18 Legislative Process

It is important to understand how legislation is made. This knowledge will assist you in research tasks such as:

  • tracking proposed legislation prior to enactment
  • locating parliamentary documents needed in statutory interpretation.

Commonwealth legislative process

The passage of a Bill through Parliament is similar in most common law jurisdictions. The Commonwealth process is as follows:

  • introduced to Parliament by the Minister responsible (may be introduced in either the House of Representatives or the Senate)
  • read for the first time
  • read for a second time – explanatory speech and debate
  • proceeds to Committee stage (optional) — consideration and report from the relevant committee
  • moves to consideration in detail (optional) — Bill considered clause by clause (amendments can be made at this time)
  • read for the third time — agreed to
  • considered by, and amendments agreed to, by the other House (bicameral Parliament)
  • receives Royal Assent — and is enacted.

The Parliament of Australia’s Infosheet 7 Making Laws describes how bills are proposed, considered and passed at a federal level.

Making a law in the Australian Parliament is a fact sheet explaining the law-making process in the Australian Parliament.

The legislative process in other jurisdictions

The passage of a Bill through parliament is similar in most common law jurisdictions. See further reading on the jurisdiction of your choice below:

One noteworthy difference is that the Queensland Parliament has abolished its Legislative Council and now use a unicameral (or one chamber) system. The diagram below reflects the typical passage of a Bill through the Queensland Parliament rather than the legislative process of a Parliament with two houses.

Diagram showing the consecutive stages of the Queensland Legislative process. Arrows show direction of the stages starting with a Bill being introduced to parliament. The Bill then has a first reading or explanatory speech. The Bill is then considered by a committee. The Bill then has a second reading in parliament. The content of the bill is considered in detail with debate and discussion. The Bill may then proceed to a third reading in parliament and if the bill passes it is given the royal assessment process and becomes enacted as a legal act in the Queensland jurisdiction.
Figure 3: The Queensland Legislative Process by UQ Library, UQ Legal Research Essentials, used under CC-BY-NC 4.0

Read more about Queensland’s parliamentary process in the Queensland Legislation Handbook or Queensland Parliament’s Factsheet 3.6 (PDF, 269KB).

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Legal Research Skills: An Australian Law Guide: 2024 Edition Copyright © 2024 by The University of Queensland, James Cook University, the University of Southern Queensland, Charles Darwin University, Southern Cross University, Queensland University of Technology, Deakin University and University of South Australia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.