SCALEplus FAQ's

Frequently Asked Questions

How can I find how up-to-date material in SCALEplus is?

The opening page of each database in SCALEplus provides a description of what the database contains and information about when the database was last updated.

The numbered statute databases (like 'Numbered Acts 1973+' or 'Numbered Statutory Rules 1979+') also show the year/number of the latest piece of legislation that was added. Databases of consolidated legislation (like 'Acts - Current Compilations' and 'Statutory Rules (including Regulations) - Current Compilations') are continually updated, and the legislation in those databases should represent the current state of the legislation. Note that in 'Acts - Current Compilations' and 'Statutory Rules (including Regulations) - Current Compilations' you will be warned if there are amendments affecting the legislation that have not yet been incorporated.

You can access the opening page of a database in SCALEplus from the SCALEplus Home Page and by clicking on the database you want. Alternatively, you can click on 'Browse Databases' and then click on the database.

How can I find an up-to-date version of an Act or Statutory Rule in SCALEplus?

Up-to-date versions of Acts and Statutory Rules (which includes Regulations) are located in the Current Compilations databases. There is one for Acts and one for Statutory Rules (ie. 'Acts - Current Compilations', 'Statutory Rules (including Regulations) - Current Compilations').

How can I find an Act that has just been passed by Parliament in SCALEplus?

There are 2 databases that contain this information. The information is presented alphabetically in the 'Numbered Acts 1973+ - Alphabetical Listing' database, and by year in Act number order in the 'Numbered Acts 1973+ - Numberical Listing' database. Generally new Acts are added to SCALEplus not long after Royal Assent.

How can I find a Regulation in SCALEplus?

If you are looking for the latest compiled version of a regulation you need to go to the 'Statutory Rules (including Regulations) - Current Compilations' database. Individually numbered regulations can be found in the 'Numbered Statutory Rules (including Regulations) 1979+ - Alphabetical Listing' database if you are browsing by title or in the 'Numbered Statutory Rules (including Regulations) 1979+ - Numerical Listing' database if you are browsing by year and statutory rule number.

How can I find a Regulation that has just been made in SCALEplus?

There are 2 databases that contain this information. The information is presented alphabetically in the 'Numbered Statutory Rules (including Regulations) 1979+ - Alphabetical Listing', and by year in statutory rule number order in the 'Statutory Rules (including Regulations) 1979+ - Numerical Listing' database. New Statutory Rules are generally added to SCALEplus on the day on which they are gazetted.

How can I find out what amendments have been made to an Act or Statutory Rule and when those amendments came into force?

Each compilation of an Act or a Statutory Rule in SCALEplus contains this information. To find the amendment history for an Act or Statutory Rule, browse to the Act or Statutory Rule you want, click on 'List of Sections' or 'List of Regulations' and scroll to the Notes section for the compilation. The Notes section is at the end of the compilation and contains a listing of the name of each Act/Statutory Rule that has amended the compilation together with commencement details and other relevant information for each amendment. If you want to see the amendment history for a particular provision of an Act or Statutory Rule, the table of amendments provides this information.

How can I find caselaw in SCALEplus?

SCALEplus no longer provides access to Commonwealth and State caselaw. All the caselaw data that was previously in SCALEplus is available from a number of other Sites which include, in many cases, the source information provider. SCALEplus provides links to these Other Sites.

How can I find State and Territory legislation in SCALEplus?

With the exception of the non-selfgoverning territories, SCALEplus no longer provides access to State and Territory legislation. All State and Territory legislation is now available from State and Territory legislation sites. SCALEplus provides links to these Other Sites.

What is a 'Compilation'?

A compilation of an Act or Statutory Rule is a representation of that Act or Statutory Rule as at a particular date (the compilation date). The compiled Act or Statutory Rule incorporates all the amendments that have been made to it since the Act was first passed or the Statutory Rule first made up to and including the compilation date. The latest and most up-to-date versions of Acts and Statutory Rules can be found in the 'Acts - Current Compilations' and 'Statutory Rules (including Regulations) - Current Compilations' databases. To view the compilation date for an Act or Statutory Rule, browse for the Act or Statutory Rule, click on 'List of Sections' or 'List of Regulations' and then on 'Compilation Information'. The date the compilation was prepared will be displayed. The text of any amendments that are not in force on the date when the compilation is prepared can be found in the Notes section to that compilation. Where amendments to a compiled Act or Statutory Rule are yet to be incorporated a warning notice will be displayed indicating the amendments that have not been incorporated and providing a link to those amendments.

