Researching Legislation by Subject

On this page we look at how to identify legislation relevant to our research when we are not familiar with the legislation that concerns a particular aspect of law. There are a number of tools to assist us with this task.

• General Resources
• Indexes to Legislation
• 'Words and Phrases', and other legal dictionaries

General Resources

Textbooks

Legal textbooks typically contain indexes of legislation and cases discussed within the text. If you can locate a well-regarded text in the subject area you are researching, sometimes these can quickly and simply identify the leading legislation on the topic.

Legal Encyclopaedias

Legal encyclopaedias provide commentary on the current state of the law, with statute and case law authority in support of each legal proposition.  Once you have located the relevant entry in the legal encyclopaedias, refer to the footnotes and legislation cited for legislative authority for all Australian jurisdictions. In the screenshot below, the entry defining occupiers liability also provides a "Legislation Mentioned" link, which provides legislative authority in support of the entry.

Please refer to the webpage on legal encyclopaedias for more information on researching using legal encyclopaedias.

Indexes to Legislation

Subject Index to South Australian Legislation (SISAL)

This is a simple subject listing of South Australian legislation with links to the full-text of the Acts.

• select Click here to enter
• displayed is an alphabetical index with subject headings listed in normal text, titles of Acts in italics, and an alphabetical browse location bar across the bottom of screen
• each Act title is linked to the homepage of the Act of the SA Legislation website.
• The screenshot below shows five Acts listed under the topic 'Trade practices'.  Clicking on any of the Act titles will direct you to the full-text of the Act.

Wicks Subject Index to Commonwealth Legislation

(Reference Collection Stack REF 1)

Wicks is only available in print, not online. It is a single annual volume which lists Commonwealth legislation under the applicable subject heading and is very simple to use.

Lawlex

Lawlex is an internet database which trawls the government legislation websites (Commonwealth and State) to search and retrieve official forms of legislation. Lawlex also offers links to related legislative information such as Bills, Explanatory memorandum, second reading speeches, and associated regulations.

Lawlex classifies and provides subject access to legislation which can be browsed by subject category, or you may use the full text search to look for words or phrases which occur within legislation, much as you would with AustLII. Note, however, that because the Lawlex search engine is required to search quite differently structured legislation sites, the results are often far from perfect. It is also necessary to make sure that the terminology used is that used in the legislation itself - not always an easy thing to do if you are unfamiliar with the topic.

Browsing Lawlex

• Within the Legislative Alerts and Premium Research box, select Search legislation, which takes you to a keyword title or full text search
• Select the Browse legislation tab and note how you can then limit your browse by jurisdiction
• Locate the subjects listed and choose an appropriate subject, clicking on the + symbol to view the categories and sub-categories, until you come to the list of Acts indexed under a particular category

Searching Lawlex

• select the Search Legislation tab
• note the radio buttons to select either an Act title search, or to search within the full-text of the Act
• note also the jurisdiction and type of legislation options
• results will be organised by jurisdiction so remember to select the next jurisdiction to be taken to the next group of results
• results will only provide Act titles then links to the homepage of the Act on Lawlex, not to the text within the Act where your search terms occur
• the Act can then be accessed from the homepage and a search within the text of the Act can be performed (eg. using the Find option <ctrl F> if it is a pdf document)

'Words and Phrases' and other legal dictionaries

Australian Legal Words and Phrases

(Reference Collection Stack REF 1)

This 3 volume work is an alphabetical listing of over 100,000 words and phrases drawn from Australian legislation, updated annually. Adjacent to each phrase or word is the Act name and section in which the term occurs, and any cases which might discuss that section of the Act.

It can therefore be a handy tool for finding Acts which deal with a particular concept or phrase.

For example: Australian Legal Words and Phrases tells us the phrase "Place outside Australia" occurs in the following legislation:

• Customs Act 1901 (Cth) s.4
• Excise Act 1901 (Cth) s.4(1)

Encyclopaedic Australian Legal Dictionary

This online dictionary on LexisNexis AU might be searched for specific terms as defined in Acts or case law, so it provides a means to identify legislation that deals with defined terms. Like many online resources, the dictionary can be browsed alphabetically, or you can enter specific search terms.