Parliamentary Documents

A Bill is a proposal of new law or changes to existing law. It becomes an Act when it is passed by both houses of Parliament and given Royal Assent.

From April 2023 the key source for Commonwealth Bills will be the Bills and Legislation collection on the Australian Parliament House website. This is expected to replace the existing collection on the Federal Register of Legislation. Also available on this website are regular Bills Digests produced by the Parliamentary Library containing important information about the current status of bills before the Parliament.

Selected Bills of Parliament from 1900-1934, all Bills from 2000-2022.

Bills from 1996 onwards

Explanatory Memorandum (EM's) are published the same time the Bill is first tabled in Parliament. In some jurisdictions they are known as Explanatory Statements or Explanatory Notes) They will be found on the same databases as the Bills: In each case locate the Bill first and the Memorandum is linked to the Bill. EM's or Comparative Memoranda were published for selected Bills from 1901-1982. From 1982 onwards provision of EM's has been standard practice.

Cite Explanatory Memoranda according to rule 3.7 of the AGLC.

Commonwealth

Use this index if you are not sure if there was an EM published for a particular Bill. This index lists all items identified as explanatory memoranda—or comparative memoranda—in the Australian Parliament from 1901 to the end of 1982 (1st–32nd Parliaments). Prior to 1996 most EM's are not available online only in print and may be requested by Document Delivery from the Parliamentary Library. EMs for Bills since 1982 can be found via the Australian Parliament House Bills and Legislation page (see below).

Selected Bills of Parliament from 1900-1934 and all Bills and EM's from 1990 onwards.

From April 2023 the key source for Commonwealth Explanatory Memoranda will be the Bills and Legislation collection. This website already links to a significant collection of Bills and from there to the relevant EM.

Victoria

For bills since 1996, Explanatory Memoranda are attached to each individual bill entry in Victorian Legislation. Find the bill then scroll down the page to the Explanatory Memoranda.

A further source of legislative intent is the Second Reading Speech – the substantive speech made by the person introducing the Bill to Parliament.  These can be found in the Parliamentary Hansard (see links below) or using the following methods:

Commonwealth

Search via the Bills and Legislation page on the Parliament of Australia site. Search for the bill and then scroll down to the “transcript of speeches” links. The page will also provide the date of the Second Reading speech if you need to look it up in Hansard by date.

Victoria

Like EMs, Second Reading Speeches are attached to the entry for the bill on the Victorian Legislation website. Search for the bill then scroll down to find the link to the Second Reading Speech which will generally be in the Legislative Assembly.

The following video demonstrates the process of finding explanatory memoranda and second reading speeches for relatively recent legislation in Victoria and the Commonwealth.

Hansard is the verbatim record of parliamentary proceedings. Older volumes of Commonwealth and Victorian Hansard are available in physical format from the library, but are in storage and need to be individually requested via Library Search.

Cite Hansard  according to rule 7.5.1 of the AGLC.