Program of Consolidation
This is the program for the revision and publication of legislation currently undertaken by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel under the Legislation Revision and Publication Act 2002.
The Act provides for supervision of a program for the revision and publication of legislation by the Commissioner for Legislation Revision and Publication (a legal practitioner employed in the Office of Parliamentary Counsel). The principal object of the program is to consolidate public general legislation and make up-to-date copies of the public general legislation available to members of the public in printed and electronic form.
The program covers—
- Acts;
- regulations made by the Governor under Acts;
- rules made under the Road Traffic Act 1961; and
- aquaculture policies made on or after 1 January 2005;
- environment protection policies (other than national environment protection measures that automatically became environment protection policies under section 28A of the Environment Protection Act 1993 (SA) before that section was repealed);
- proclamations and notices made by the Governor on or after 1 January 2003.
It does not cover—
- private Acts;
- legislation that, owing to its restricted or local application or nature, is not, in the opinion of the Commissioner, of sufficient importance to justify inclusion in the program;
- legislation the operation of which has expired or which has been or the operation of which has been superseded;
- legislation that, except for provisions relating to short titles or citations or other preliminary, formal or transitional matter, consists of repeals, revocations, amendments or variations of legislation.
The Act allows various alterations to be made in revising legislation, such as—
- the omission of arrangement provisions, repeal, amendment or transitional provisions or other provisions that are spent or have expired or otherwise ceased to have effect;
- the correction of minor errors (typographical or clerical errors, grammatical, spelling or punctuation errors, errors in numbering or designation, cross-referencing or alphabetical ordering);
- changes to style and formatting to achieve consistency in current practice or uniformity in style.
Legislative history notes are required to be provided recording—
- the instruments by which the legislation has been amended or varied;
- how the provisions of the legislation have been affected by those instruments;
- relevant assent and commencement dates for those instruments;
- the omission of provisions under the Act.
These notes can be found at the back of copies of legislation published under the Act.
Legislation revised and published under the Act is, in the absence of proof to the contrary, to be taken to set out correctly the contents of the legislation as in force at the date, or for the period, specified in the document.
In the past there have been other Acts providing for the consolidation of legislation. In 1937 an A-Z set of printed consolidated South Australian public general Acts was published under the Acts Republication Act 1934. In 1975 a further A-Z set of printed consolidated South Australian public general Acts was published under the Acts Republication Act 1967. Following the 1975 consolidation program, various reprints were produced of particular Acts. In July 1991, the South Australian Statutes and Consolidation Service was launched—the service provides an A-Z set of pamphlet copies of public general Acts kept up-to-date on a fortnightly basis through a subscription.
Consolidations of certain regulations were published in the Gazette under the Consolidation of Regulations Act 1937 and later printed separately under the Subordinate Legislation Act 1978. The regulations consolidation program was expanded in 1991, with certain consolidations of regulations and rules being made available in print and others in electronic form. The program progressed until consolidations of all regulations and rules were made available in printed form.
Since 1992 a separate Index of South Australian Statutes has been published annually providing information about Acts published in or enacted after the 1975 consolidations. Since 1992 this has been complemented by a cumulative update of the Index produced on a fortnightly basis.
This website provides access to electronic data produced through the legislation revision and publication program and to the information available in the Annual Index of South Australian Statutes and fortnightly update. If fulfils the object set out in the Legislation Revision and Publication Act 2002 of making up-to-date copies of public general legislation available to members of the public in electronic form.
At this stage versions of legislation accessed at this website have no evidentiary value. The Legislation Revision and Publication Act 2002 contemplates regulations being made that would allow versions of legislation accessed at this website to be given evidentiary value. Due to budgetary and timing constraints it has not been possible to achieve this step. However, the data is derived from the source used to produce printed versions with evidentiary value.
Disclaimer
Considerable time and effort has been devoted to compiling the information on this website as accurately as possible. Given the amount of detailed information involved it is not possible to guarantee complete accuracy and no liability is accepted for any inaccuracy. If you find an error, it would be appreciated if you would advise the Commissioner for Legislation Revision and Publication by email: opcweb@agd.sa.gov.au. See full disclaimer.