26 Finding Queensland Legislation

Queensland legislation by the Office of Queensland Parliamentary Counsel (OQPC) provides access to official Acts, Bills, subordinate legislation, and explanatory notes. The website can be searched or browsed to find legislative materials.

Acts

Current Acts

To find the most current version of an Act, look for In force legislation on the Queensland legislation website.  Browse alphabetically by title of the Act or by year the Act came into force.

Researching amendments to Queensland Acts

You can check if an Act has been amended one of two ways on Queensland legislation. 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 appear at the bottom of the page in green. Click the link to view the amending Act.

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

Point-in-time Acts

The ability to locate point-in-time Acts is an important skill when doing research that involves locating the law as it stood at a particular time.

Acts as passed

Use the Acts as passed section of Queensland legislation to find a copy of an Act as it was originally made.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 up to a certain date. 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 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 point-in-time research prior to 1991, access Queensland Statute Reprints, or look for printed consolidations in a Library collection. You can also find historical versions of legislation on Queensland Historical Acts in AustLII and 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.

Subordinate legislation

Current subordinate legislation

In force subordinate legislation is available from In force legislation on Queensland legislation. Browse for subordinate legislation alphabetically or by year.

Subordinate legislation—As passed

Subordinate legislation as passed (or as made) is available from SL as made on Queensland legislation. Browse for subordinate legislation alphabetically or by year.

Repealed or revoked Acts and subordinate legislation

Repealed or revoked Acts and subordinate legislation are available in the Repealed legislation section of Queensland legislation. Browse for Acts and subordinate legislation by title or year.

Bills and extrinsic materials

Bills

There are two ways to find Bills on Queensland legislation:

1. Go to the Bills section and browse by the year the Bill was introduced to Parliament. Or,
2. Find the subsequent Act and click on Legislative history to view the Bill and other extrinsic material.

Explanatory notes

Explanatory notes are linked on the Legislative history page for the related Act. You may not find an explanatory note for Bills introduced before 1992 as the practice of creating notes was not common before this time.

Parliamentary debates (Hansard)

Parliamentary debates (also known as Hansard) can be found on 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 (include the year that preceded the year of enactment in case the Bill was debated in the previous year).
4. Search for the title of the Bill in the with this exact phrase box (e.g. Civil Liability Bill).

Human rights statement of compatibility

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

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

Find these in the Legislative history section for the relevant legislation.

Using Hansard and explanatory notes in the interpretation of legislation

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.

Other legislative information

Criminal Code Act 1899 (Qld)

When tracing the origins of a section of the Criminal Code Act 1899 (Qld) you may need to refer to Sir Samuel Walter Griffith’s original draft Criminal Code Bill and related documentation. Griffith’s original draft documents and Bill are available through QUT’s Queensland law collection > Queensland Criminal Code 1879-1899.