Previous compilations of Acts and Statutory Rules can be found in the 'Acts - Historial compilations' and 'Statutory Rules (including Regulations) - Historical compilations' databases. If you want to see an Act or Statutory Rule as it was at a particular point in time, the historical databases are the place to look. There is also an historical database for instruments.

What is a 'Statutory Rule'?

The term 'Statutory Rule' encompasses a range of instruments that have been made as part of the Statutory Rules series of instruments and printed in accordance with the provisions of the Statutory Rules Publication Act 1903. The Statutory Rules series comprises mainly regulations as well as rules of court. The Statutory Rules series also includes a small number of other instruments.

What is a 'Commonwealth Reserved Law'?

Following passage of the Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act 1988, the Governor-General retained the power under s 12 of the Seat of Government (Administration) Act 1910 to make laws (known as ordinances) on a narrow range of topics eg. classification of materials for censorship, land used or intended to be used for Commonwealth purposes (national land) and companies. Those laws which continue to apply in the ACT are administered by the Commonwealth. Very few ordinances have been made since self-government.

What's the best way to find what I want in SCALEplus? Searching vs browsing

If you know what you are looking for, the best way to find it in SCALEplus is to browse for it. Browsing is like using the index in the back of a book, and is a much better way of getting to a known document; for example, a compilation of an Act in 'Acts - Current Compilations'. You can browse a database in SCALEplus by clicking the link to that database from the SCALEplus Home Page. Alternatively, you can click on Browse Databases, select the database you wish to browse and navigate to the document you want.

Searching is asking a question of the database (or databases) - for example, if you are trying to find a reference to a word or a phrase like 'legal professional privilege' you would search for this. To search in SCALEplus, select the databases you wish to search using Select Databases, click on Quick Search to go to the Quick Search screen, insert the search word or phrase in the search box and click enter. The SCALEplus search engine will find all the documents in SCALEplus that contain that word or phrase. The Advanced Search screen, which provides additional searching options, including zone searching, lets you target your search to particular parts of a document and by doing so, retrieve more relevant and useful documents.

Think, too, about search vs browse. If what you want to do is see the text of an Act it is better to browse rather than search. From the SCALEplus Home Page or using Browse Databases you can select the appropriate database from the list and then navigate your way through the list of titles (alphabetical or chronological, depending on the data) until you get to the document you want.

Here are two examples. The first shows how to browse to a copy of the Explanatory Memorandum for the Employee Protection (Employee Entitlements Guarantee) Bill 2001:
Browse Databases
--->Explanatory Memoranda for Bills 1996+
--->2001 Explanatory Memoranda
---->click List of Memoranda to view all the explanatory memoranda for 2001
--->Employee Protection (Employee Entitlements Guarantee) Bill 2001

As another example, if you want to see the up-to-date copy of the Corporations Act 2001:
Browse Databases
-->Acts - Current Compilations
--->Browse Acts beginning with Co...
--->Corporations Act 2001 ...
--->List of Sections ...

Note: You can only download documents in SCALEplus if you have browsed to locate them.

Can I type my searches in any case?

Search terms should be entered either entirely in upper case or entirely in lower case but should not mixed. For example, in SCALEplus VICTORIA or victoria are synonymous. If, however, you mix the case up, for example Victoria, the SCALEplus search engine assumes you want that explicit case mix and will only retrieve that exact match. This feature can be useful especially in searching for legislation section numbers like 52Ab.

Why do I get an error when searching?

The most frequent cause of an error when searching is the use of parentheses in a search string (lots of legislation use them in the title - for example, Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977). Parentheses (and some other special characters, for example, $, /, .) are not indexed by the SCALEplus search engine and need to be replaced in your search string by spaces. For example:

administrative decisions judicial review NOT administrative decisions (judicial review)

What are zones and how are they used?

