New Acts are generally added to the website on the working day following Royal Assent.

For new subsidiary legislation made in Executive Council, PCO generally publishes the instruments on this website on the day following receipt of signed copies of the instruments from the Executive Council.

For new subsidiary legislation made by a Minister or other person or body, PCO generally publishes the instruments on this website on the day following receipt of signed copies of the instruments from the relevant agency.

Changes to legislation in the Acts in force and Subsidiary legislation in force collections are consolidated within 2 working days of the amending provision/s commencing.

The Acts ceased and Subsidiary legislation ceased collections are updated within 2 working days of the repeal or expiry of an Act or subsidiary legislation or it ceasing to be in force.

Currency dates for individual legislation can be found by clicking on the selected title to view current and previous versions (if any).

Currency start date

The currency start date is the date that the legislation first came into effect in that form.

This may be the commencement date of the legislation or a substantive amendment, the as at date of a reprint or when editorial powers are exercised under the Legislation Act 2021 Part 3. However, in some cases it may be the date that administrative information (e.g. information about provisions that have not come into operation) is inserted in the notes at the end of the legislation.

Currency end date

The currency end date is the date that the legislation ceased to be in effect in that form.

This may be because the legislation was amended or reprinted, editorial powers were exercised under the Legislation Act 2021 Part 3 or the legislation was updated with administrative information (e.g. information about provisions that have not come into operation) or repealed.

This website provides a document compare function. The compare documents on this website are a comparison between a version of legislation at a particular point in time (the “currency start” date) and the previous version of that legislation. The compare document is designed to highlight changes made to the legislation by amending legislation. It also shows editorial changes made under the Reprints Act 1984 or Legislation Act 2021 Part 3. For further details please see document compare.

Parliamentary Counsel’s Office incorporates amendments in the legislation on this website.

This website contains official and unofficial versions of WA legislation.

Official versions of legislation have legal status, and are presumed to correctly set out the text of the legislation. The Legislation Act 2021 section 17 gives that status to official versions of legislation as originally passed or made, and official versions of legislation with amendments incorporated. An official version is also evidence that any editorial changes made under Part 3 of the Act are authorised.

Official electronic versions

The Legislation Act 2021 section 15 provides as follows:

FAQ6 explains how to identify an official electronic version of legislation on this website.

Official hard copy versions

The Legislation Act 2021 section 16 provides as follows:

The Legislation Regulations 2021 regulation 8 sets out how to identify an official hard copy version of an Act or subsidiary legislation in cases where it is not produced directly from an official version on this website. This is relevant, for example, for copies of WA legislation published before 1 July 2023.

This website indicates that a law is official by way of a tick symbol on the PDF icon link for accessing or downloading the law.

An electronic version of an Act or subsidiary legislation published on or after 1 July 2023 also indicates that it is an official version by the coat of arms of the State appearing on the first page and the words “Official Version” appearing in the footer on each page. Earlier versions on this website do not include those indications but are official because they are available in PDF format and the PDF icon link to them contains the tick symbol.

Word, PDF and HTML

Only PDF versions are official. See FAQ5 and 6

The Legislation Act 2021 Part 3 authorises the Parliamentary Counsel to make editorial changes to keep laws up-to-date with contemporary drafting practice, simplify laws, and correct errors. This power to make editorial changes cannot, however, be used to change the effect of a law.

The Legislation Act 2021 section 17(3) provides that an official version of legislation is evidence that any editorial changes made under Part 3 of the Act are authorised.

The Legislation Act 2021 section 40 provides that an editorial change made to a law is treated in the same way as an amendment. It has the same effect as if the law had been amended by another law commencing on the day on which the change is made.

Editorial changes are noted in the Compilation table and the Editorial changes table. The Compilation table notes the creation of a new version of a law that contains editorial changes, while the Editorial changes table notes the provisions that have been editorially changed. To see the editorial changes included in a version of a law, see the compare document for that version on this website.

Responsibility for the administration of Acts (and in some cases particular parts of Acts) is determined from time to time by the Governor under the Interpretation Act 1984 section 12.

The Administration of Departments, Authorities, Statutes and Votes is published periodically in the WA Government Gazette, and changes from time to time.

The information is available on this website under the heading Acts with administering portfolios and public sector agencies. This information is updated frequently and sets out the Ministers who are responsible for the administration of particular Acts (or parts of them) and the relevant public sector agency.

This information is also displayed under the Act title in the Acts collection (the “Act home page”).

You can obtain this information in 2 ways:

• You can view the consolidated version of the legislation. At the end of the document, in the notes section, there are details of any amendments.
• The Legislation Information Acts or Subsidiary legislation. Legislation is displayed by title, with information about the Act or regulations, rules, etc., including whether it has been amended, and if so, details of the amending legislation.

Most Acts contain a commencement provision (usually section 2). If there is no commencement provision, the Act commences on the 28th day after the date it receives the Royal Assent (see the Interpretation Act 1984 section 20). At the end of the document, in the notes section, there are details of commencement.

The most common commencement times are:

• On a day fixed in the commencement provision of the Act;
• On a day (or days) to be fixed by proclamation (commonly referred to as “proclaimed”) and published on this website or before 1 July 2023 in the Gazette;
• On the date of Royal Assent (i.e. signing by the Governor).

Alternatively, you can view the Legislation Information Assent, commencement and ceasing information for Acts which shows the assent, commencement and ceasing information for all Acts passed.

By viewing the Legislation Information Acts in force. However you may need to obtain legal advice about whether an Act still applies.

By viewing the Legislation Information Subsidiary legislation in force.

This information is arranged by principal Acts under which subsidiary legislation and other instruments have been made, sorted alphabetically by title. Each entry gives repeal or expiry information.

For information concerning the anticipated proclamation of an Act, you should contact the Government department or public sector agency responsible for the Act. PCO cannot provide that information.

Before 1 July 2023, proclamations of Acts were published in the Gazette, available on this website.

From 1 July 2023, proclamations of Acts are published on this website.

Each footer contains:

• Page No.    Page number of the legislation.
• AsAtDate    The date that the particular consolidation commenced.
• Suffix    The code that describes the consolidated version of the legislation. See FAQ21.
• Official Version    This only appears on PDF versions and indicates that the document is an official version of the law. See FAQ5 and 6.

A reprint of legislation is an authorised consolidation of legislation printed by the Government Printer under the authority of the Reprints Act 1984. It incorporates all amendments in operation at the date shown on the reprint.

Any amending provisions not yet in force appear in the notes at the end of the reprint.

On 1 July 2023, the Reprints Act 1984 is repealed by the Legislation Act 2021 s. 45. The collection of reprints on this website continues to have official status.

Reprints are no longer necessary because official status is given to versions of legislation on this website that incorporate amendments. See FAQ5.

For all information regarding Bills, see the Parliament of Western Australia website www.parliament.wa.gov.au.

RSS feeds can be configured from pages where you see this symbol , or from our Notification Feeds page.

RSS Feeds of new Government Gazettes can also be configured from this page.

The SL number is a unique identifier assigned to subsidiary legislation published on this website, and appears in the format “SL 2023/1”. Where an instrument needs to be referenced in WA legislation other than by its title, it is referenced using this unique identifier.

This is an identifier used for internal PCO purposes and appears in the footer of legislation.

Example:  02  —  d0  —  00