New South Wales Second Reading Speeches

The Second Reading speech is given by the Minister or Member who is introducing the bill. It outlines the purpose of the bill and is recorded in Hansard (Parliamentary debates). The Second Reading speech may be used in statutory interpretation (Interpretation Act 1987 s 34).

From 2007 – April 2012 this speech was known as the ‘Agreement in Principle speech’ in the Legislative Assembly.

Sources of NSW Second Reading speeches

Parliament	Coverage: Hansard by bill 1991- Click on the first letter of the bill title, then scroll to find the relevant bill. Click on the title to show the bill’s passage through Parliament. Select the earliest link labelled ‘Second Reading’ (or ‘Agreement in principle’). For speeches 1973- you can search the full text of Hansard or browse by date. See ‘other indexes of records to legislative proceedings‘ for information about earlier Parliamentary debates. Includes selected scanned indexes to volumes of Hansard. To find the page reference for a Second Reading speech: go to the ‘index to subjects’, then look under ‘Bills’, then look for the title of the bill in the alphabetical list. The first ‘2R’ reference in each House is for the Second Reading speech.
Lawlex	Coverage: 1991- Second Reading Speeches are linked to the record for both the Act and the bill. Note that the free version of Lawlex only provides access to current bills (a deeper archive is available to subscribers). Type in the name of the Act or bill in the ‘keywords’ field and the year in the ‘year from’ field. Set the jurisdiction to ‘NSW’, then click search. On the home page for the Act or bill, click on ‘Hansard – 2nd Reading Speech’ in the ‘related links’ section.
GovPubs	Contains information about print holdings of Hansard in the National Library and State / Territory Libraries.

Information about NSW Hansard & Second Reading speeches

Parliament	Hansard overview Legislative Process Explained including information on the Second Reading stage in the passage of a bill through Parliament Indexes to records of Parliamentary proceedings Includes indexes to the print volumes of Hansard for 1973-2010. Hansard in the Parliament of NSW (History Bulletin 7) Glossary of NSW Parliamentary terms
GovPubs	Contains brief notes on the publication history of Hansard in NSW, plus details of indexes to historical Hansard.

Historical note:

1831-1879	Parliamentary debates published in the Sydney Morning Herald.
1880 onwards	Parliamentary debates published in Hansard.

Last updated: 7 April 2019