Zones enable you to target your search to particular parts of a document and to retrieve more relevant and useful documents. Zones are applied around the logical make-up of each document. In legislation that means name (title), individual sections, notes, tables and schedules. Zones are easy to use. Go to the Advanced Search screen and use the pull-down menu. From there it is easy to search for example for 'life imprisonment' in the whole document (ie. text) of an Act.

What do the characters '<' and '>' mean in my search results?

When you search for a word or a term in SCALEplus the search word or term you chose will show in your retrieved documents like this: <>. For example, if you searched on the word 'crimes', and then accessed each of your search results, each occurrence of the word 'crimes' would be marked as < crimes >.

Clicking on '>' will take you to the next occurrence of the word 'crimes' in the document and clicking on '<' will take you to the previous occurrence.

To see the Next or Previous document go back to the Results List and use the '<' and '>' angle brackets to navigate to each occurrence of the search term in the document.

Why does SCALEplus give me a search result list consisting of sections of an Act or provisions of an instrument and not the whole Act or instrument?

A lot of the legislation on SCALEplus is very large. SCALEplus data is formatted in HTML (hypertext mark up language) which is common to all World Wide Web applications but is ideally suited for one or a few pages. That is because to view a document you have to wait for the browser to load it (often over a modem) which can take quite some time particularly for large documents. Because of this it was decided to turn each piece of legislation into a number of HTML files, each file being a section or a provision of the legislation. What you see in a search results list are the html files that have been found that match your search. For legislation this will be a section of an Act or a provision of an instrument.

How do I select multiple databases?

By default only the Commonwealth Legislation databases are made available for searching when you come in to SCALEplus.

If you want to search one database, some or a group of databases go the SCALEplus Home Page and click on 'Select Databases'. From here you can turn databases off or on, select individual databases or click on a group button to select all databases in that group.

You must click the 'Set' button to make the changes effective.

Once this is done searches from then on will only be against the databases you have selected.

Note: You can use the 'Set Preferences' button so that SCALEplus remembers your database selections between sessions.

Why does this site use 'Cookies'?

When I access this site I get a warning saying that the site is sending me a 'Cookie'. What is this all about?

A 'Cookie' is a token that is passed to your browser and your browser passes it back to SCALEplus whenever a page is sent. SCALEplus currently has over 30 databases. In order to keep track of what databases are currently selected by a user, SCALEplus records your database selection as a 'Cookie' and retransmits it for every search.

SCALEplus is a completely confidential system. No records are kept of who has accessed the site other than broad geographical statistics. Our Feedback form allows anonymous submissions if you wish.

What types of databases does SCALEplus contain?

The databases in SCALEplus are divided into 3 groups:

Commonwealth Legislation
Territory Legislation
Historical Databases

What's in the 'Commonwealth Legislation' databases?

The following provides information about the contents of each of the Commonwealth legislation databases in SCALEplus.

Acts - Current Compilations - This database contains up-to-date copies of all Commonwealth Acts that are currently in force. The Acts may be unamended principal Acts or compilations (ie. the principal or base Act and any amendments which are in force incorporated into that principal or base). Where an amendment is yet to be incorporated a warning notice will appear. Where a compilation of an Act contains uncommenced amendments the uncommenced amendments are located in the Notes at the back of the compilation.

Numbered Acts 1973+ - Alphabetical Listing - This database contains all the individual numbered Acts that have been made since 1973 presented in alphabetical order. The Acts can be principal Acts or amending Acts.

Numbered Acts 1973+ - Numerical Listing - This database contains all the individual numbered Acts that have been made since 1973 presented in year and number order. The Acts can be principal Acts or amending Acts.

Statutory Rules (including Regulations) - Current Compilations - This database contains up-to-date copies of all Commonwealth Statutory Rules that are currently in force. Statutory Rules comprise mainly Regulations, but also include Rules of Court and a range of other instruments. The Statutory Rules may be unamended principal Statutory Rules or compilations (ie. the principal or base Statutory Rule and any amendments which are in force incorporated into that principal or base). Where an amendment is yet to be incorporated a warning notice will appear. Where a compilation of a Statutory Rule contains uncommenced amendments the uncommenced amendments are located in the Notes at the back of the compilation.

