About this website - Federal Register of Legislation
The Federal Register of Legislation (the Register) is the approved, whole-of-government website for Australian Government legislation and related documents. It contains the full text of laws as well as details of the life cycle of individual laws and the relationships between them.
The Register is managed by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel in accordance with the Legislation Act 2003 (the LA). It incorporates all material previously published on ComLaw, the Acts database under the Acts Publication Act 1905 and on the Federal Register of Legislative Instruments (FRLI) under the Legislative Instruments Act 2003.
Historical material of our holdings continue to be added to the Register to improve its comprehensiveness. Key types of content and dates are as follows:
Content type | Key dates |
|---|---|
Acts as made | from 1901 |
Act compilations | some compilations from 1973 all point in time versions from 2013 |
Regulations and other instruments as made (known as Statutory Rules from 1904 until 2005 and Select Legislative Instruments from 2005 until 2015) | from 1901 |
Regulations and other instrument compilations (Regulations and other instruments as amended) | some compilations from 1979 all point in time versions from 2013 |
Legislative instruments as made and explanatory statements (if required to be lodged under the Legislation Act 2003) | from 2005 |
Legislative instrument compilations (Legislative instruments as amended) | some compilations from 2005 all point in time versions from 2013 |
Notifiable instruments as made | from 2016 |
Notifiable instrument compilations | from 2016 |
Government Notices Gazettes/Gazette notices | from 1901 |
Bills as introduced and most initial explanatory memoranda for Bills that passed | most Bills and EMs from 1901-1937 and 1996-1999 |
Link to Parlinfo Bill homepage on the Australian Parliament House website | from 2000 |
The Constitution | from 1901 |
Administrative Arrangement Orders | from 1901 |
We may have access to some historical material that is not available online. Please contact us for assistance locating such material.
Authorised versions
The latest version of all in force laws as well as some other laws on the Register have an authorised version that can be relied on for the purpose of court proceedings under sections 15ZA and 15ZB of the LA. Authorised versions are always in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format, and are stamped with one of the following forms of words:
“Authorised version”; or
“Authoritative”; or
“Federal Register of Legislative Instruments”; or
for an explanatory statement for a legislative instrument—“Explanatory Statement to” and a reference to the unique identifier for the instrument.
If you download or print an authorised version from this website without making any changes to it, the copy is also an authorised version for the purpose of court proceedings.