go to the current Act
2. Select Legislative history from the top menu
3. Expand Table of Reprints
4. Select the reprint from the table that is from the most relevant time period.

Alternatively, to find a Timeline of the reprints:

1. Go to the current Act
2. Select Timeline from the far right hand corner.

For historical reprints prior to 1991, access Queensland Statute Reprints, or look for printed consolidations in the Library’s collection.

Finding historical Acts

There are a number of historical legislation databases, the chief one being Queensland Law, which  contains:

• The Public Acts of Queensland 1828-1936
• Queensland Commencement Legislation
• Letters Patent Establishing Boundaries for Queensland
• Queensland Criminal Code 1879-1899.

The Queensland Historical Acts in AustLII is also a valuable database.

Finding Subordinate Legislation

Current Subordinate Legislation

Go to the In force legislation section of the Queensland Legislation website to find Subordinate Legislation (SL). Browse for SL alphabetically or by year.

Subordinate Legislation—As passed

SL as passed is available from the SL as made section of the Queensland Legislation website. Browse for SL alphabetically or by year.

Repealed or revoked Queensland legislation

Repealed or revoked Acts and Subordinate Legislation are available in the Repealed legislation section of the Queensland legislation website.

Browse for Acts and Subordinate Legislation by title or year.

Bills and extrinsic materials

Bills

There are two ways you can find the Bill relating to an Act:

• Go to the Bills section of the Queensland Legislation website and browse by the year the Bill was introduced.

Or,

• Go to the Act and click Legislative history. The Bill will be linked at the bottom of the page.

Explanatory notes

Explanatory notes are linked on the Legislative history page for the related Act. Prior to 1992, it was not common for a Bill to have an explanatory note. You may not find an explanatory note for Bills introduced before this time.

Parliamentary debates (Hansard)

Parliamentary debates, also known as Hansard, are searchable from the Queensland Parliament website. To find Hansard:

1. Go to Advanced search
2. Change the search field from Search Entire Website to Search Hansard
3. Choose the relevant years
4. Search for the title of the Bill in the with this exact phrase box.

Tips for searching Hansard:

• include the year prior to the year of enactment in case the Bill was debated in Parliament in the previous year
• search for the title of the Bill rather than the Act, e.g. Civil Liability Bill.

Human rights statement of compatibility

From 1 January 2020 all new legislation passed in Queensland has either a:

• Human Rights Statement of Compatibility (Bills)
• Human Rights Certificate (Subordinate legislation).

Find these statements with the Bill and explanatory notes in the Legislative history section for the relevant Act or Subordinate Legislation.

Using Hansard and explanatory notes in statutory interpretation

The use of extrinsic material to interpret legislation is set out in section 14B of Acts Interpretation Act 1954 (Qld). This section states:

 

(1) Subject to subsection (2), in the interpretation of a provision of an Act, consideration may be given to extrinsic material capable of assisting in the interpretation—

a) if the provision is ambiguous or obscure—to provide an interpretation of it; or
b) if the ordinary meaning of the provision leads to a result that is manifestly absurd or is unreasonable—to provide an interpretation that avoids such a result; or
c) in any other case—to confirm the interpretation conveyed by the ordinary meaning of the provision.

…

(3) In this section—

extrinsic material means relevant material not forming part of the Act concerned, including, for example—

a) material set out in an official copy of the Act; and
b) a report of a royal commission, law reform commission, commission or committee of inquiry, or a similar body, that was laid before the Legislative Assembly before the provision concerned was enacted; and
c) a report of a committee of the Legislative Assembly that was made to the Legislative Assembly before the provision was enacted; and
d) a treaty or other international agreement that is mentioned in the Act; and
e) an explanatory note or memorandum relating to the Bill that contained the provision, or any other relevant document, that was laid before, or given to the members of, the Legislative Assembly by the member bringing in the Bill before the provision was enacted; and
f) the speech made to the Legislative Assembly by the member when introducing the Bill; and …
g) material in an official record of proceedings in the Legislative Assembly; and
h) a document that is declared by an Act to be a relevant document for the purposes of this section.