Numbered Statutory Rules (including Regulations) 1979+ - Alphabetical Listing - This database contains all the individually numbered Statutory Rules that have been made since 1979 presented in alphabetical order. The Statutory Rules can be principal Statutory Rules or amending Statutory Rules. New Statutory Rules are added to this database on the date of gazettal.

Numbered Statutory Rules (including Regulations) 1979+ - Numerical Listing - This database contains all the individual numbered Statutory Rules that have been made since 1979 presented in year and number order. The Statutory Rules can be principal Statutory Rules or amending Statutory Rules. New Statutory Rules are added to this database on the date of gazettal.

Explanatory Statements of Statutory Rules - Alphabetical Listing - This database contains the text of explanatory statements for all statutory rules from 1991 onwards in alphabetical order.

Explanatory Statements of Statutory Rules - Numerical Listing - This database contains the text of explanatory statements for all statutory rules from 1991 onwards in year and number order.

Instruments made under legislation - This database contains a range of instruments that have been made under a Commonwealth Act or other delegated legislation. The database is not comprehensive.

Bills 1996+ - This database contains the full text of Bills laid before the Commonwealth Parliament from 1996 onwards.

Explanatory Memoranda for Bills 1996+ - This database contains the full text of explanatory memoranda for Bills laid before the Commonwealth Parliament from 1996 onwards.

What's in the 'Territory Legislation' databases?

The 'Territory Legislation' databases contain the legislation (both Ordinances and Regulations) of the non-selfgoverning Territories of the Commonwealth.

Ashmore and Cartier Islands: Numbered Ordinances Numbered Regulations; Compiled Ordinances Compiled Regulations

Australian Antarctic Territory: Numbered Ordinances Numbered Regulations; Compiled Ordinances Compiled Regulations

Christmas Island - Numbered Ordinances: Numbered Ordinances Numbered Regulations; Compiled Ordinances Compiled Regulations

Cocos-Keeling Island: Numbered Ordinances Numbered Regulations; Compiled Ordinances Compiled Regulations

Coral Sea Islands Territory: Numbered Ordinances Numbered Regulations; Compiled Ordinances Compiled Regulations

Heard Island and McDonald Islands: Numbered Ordinances Numbered Regulations; Compiled Ordinances Compiled Regulations

Jervis Bay Territory: Numbered Ordinances Numbered Regulations; Compiled Ordinances Compiled Regulations

What's in the Historical Databases?

As new, up-to-date compilations are added to SCALEplus, the previous compilations are moved to an Historical Database. If you want to see an item of legislation as it looked at a particular date, the historical databases are the place to look. The historical databases also contain legislation of the Commonwealth that is no longer in force. The historical databases in SCALEplus are:

Commonwealth Historical Databases

Acts - Historical Compilations

Statutory Rules (including Regulations) - Historical Compilations

Instruments - Historical

Territory Historical Databases

Ashmore and Cartier Islands

Australian Antarctic Territory

Christmas Island

Cocos-Keeling Island

Coral Sea Islands Territory

Heard Island and McDonald Islands

Jervis Bay Territory

Where is AGIS on this site?

AGIS, which is produced by the Lionel Murphy Library of the Australian Attorney-General's Department is not available on the free-to-air SCALEplus site.

It is available on the AUSTROM CD-ROM produced by RMIT Publishing: http://www.rmitpublishing.com.au. It is also available on the Internet (by subscription) through Informit Online - see http://www.informit.com.au.

The printed fortnightly issues of AGIS are available on subscription - please contact the AGIS Manager for further details.

The contact person in the Lionel Murphy Library for AGIS matters is Karyn Gladwish.

What is 'Popular Legislation' in SCALEplus?

There are more than 1500 Acts and around 1000 Statutory Rules (including Regulations) of the Commonwealth of Australia currently in force. All of those Acts and Statutory Rules are available in SCALEplus. However, just as in a bookshop, there are some titles which are best-sellers and which people ask for again and again. The titles that we have identified as best-sellers (based on sales of printed copies) have been included in the table found by clicking the Popular Legislation button. Links are provided from the table to take you to the latest compilation of the legislation.

The full set of all Acts is in the 'Acts - Current Compilations' database and the full set of all Statutory Rules (including Regulations) is in the 'Statutory Rules (including Regulations) - Current Compilations' database.