Australian legislation research guide
In this guide
This research guide will help you:
- Understand the Australian legal system
- Find an Act of Parliament (legislation)
- Find bills (draft legislation)
- Find explanatory memoranda (plain language summaries of bills or regulations)
- Find subordinate legislation, including regulations, by-laws, and local government laws
See the individual sections of this guide for more detailed information on each topic, including links to key resources.
To find information about law reports and court records, see our Law reports research guide.
William James Mildenhall, Parliament House, Canberra, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-141452790
William James Mildenhall, Parliament House, Canberra, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-141452790
What you can find in the Library
Some general legal resources listed below may help get you started with your research.
- Laying Down the Law (2021), an online publication available from within the National Library building only.
- Australian current law: legislation (1991-), lists new legislation under broad subject headings.
- The Laws of Australia (Online), available online via Westlaw AU. This work gives detailed access to laws and relevant law cases. Westlaw AU is an online database available from within the National Library building only.
Featured items
Ruth Tabolt-Stokes, Nemes and Coss' effective legal research, 2025, nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn10100882
Jay Sanderson, Drossos Stamboulakis & Kim Kelly, A practical guide to legal research, 2021, nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn8558737
How to search and find items
Use these tips to help you search for items in the Library and beyond.
Search the catalogue
Use our catalogue to start looking at physical and digitised resources in our collection.
Get started with the catalogue
Keyword search
Use a quick keyword search in the catalogue to find titles, authors and subjects.
- If you get too many results, click into the catalogue full results and use the Limit Your Results options (at the right of the search results page) to display only the items of interest, for example, books or journals.
- If you need to widen your search, try searching subject headings. You can search by subject directly in the catalogue (selecting subject in the drop down), or by opening an item’s catalogue record and clicking on the subject headings to find other material related to that subject.
To search for general works about Australian legislation, try searching by subject. Some examples are:
To find information about other legal works, search subject headings, such as:
Key resource
GovPubs: the Australian Government Publications Guide is a key resource for locating selected types of Australian government publications, including legislation. These include:
- Acts, ordinances and statutes
- Bills
- Budget papers
- Explanatory memoranda
- Gazettes
- Government directories
- Notice papers
- Parliamentary debates (Hansard)
- Parliamentary handbooks
- Parliamentary papers
- Standing orders
- Subordinate legislation/regulations
- Votes and proceedings/journals
GovPubs is no longer actively maintained. However, it contains a wealth of information including historical definitions for each type of publication. You can also use GovPubs to track changes to series titles for legislation and locate resources in the Library or online. To begin your search in GovPubs, go to the menu on the homepage and select 'browse by publication' .
Related research guides
Browse these related Library research guides to find more information and resources on your subject.
Sean Davey, Members of parliament in the House of Representatives during the debate of the Marriage Amendment Bill, Parliament House, Canberra, 7 December 2017, 1, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-735401237
Julian Ashton & Howard Ashton & Otto Von Drehnen, (1901), [An invitation to meet Their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York in celebration of the opening of the first Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia], nla.gov.au/nla.obj-135825982
Fred Hardie & G.W. Wilson & Co., Law courts, Melbourne, ca.1892, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-149731986
Samuel White Sweet, (1869), Supreme Court, Adelaide, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-144217269
Where else to look
- The Australian Capital Territory Law Handbook – freely available online via AustLII. Similar law handbooks exist for all states and territories and are freely available online e.g. The law handbook: your practical guide to the law in NSW. Law handbooks are generally divided into chapters, each covering a topic (such as Children, Immigration, Health, etc.) and refer to relevant sections of Acts and regulation.
- AustLII – a free database of Australasian primary legal materials (legislation, treaties and decisions of courts and tribunals) and secondary legal materials such as law reform reports and law journals.
- Lawlex – a website including a free keyword search function with links to the official legislation websites.
Get help with your research
Our specialist staff can help you with your research, to locate resources and to use our microform and scanning equipment but they cannot undertake extensive or ongoing genealogical, historical or other research on your behalf.
Find out more in our Information and Research Services Policy.
Disclaimer
Staff at the National Library of Australia cannot provide legal advice.
Every effort is made to provide accurate and relevant information, but this does not constitute qualified legal advice.
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