Initially, the laws of South Australia were made by the Governor and the Council of Government, and then by the partly elected Legislative Council until 1857 when the bicameral Parliament came into being. More information about this history can be found on the website of the South Australian Parliament.
Acts
Copies of Acts and Ordinances of South Australia enacted in the British Parliament prior to 1857, as well as a full set of Acts and Regulations thereafter, are available on open access in the Government Publications Collection.
1837 - 2002 The South Australian Legal History Archive joint venture of the Flinders University School of Law and Law Library contains a complete collection of South Australian Acts and Ordinances 1837 - 2002.
2003 - South Australian Acts and Regulations are available online at South Australian Legislation. Current Acts and Regulations can also be found on Austlii.
Historical Consolidated Acts can be found here.
An index to South Australian legislation can be found in the back of the annual volumes of Acts of the Parliament of South Australia from 1937 to 1989 and as a separate volume entitled Index of South Australian legislation since 1993. The latest index is available online. It includes a table of the Acts in force, amendments, regulations and case annotations.
Bills
Bills from 2005 to present, can be searched on the Government of South Australia website.
Previous South Australian Bills are held in onsite storage at the State Library. They are organised, and can be requested by year.
The State Library maintains a set of Acts, Bills, Explanatory Memoranda, Legislative Instruments and Statutory Rules of the Australian Parliament. Options for accessing these publications in the Library and online are outlined below.
Acts
The Federal Register of Legislation is the authorised whole-of-government website for accessing Commonwealth legislation and related documents, and contains both current legislation and historical, dating back to 1901.
Developed by UTS and UNSW Faculties of Law, the legal databases, Austlii contains legislation and caselaw for the Commonwealth of Australia (and all States and Territories).
Hard copy versions of historical acts can be located and retrieved via the State Library catalogue. Select the relevant year from The acts of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia. (If you are unsure of the year of the document you are seeking, consult Wick's Subject Index to Commonwealth Legislation, held at the Information Desk. An index was published for the years between 1979 and 2005, and can also be found with each bound annual volume.)
Bills
Many historical Bills can be found on the Federal Register of Legislation. Coverage is excellent for some years, but not complete and the site is still being added to.
Since Bills may originate in either House of Parliament, when using the State Library's hard copy collection it may be necessary to retrieve Bills from both the the House of Representatives and the Senate to find a particular Bill and its corresponding Explanatory Memoranda.
Explanatory memoranda explain the content of the Bill in plain language and give a useful insight into the original intentions and purposes of each section of the Bill. Not every Bill has an explanatory memorandum and they have only been in use routinely since 1978-82.The Second Reading speech of a Bill, contained in Hansard, also outlines its purpose.
Legislative instruments
It is common for an Act of Parliament to allow some other person or body to make a law on matters of detail under an Act. Such a law is called a legislative instrument. The Legislative Instruments Act 2003 requires legislative instruments to be registered and published on the Federal Register of Legislation and tabled in Parliament.
B 8877. Parliamentary library, 1939.
Access to recent interstate legislation is available via the database Austlii, or on the website of the relevant Parliament.
The State Library holds a range of historical interstate legislation in hard copy, but coverage is incomplete, and varies by state. Collections of subordinate legislation such as Regulations are very incomplete. These are held offsite and we retrieve Mondays and Thursdays. Library staff can help you locate these records in the catalogue.
Ordinances for the Australian offshore Territories are best located via the Federal Register of Legislation .Go to 'Filter results' 'Classified as' and select from drop down menu e.g. Ordinances/Norfolk Island
NT legislation between 1863 and 1911, when the NT was administered from SA, have been gathered in a volume entitled Acts relating to the Northern Territory 1863-1907 or can be found separately in the Acts of the Parliament of South Australia.
Ordinances, 1911-1978 and the Laws of the Northern Territory 1948- are held offsite, coverage is incomplete. Library staff can help you locate these records in the catalogue for retrieval Mondays and Thursdays.
Current legislation is available at the Northern Territory Legislation website.
Between 1901 and 1940, Territory ordinances were published in full in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette.