+-COVID-19: State of Emergency declarations and directions

Published by the Department of the Premier and Cabinet.

For queries please use the contact details available through this link. Please do not use the Parliamentary Counsel’s Office helpdesk function.

+-New Premier’s Circular 2021/07 - Subsidiary legislation - Explanatory Memoranda

On 22 December 2021 a new Premier’s Circular Number: 2021/07 was released in relation to the requirements of the Joint Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation.

The new circular now incorporates the procedure agreed between the Joint Standing Committee and PCO with respect to minor consequential amendments affecting more than 1 portfolio. The new circular also allows agencies to make use of the document compare versions of subsidiary legislation made available on this website by PCO.

The new circular replaces Premier’s Circular 2014/01. For further details please see here.

+-Document compares now available for subsidiary legislation

This website now contains document compare versions of subsidiary legislation in force, in addition to the existing compare functionality for Acts in force.
The compare documents 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.
For technical information see Document Compare. There is a very small number of documents without the compare version due to technical and formatting issues.

+- Legislation Act 2021 assented to

The Legislation Act 2021 received the Royal Assent on 24 August 2021. This is a major step forward in making the processes for publishing WA legislation more efficient and cost-effective, improving public access to WA legislation and reducing the cost to government of publishing WA legislation.

The Act sets out the responsibilities for publishing WA legislation, provides for the official status of both hard copy and electronic versions of WA legislation and gives the Parliamentary Counsel’s Office a more useful set of editorial powers so that WA legislation can be kept up-to-date, modernised and simplified, and errors in it can be corrected, without the need for the changes to be enacted by Parliament. The Reprints Act 1984 will be repealed. In line with conferring official status on electronic versions of WA legislation, the electronic version of the Gazette will also be given official status.

The substantive provisions of the Legislation Act 2021, and the amendments it makes to other Acts, will come into operation on proclamation. This will involve a number of changes to current processes. The need to finalise those changes and to draft the regulations required to support the Act will determine when the substantive provisions of the Act can be proclaimed. It is envisaged that this will happen by mid 2022.

+-Change to arrangements for purchasing printed copies of WA legislation

Starting on 1 July 2021, printed copies of WA legislation will no longer be available for purchase from the State Law Publisher (SLP).

The Government Printer of Western Australia has authorised commercial printing company LitSupport (TIMG) Pty Ltd to supply printed copies of WA legislation. A new facility that links directly from the WA legislation website to LitSupport’s online ordering system streamlines the process of ordering printed copies of WA legislation.

To find out more about how the new online ordering process works, see About buying printed Western Australian legislation.

+- Legislation Bill 2021 introduced into Parliament

The Legislation Bill 2021 was introduced into Parliament on the 29th April 2021.

The purpose of this bill is to provide for public access to Western Australian legislation; and to provide for the official status of published versions of Western Australian legislation; and to provide for Western Australian legislation to be kept in an up-to-date form and consistent with current drafting practice; and repeal the Reprints Act 1984.

See also WA Reprint Powers Discussion Paper.

+-Provisions not yet in force

There has been a change to the way uncommenced provisions are shown in legislation published on this website. For further details see Acts in force or Subsidiary legislation in force information.

+-Changes to copyright arrangements for Western Australian legislation

On November 13, 2019 the Attorney General made a statement in Parliament announcing the granting of a creative commons licence for this website.

For further details, please see:

+-New numbering and referencing regime for certain instruments published in Gazette

A new numbering regime for various instruments (principally subsidiary legislation and some related instruments) published in the Gazette was introduced on 1 January 2020. This affects how these instruments are referenced in legislation.

+ - Changes in 2020

From the start of 2020, subsidiary legislation and some related instruments published in the Gazette are allocated a unique identifier, in the format “SL 2020/1”. The identifier will appear in the Gazette as set out in the example below. Where an instrument needs to be referenced in WA legislation other than by its title, it will be referenced using this unique identifier.

This change was introduced to simplify the way in which these instruments are referenced, and to ensure that each instrument is uniquely identifiable.

+ - Referencing

The principal effect of this change is to the way in which Compilation Tables and endnotes in consolidated versions of WA legislation refer to subsidiary legislation and related instruments. Here is the compilation table for the Jetties Regulations 1940. If the Jetties Amendment Regulations 2020 are published in the Gazette on 1 January 2020, they will be given the reference “SL 2020/1” and included as highlighted in the compilation table as follows:

Endnotes relate to particular provisions of an enactment, and set out the history of a provision, including amendments made by other enactments.

The Gazette reference appearing in this endnote refers to regulations that amend these regulations. The new numbering regime will apply to amending regulations, and they will be referred to in the new format in future. The following example shows an endnote with an amendment referred to in the new format:

+-State Law Publisher Services

PCO assumed responsibility for the hosting of this website from the State Law Publisher in 2018.

The following service is now provided by the Department of the Premier and Cabinet: