How is legislation amended in australia

House committee optional stage —public inquiry into the bill and reporting back to the House. Consideration in detail optional stage —members discuss the bill in detail, including any changes to the bill. The bill is passed in the House of Representatives and sent to the Senate. In the Senate a bill goes through the following stages: 1st reading—the bill is introduced to the Senate.

Senate committee optional stage —public inquiry into the bill and reporting back to the Senate. Committee of the whole optional stage —senators discuss the bill in detail, including any changes to the bill. The bill is passed in the Senate. The bill becomes an Act of Parliament—a law for Australia. You are free to share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work.

Non-commercial — you may not use this work for commercial purposes. Parts of a bill. From policy to law. The executive government decides policy then drafts and introduces bills to the Parliament. Bills are considered by the Parliament. If passed by the Parliament, the bills are approved by the Governor-General. Want to know more? To browse the categories for which tips are available, go to the Glossary. The Australian Government is organised into a number of portfolios.

Each portfolio is responsible for specific policy issues and laws. For more information about the structure, organisations and key people in each portfolio, go to the Government Online Directory.

Australia's ten Territories are home to over half a million Australians. Each territory has different legal origins, and a different relationship with the Australian Government. Choose the territory you are interested in for details of its laws and governance:. These territories have since become the independent nations of Nauru and of Papua New Guinea.

The Federal Register of Legislation does not cover all sources of Australian law. You may need to look at the numbered version of an act or regulation if it has never been amended because there will have been no consolidation produced or if the relevant Office of Parliamentray Counsel has not yet produced a consolidation which incorporates amendments.

Note, however, that you should always first check to see if there is a consolidated version of the legislation in which you are interested. Point-in-Time legislation: AustLII has started to provide what is termed "point-in-time" versions of legislation. The AustLII point-in-time system allows a user easily to navigate legislation at any given point in time, to check on the different historical versions of any provision and to make comparisons between them. At present the system is still under development and is limited in functionality and in the range of jurisdictions covered.

For more information, see the Point-in-Time Legislation Project page. Repealed legislation: AustLII has also started to provide databases of "repealed" legislation from some State jurisdictions and the Commonwealth for historical and research purposes. Repealed legislation is legislation which is generally no longer in operation, although some repealed legislation may continue to operate in limited circumstances.

To find a piece of legislation where you know its name, choose the relevant database from the database list and then use the alphabetical table of contents to locate it by name. To search for legislation on a particular topic, you need to identify the relevant jurisdiction s - Commonwealth laws which apply nationally or State or Territory laws which apply in a specific State or Territory.

Always check that the legislation found using the search facility is the most recent version. You should prefer legislation from a "consolidated" database over legislation from a "numbered" database. Consolidated legislation includes amendments made to it since it was originally passed by Parliament.

Legislation in "numbered" databases is the original legislation as passed by Parliament and does not include any subsequent amendments. Hypertext links to AustLII legislation which you will find in the text of Court and tribunal decisions, journal articles, law reform reports and other documents on AustLII will nearly always link to the current consolidated version of the legislation.

Be aware that this will not necessarily be the same version of the legislation that is being discussed in the decision, article, report or other document. The acts are split into sections and the regulations are split into their regulations, rules or clauses.

To display the table of provisions, click the [Table] link from any individual section or regulation. The table of provisions lists all the individual sections or regulations for that act or regulation.

The AustLII legislation databases include hypertext links to most relevant material. These generally include the following: references to sections, regulations and schedules within the current act or regulation; references to definitions within the current act or regulation; references to acts in other acts or regulations; and references to sections in other acts.

Each individual bill, explanatory memorandum statement or notes , second reading speech, section or regulation is preceded by a number of hypertext links in square brackets.

The meaning of these is as follows:. You normally do this, if you want to select a different act or regulation or check when the database was last updated.

If the minister provides an explanation, the senator may move without notice that the Senate take note of the explanation. If an explanation is not provided, the senator may move without notice that the Senate take note of the failure to provide an explanation. The Joint Human Rights Committee was established in pursuant to legislation. Using seven specified international human rights instruments, the committee examines the statements of compatibility with human rights which are included in explanatory memoranda to bills and explanatory statements for legislative instruments, and reports its findings to both Houses.

It is important not to confuse two different types of amendments that can be moved during the consideration of legislation:. These amendments may add words to, or change words in, the motion to, for example:. An example is an order for production of documents which may not be appropriate to include as an amendment to the bill, but which may be achieved through an amendment to the motion to adopt the report of the committee of the whole.

This amendment is the only one which may be moved to the third reading motion. This form of amendment has its origins in traditional parliamentary practice. These days a senator seeking to defeat a bill will simply vote against the motion for the second or third reading. Hundreds - sometimes thousands - of amendments are moved each year to bills in the Senate by ministers and by nongovernment senators.

Approximately one third of all bills are amended. Non-government senators are assisted by the Clerk Assistant Procedure in drawing up amendments while government amendments are usually produced by the government drafters. When amendments are finalised, the senator responsible for them authorises their circulation and they are distributed in the Senate and published on the Internet on the bills homepages, and on the Dynamic Red when the bill is being considered.

An amendment may be made to any part of a bill, provided that it is relevant to the subject matter of the bill see standing order The relevance rule has always been interpreted liberally.

Rulings of the President of the Senate since the early s have rejected the British precedents which require amendments to be consistent with the scope and principle of the bill as agreed at the second reading. Where there are several sets of circulated amendments for a particular bill, the Table Office prepares a running sheet , or marshalled list of amendments, for the guidance of the chair and those senators participating in the committee of the whole stage.

Running sheets provide a suggested order of proceeding and also highlight where circulated amendments may conflict with one another and if amendments are consequential on others being agreed to. Standing order prescribes the order in which bills are to be considered. This is the clausebyclause method which, in practice, is almost never followed.

This method provides maximum flexibility, particularly in so-called amending bills where the amendments to principal legislation are contained in schedules appended to the body of the bill and which, under the clause-by-clause method, would be dealt with in a single block.

When a bill is taken as a whole, the chair puts the question on each amendment, or group of amendments, or on each amendment to an amendment. Only one amendment may be before the chair at a time, but, in practice, amendments are frequently moved together in groups by leave unanimous consent of senators present.

This is designed to test whether the unit has majority support. An equally divided vote on that question results in it being decided in the negative and the unit being removed from the bill. Note, however, that this practice does not apply to requests for amendments which must be supported by a majority see below and Guide No. The Senate sometimes requests the House of Representatives to make amendments that the Senate is prevented by the Constitution from making itself.

Under section 53 of the Constitution, the Senate may not amend:.