Search Help: In Force and Repealed
This screen enables you to search consolidated in force and repealed legislation. These databases are partitioned into three major types of legislation: Acts, Regulations etc, and Environmental Planning Instruments (EPIs).
Before searching, you should first select the database and types of legislation you wish to search by selecting the appropriate check box/es in the area under "What do you want to search over?" The default search selection is over the "Acts in Force" and "Regs etc In Force" databases.
There are two forms of searching, the most commonly used being the Standard search. The two forms of searching operate exclusively and separate search buttons are provided for that reason. (The Advanced search feature is for more specialised searching using Command Control Language. Boolean operators should not be used in the Standard search.)
The Standard search has a range of pre-defined search fields that are listed below and it also enables you to search over the text or title of legislation and to limit your search to a particular year and/or instrument number.
These fields enable you to limit your search as follows:
exact phrase
will find only those documents that contain those words as a phrase.
all of the words
will find provisions in documents that contain all of the words that you enter in this field. For example, this search can be used to find documents with sections or other provisions that contain all of the words "offence", "penalty" and "defence".
any of the words
will find those documents that contain any one of the words that you enter in this field.
without the words
will find provisions in documents that do NOT contain the words that you enter in this field. This field is often used in combination with the other fields, for example to find sections or other provisions in documents that contain the word "offence" but not the word "imprisonment".
You can enter words into all or some of the input fields shown—the search will take them all into account.
The search fields are not case sensitive and do not require quotation marks around words or phrases.
The wildcard characters "?" (any number of characters) and "#" (exactly one character) can be used in all fields except exact phrase - see Advanced search.
Search in
The "text" and "title" selections cause the search to be applied to either the text of documents or to legislation titles.
Note. A "title" search covers the official titles of legislation, not the titles of Chapters, Parts, Schedules etc.
Limit search to year/number will apply the search to instruments assented to or made in that year, or with that instrument number.
If you want more control over your searching, you can use the Advanced Search option. It requires queries to be entered using the Common Command Language (CCL)—an international standard for text queries.
Please note that the Search scope that you have selected with the checkboxes under the "What do you want to search over" field DOES apply to the Advanced Search.
Note also that if you type a query into the Advanced Search field, then no other field will be taken into account, except the search scope, ie the types of legislation you chose to search under the "What do you want to search over?" field.
Advanced Search options such as Boolean operators and proximity queries will return results of documents that contain individual provisions (such as sections) that meet the search criteria. These types of Advanced Searches only apply at that provision level and are not applied to the document as a whole.
CCL features are outlined below
AND, OR, NOT can be used between terms.
For example jury AND district NOT sheriff
Using the syntax "FIELD=word", the search can be restricted to individual fields. Useful fields in this database include:
Text: The full text of the document.
Title: The title of the Act, Statutory Instrument etc.
ActNo: Act Numbers.
SRNo: Statutory Instrument Numbers.
EPINo: Environmental Planning Instrument Numbers.
Year: Year of Act, Statutory Instrument, EPI.
Heading: Text of all headings for Chapters, Parts, Divisions etc.
An example fielded search is Heading=certified and Text=appeal
Fielded searches are NOT available for the Search As Made or Search Bills.
? means any number of characters and # means exactly one character.
For example:
fee? would match "fee","feedlots","fees"
wom#n would match "woman" or "women"
If you want to search for two words near each other then the "%" character can be used to indicate the number of words you will allow between the two terms, whatever the order of the words.
If you want to search for words near each other in a particular order, then the "!" character can be used to indicate the number of words you will allow between the two terms.
For example:
right %3 appeal would find "right" and "appeal" within 3 words of each other, in any order.
right !3 appeal would find the words within 3 words of each other where "right" occurs before "appeal".
Parentheses can be used to group search terms.
For example, to find expressions such as the Corporations Act, Companies Act, Corporations Code or Companies Code use the following syntax:
(corporations OR companies) %3 (code OR act)
Similarly you can combine proximity and grouping searches. For example:
building %3 (code OR regulation) OR building !3 (code OR regulation)
would find "code" or "regulation" where occurring after "building".
To modify or refine your search, go back to the search screen or select search again. Your search criteria will show and can be modified and the search run again. To start a new search, click the clear button at top right on the search screen.
- =
- For phrases & numbers,
=means search for values the same as the given value
For dates/times,=means search for this exact day/time - >
- For phrases,
>means search for values alphabetically after the given value
For numbers,>means search for values numerically greater than the given value
For dates/times,>means search for after this date/time - <
- For phrases,
<means search for values alphabetically before the given value
For numbers,>means search for values numerically less than the given value
For dates/times,<means search for before this date/time - <>
- For phrases & numbers,
<>means search for values that are not the same as the given value
For dates/times,<>means search for days/times outside the given value - >=
- Will search for values matching either
=or> - <=
- Will search for values matching either
=or<
- Last Modified
- All versions since the given date that have been modified in any way (with or without a publication.date or first.valid.date change)
FormatYYYYMMDDhhmmss
For example20180712143000
(for 12 July 2018, 2.30 pm)
Use a trailing 000000 (in place of the time) for the beginning of the day.
You can also use a trailing?, to mean at any time for that day;20180712? - Last Updated
- All versions since given date that have been modified with a change that includes a publication.date or first.valid.date change
FormatYYYYMMDDhhmmss
For example20180712143000
(for 12 July 2018, 2.30 pm)
Use 000000 for the beginning of the day. - FirstValidDate
- The first.valid.date metadata for a version.
FormatYYYY-MM-DD
For example:FirstValidDate=2018-07-01 - LastValidDate
- The last.valid.date metadata for a version.
FormatYYYY-MM-DD
For example:LastValidDate=2018-06-30 - Type
- Available types are:
act
epi
subordleg - Year
- The year the legislative instrument was assented to or made
Examples
For Crimes Act 1900 No 40, the year is1900
For Statutory and Other Offices Remuneration Act 1975 (1976 No 4), the year is1976
For Oaths Regulation 2011, the year is2011(or the year if it was made, if that is different from the year in the citation – the year in the ID for the instrument is the year made) - No
- The number of the legislative instrument
Examples:
For Crimes Act 1900 No 40, the number is40
For Environmental Planning and Assessment Regulation 2000 (557), the number is557 - Title
- The title of the legislative instrument
Example
For Crimes Act 1900 No 40, the title is"Crimes Act 1900"
Remember to wrap phrases of multiple words in double-quotes - Repealed
- The repealed status of the legislative instrument
Nfor no
Yfor yes
Note – if a repealed instrument has historical versions, those historical versions are not considered repealed for the purposes of this field. - Historical Document
- Returns Historical (non-current) versions
0for no
YYYY-MM-DDfor historical versions with a specific first.valid.date
Note – if the last version of an instrument is repealed, it is not considered a historical document for the purposes of this field.
Use"Historical Document"<>0to yield only historical documents.