Commencement of the Legislation Act 2021 - 1 July 2023
The Legislation Act 2021 (the Act) aims to modernise the processes for publishing Western Australian legislation and make it easy to find, use and understand.
The substantive provisions of the Act, and the amendments it makes to other Acts, come into operation on 1 July 2023. The Legislation Regulations 2023, which are required to support the Act, also commence on 1 July 2023.
The Legislation Regulations 2023 Part 2 specifies what must, or may, be published on the Western Australian legislation website (WALW). From 1 July 2023, the following must be published on the WALW:
- all regulations made by the Governor under an Act, and certain other regulations;
- all rules of court;
- certain rules, by-laws, orders and notices made under specified Acts;
- Imperial enactments that are part of the law of WA by virtue of WA Acts that adopted them or the Act under which they are made;
- proclamations made after 1 July 2023 that commence an Act or part of an Act;
- the Letters Patent relating to the Office of Governor of the State of Western Australia 1986.
The Parliamentary Counsel is also authorised to publish certain other material on the WALW. See regulation 5.
Changes to the WA legislation website
The Legislation Act 2021 provides official status to certain electronic versions of laws that are published on the WALW.
The Act and the Regulations set out how an official version (electronic or hard copy) of a law or related material is identified. From 1 July 2023, users of the WALW will notice a number of changes:
- the WALW will indicate that a law is official by way of a tick symbol on the PDF icon
for accessing or downloading the law; - an electronic version of an Act or subsidiary legislation published on or after 1 July 2023 will indicate that it is an official version by the presence of the coat of arms of the State on the first page and the words “Official Version” appearing in the footer on each page. Earlier versions on the WALW will not include those indications but will be official because they will be available in PDF format and the PDF icon link to them will contain the prescribed tick symbol;
- versions of subsidiary legislation as made will indicate on the first page the date when they were first published on the WALW. For the purposes of commencement of subsidiary legislation, this date replaces the date of publication in the Gazette.
Publication of subsidiary legislation
The main change will be the way in which subsidiary legislation is published. Most subsidiary legislation will be published on the WALW instead of in the Gazette. Electronic versions of subsidiary legislation published on the WALW can be accessed here: WALW - Original subsidiary legislation as made.
To access instruments that continue to be published in the Gazette, see here: Government Gazettes.
Electronic versions of Gazette given official status
Electronic versions of the Gazette (whenever published) are given official status by way of a new definition of Gazette in the Interpretation Act 1984, section 5, as replaced by the Legislation Act 2021 section 48(2).
Other aspects of Legislation Act 2021
The Explanatory Memorandum for the Legislation Bill 2021 contains a detailed explanation of the contents of the Act. See: Legislation Bill 2021 Explanatory Memorandum.
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