Finding Tasmanian Legislation

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28 Finding Tasmanian Legislation

The Tasmanian Legislation site, managed by the Office of the Tasmanian Parliamentary Counsel provides free access to authorised versions of Tasmanian legislation which can be located using the browse (further divided below) or search functions.

Content included:

Acts in force as at 1 February 1997 – consolidated versions
Acts passed after 1 February 1996 – as made and consolidated
Statutory rules made after May 1998 – as made and consolidated.

Use secondary sources, such as journal articles, textbooks, commentary, legal encyclopaedias and digests to identify relevant legislation for your research. Specific sections of legislation will also sometimes be cited in case judgements.

In addition to the Tasmanian Legislation site, Acts, Subordinate and historical legislation are available from Austlii, but only the government site provides the authorised versions. Austlii can be easier to access and note up an individual section of an Act.

Acts

Finding In Force Legislation

In Force legislation can be located by searching or using the browse function by name or year. This includes Principal, Amending and Subordinate.

Consolidated legislation is also available on Austlii.

Finding As Made and Historical Legislation

The browse function is available for As Made Legislation, including Principal, Amending and Subordinate). For enactments yet to be commenced the provisions may be viewed by toggling the ‘As Made’ button. Legislative History is also available to search within each Act. The History tab provides a tabular and graphical representation of amendments to the Act with dates.

As Made Legislation from 1826 is also available in Austlii.

Finding Point-in-time Legislation

Specific Point-in-time searching can be done using the search function and searching the Legislative History tab within an Act can also provide useful information. This tab provides a tabular and graphical representation of amendments to the Act with dates.

Finding Repealed Legislation

The browse function is available for Repealed Legislation, including Principal, Amending and Subordinate).

Finding Subordinate Legislation

Statutory Rules can be located using the same browse feature as for In Force legislation, searchable by name or year.

Consolidated Regulations are also available on Austlii, along with Numbered Regulations from 1998.

Site Help and Other Information

Apart from website help, there is a variety of other useful information available at: https://www.legislation.tas.gov.au/tables

From this page you can access:

Historical Legislation
Index of Tasmanian Acts and Statutory Rules in Force – pdf updated quarterly
Subject index to Tasmanian legislation in force – pdf updated annually

Search help: https://www.legislation.tas.gov.au/help

Browse help: https://www.legislation.tas.gov.au/help

Bills and extrinsic material

Bills

Current Bills are available from the Tasmanian Parliament (listed alphabetically).

This site also lists all bills introduced since 2002 (search by year) which are also available on Austlii.

Explanatory notes

Explanatory notes in Tasmania generally take the form of Tasmanian Bill Fact Sheets and Clause Notes, both available from Austlii from 2008

Hansard

Hansard (Parliamentary debates) are available for each of the House of Assembly and Legislative Council from 1992 and can be searched by year or keyword.

Before 1979 there were no official reports of the Tasmanian parliamentary debates. The Hobart Mercury reported the parliamentary debates from 1920 – 1978.

Trove – 1854 – 1954. Search the Trove records of Hobart Mercury for Hansard entries
Legislative Historical Hansard Search – 1979 – 1991

The Tasmanian Parliamentary Papers 1856-1901 are available via the Parliament of Tasmania website. The papers may be searched by accessing: https://www.parliament.tas.gov.au/resources/about-parliament/ppweb

Gazette – Notification of Legislation Enactment and operation

The first official Tasmanian gazette/newspaper, the Hobart Town Gazette and Southern Reporter, appeared in Hobart in 1816. It was preceded by two shortlived unofficial publications in 1810-14. After other name changes, it became known as the Tasmanian Government Gazette in 1907.

Tasmania Online – current month only
Trove – 1825 – 1827 published in the Hobart Town Gazette
Trove – 1821 – 1825 published in the Hobart Town Gazette and Van Diemen’s Land Advertiser
Trove – 1816 – 1821 published in the Hobart Town Gazette and Southern Reporter.

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Legal Research Skills: An Australian Law Guide Copyright © 2025 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, University of South Australia, Edith Cowan University, University of Tasmania and The Australian National University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.