How are amendments displayed in Consolidations?

Because of the large number of Principal and Amending Acts and Regulations in existence, various difficulties arise in using or reading the law:

  • many documents need to be read together to know what the law is (eg a Principal Act or Regulation and all of its amending Acts or Regulations);

  • it is difficult to see how the law has changed or needs to be interpreted when it is made up of so many parts.

Amendments are usually consolidated into the Principal Act in a series of consolidations to make this process easier.

Consolidations

Consolidation involves taking the text of all changes in the amending legislation and adding them to the principal legislation. Only one document needs to be consulted to see what the law was up to a particular point in time - which is referred to as the consolidation date.

The consolidation date is usually the date on which the last Amending Act or Regulation added to the Consolidated Principal Act or Regulation was made. This is added by the consolidator and changes whenever subsequent amendments are consolidated.

It differs from a currency date (generally added by a publisher after the cut-off date), which signifies that no further amendments affect the legislation up to the currency date.

Consolidations can also be named reprints, versions or compilations in some jurisdictions.

Finding Amendments in Consolidations

Generally, consolidations are only provided for principal legislation which has been amended (usually by amending Acts or other principal legislation with amending provisions).

To find out which sections have been amended, the use of the Tables at the end of the legislation is the most appropriate way to find the amendments.

Where legislation is both principal and amending, however, or contains amending provisions, the omission of solely amending or repealing provisions is allowed by legislative authority:

  • Legislation Act 2003 [CTH] - s48C - automatic repeal of amending and repealing provisions;
  • Legislation Act 2001 [ACT] - s89 - automatic repeal of amending provisions;
  • Interpretation Act 1987 [NSW] - s30C - automatic repeal of amending and repealing provisions;
  • Interpretation Act [NT] - s12 - effect of repeal
  • Reprints Act 1992 [QLD] - s40 - omission of amending and repealing provisions;
  • Legislation Revision and Publication Act 2002 [SA] - s7 - Alterations that may be made in revising legislation;
  • Acts Interpretation Act 1931 [TAS] - s18 - Effect of repeal by consolidating Acts;
  • Interpretation of Legislation Act 1984 [VIC] - s21A - incorporation of amendments;
  • Interpretation Act 1984 [WA] - s33 - Repeal of written law includes repeal of amendments.

Generally, this means solely amending and repealing provisions are not reproduced in future consolidations of the legislation, and instead are notified in a Table of Reprints, or the other Amending Tables.