Explanatory Notes (ENs) are documents that are issued with bills. They are written in plain English and are intended to explain the purpose of a bill. Explanatory Notes may be used for statutory interpretation, see the Acts Interpretation Act 1954 (Qld) s14B.
Sources of Queensland Explanatory Notes
| Queensland Legislation (OQPC) |
- Coverage: November 1992-
- Explanatory notes are listed alongside the relevant bill.
- Browse by year – bills are listed alphabetically within each year. Scroll down to find the bill, then click on the document icon in the ‘Exp Note’ column to access the explanatory note. (The ‘purchase’ link at the right hand side is for print copies of bills).
- To search full text, use the advanced search and select ‘Bills introduced’ from the ‘collection’ menu. The results list contains a mixture of bills and explanatory notes.
- Provided by the Office of the Queensland Parliamentary Counsel.
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| Parliament |
- Coverage: links to explanatory notes 2006-; bills register 1996-
- Browse bills by title – current session or previous sessions. There will be a link to the EN along with a link to the full text of the bill and the explanatory speech.
- The bills register is useful for determining whether a bill was amended during its passage through Parliament. If so, check to see whether an explanatory note was issued for the amendment, as the original may no longer be relevant.
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| Lawlex |
- Coverage: 1993
- Explanatory notes 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 ‘QLD’, then click search.
- On the ‘home page’ for the Act or bill, click on the ‘Explanatory Notes’ link in the ‘related links’ section.
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| AustLII |
- Coverage: 1999-
- Browse by title or by year.
- Use ‘name search’ to search the titles of bills. (ENs are listed under bill title.)
- Use ‘database search’ to search the full text of ENs.
- Once you have located the explanatory statement, click on the ‘download’ tab to access the PDF version.
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| GovPubs |
- Contains information about print holdings of the Record of the Legislative Acts passed by the Parliament of Queensland (predecessor to explanatory notes) in the National Library and State / Territory Libraries.
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Information about Queensland Explanatory Notes
| GovPubs |
- Contains a brief history of Queensland explanatory notes (and predecessor documents) along with details of where to find them – some are online, others can be found in hard copy in the National Library and State / Territory Libraries.
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| Guidelines for the preparation of explanatory notes |
- Contains information about the purpose and structure of explanatory notes. Contains a useful list of references and further reading.
- Published by the Department of the Premier and Cabinet.
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Last updated: 6 April 2014
