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Frequently Asked Questions
How do I find the text of a new Federal Taxation Bill and how do I know how it is progressing through parliament?
How do I find extrinsic materials to interpret an Act of Parliament?
Where can I get journal articles on a particular topic?
I am trying to work out the following abbreviation FLR.
Which tools will assist me in finding cases which judicially consider an Act of Parliament?
How do I find out if a party to a case has been granted special leave to appeal to the High Court of Australia?
How do I find an electronic version of Pagone, GT ‘Part IVA: The general anti-avoidance provisions in Australian taxation law’ (2003) 27 Melbourne University Law Review?
How do I find a copy of Justice Graham Hill “Scheme New Zealand or An Example of The Operation of Div 165” (2003) 1 (2) eJournal of Tax Research 147-59?
What is the difference between a Bill and an Act?
What is the explanatory memorandum? Why is it important? Where are
they found in the Library?
What is the second reading speech? Why is it important and how do I find a copy?
What is Royal Assent? Why is it important?
How do I work out when an Act of Parliament commences?
How do I find out if a Section of an Act is in force?
What is a reprint?
How do I find the date of the latest reprint?
Where can I find the full text of a piece of legislation?
How do I find cases on a Section of an Act?
How do I find legislation, when I only know the subject?
Why is it when I click on a link in CaseBase, it doesn’t work?
I am trying to get Esquire Nominees Ltd v Federal Commissioner of Taxation (1975) 4 ATR 75 from AustLII, as I thought AustLII held all High Court decisions back to 1901.
How do I correctly cite media releases?
How do I find out whether the University of New South Wales Library holds a particular item?
How can I use the library at my local university?
How do I find the text of a new Federal Taxation Bill and how do I know how it is progressing through parliament?
It always helps to have the correct title. For example, if you were after the Goods and Services Tax Act or the Taxation of Financial Arrangements Act, neither of these are under G or T. The correct names are A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999 (Cth) and the New Business Tax System (Taxation of Financial Arrangements) Act (No. 1) Act 2003 (Cth). A good place to start is the Australian Parliament House website. Here you can get the text of Current bills and old bills.
If you wish to find out the progress of legislation going through Parliament, after you have clicked on Bills, go to House Daily Bills List.
In addition to the above website, both ATP and CCH also have the full text of current bills of Parliament in their loose leaf and electronic services. Electronically, these are available via the University of New South Wales Library website then click on Sirius, then once in there, key in your student number preceded by a z then your Unipass number. Under Resource Browser, key in either atp taxpoint or cch tax. For CCH you will require a separate user name and password, which are displayed in the top right hand corner.
For the print versions, go to either the ATP or CCH tax loose leaf binders which have the Bills and Explanatory Memoranda.
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How do I find extrinsic materials to interpret an Act of Parliament?
Extrinsic materials include: explanatory memorandum (EM), ministerial second reading speeches, government reports, law reform commission reports, parliamentary reports, parliamentary debates, treaties etc as per the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 (Cth) s 15AB.
Fortunately with the advent of the web, there is now myriad sources to help you interpret legislation. Prior to the web, Butterworths published Taxation Laws of Australia 1936-1990, which contained the tax bills and official explanations. Both ATP and CCH for their tax subscribers reproduce with their tax bills, the explanatory memorandum and second reading speeches.
The Explanatory Memorandum and second reading speeches may be found at the Australian Parliament House website by clicking on Bills then Current Bills or Old Bills. The Australian Taxation Office website also has the EMs and ministerial second reading speeches back to the 1930s.
Over the years, there have been numerous government reports related to taxation such as Kerr (1920), Ferguson (1932), Spooner (1950), Ligertwood (1961), Asprey (1975), Ralph (1999). Only the Asprey and Ralph Report appear to be available electronically at http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/oztexts/parsons.html and http://www.rbt.treasury.gov.au.
Materials published by the Board of Taxation can be classed as extrinsic materials.
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Where can I get journal articles on a particular topic?
This will depend on whether what you are after is local or overseas.
For local materials:
Three of the best journal indexes for tax and legal research include:
• AGIS i.e. Attorney-General’s Information Services. Indexes journals received by the Attorney-General’s Department Library, Canberra. Includes primarily Australian and some overseas law journals.
• APAIS i.e. Australian Public Affairs Information Service. Indexes journals received by the National Library of Australia, Canberra. Includes Australian general journals, specific subject journals and some law journals.
• TAXABS i.e. Australian Taxation Abstracts. Indexes journals received by the Australian Taxation Office.
There are full text options for AGIS and APAIS called AGIS Plus Text and APAIS Full Text. However please note, not all articles indexed in the latter are full text. If it is in full text, a note next to the article will say FT with a hypertext link.
For overseas materials:
These also include references to Australian materials, suggest:
• ABI Inform. Also known as ProQuest, focuses mainly on US content.
• EconLit published by the American Economic Association, provides bibliographic coverage of a wide range of economics-related literature. An expanded version of the Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) indexes of journals, books, and dissertations, EconLit covers both economic theory and application
• Expanded Academic ASAP provides a combination of indexing, abstracts, images, and full text for scholarly and general interest journals embracing all academic disciplines.
• Index to Legal Periodicals and Books is US in origin. The print version originated in the late 19th century and the electronic version commenced in 1981. From 2004, there is an electronic version, which enables users to go back to the beginning of the 20th century.
• Legal Journal Index, which is part of Current Legal Information. Primarily concentrates on UK law journals and indexes mainly UK and European articles.
• LegalTrac commenced in 1981 as Current Law Index in hard copy and indexes more journals than Index to Legal Periodicals and Books.
All of the above databases are available via Sirius once you are in the UNSW Library website. Sometimes just browsing the latest journal articles received by the library will yield relevant information.
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I am trying to work out the following abbreviation FLR.
Electronically you can browse the University of New South Wales Law Library Law Reports and Abbreviations Database.
Australian legal abbreviations may also be found in the following:
• Fong, C & Edwards, A Australian and New Zealand legal abbreviations, 2nd ed, Sydney, Australian Law Librarians Group, 1995
• Fong, C Australian legal citation – a guide, St Leonards, NSW, Prospect, 1998
• Rozenberg, P Australian guide to uniform legal citation, Pyrmont, NSW, Lawbook Co, 2003
• Cook, C et al Laying down the law, 5th ed, Chatswood, NSW, Butterworths, 2001, Appendix 2 “Abbreviations of commonly used law reports”
Overseas legal abbreviations may be found in the following:
• Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations
• Prince, Mary Bieber’s Dictionary of legal abbreviations, 4th ed, Buffalo, Hein & Co, 1993
• Raistrick, D Index to legal citations and abbreviations, 2nd ed, London, Bowker-Sauer, 1993
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Which tools will assist me in finding cases which judicially consider an Act of Parliament?
Fortunately in tax, there are two loose leaf/electronic services produced by Australian Tax Practice and CCH which annotate the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 (Cth) and the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 and other tax and related legislation. Other useful tools include:
• CaseBase which is at http://info.library.unsw.edu.au then click on Sirius, then type in CaseBase then key in under Legislation the act name, then the section e.g. Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 75.
• Federal statutes annotations as published by either Lawbook Company or LexisNexis Australia which annotate all federal legislation. The LexisNexis version is available via Butterworths Online via Sirius. The hard copies are often held with the Commonwealth legislation in a Law Library or on the reference shelves or on Reserve.
• On AustLII, once you have found a section of an act of parliament, you can click on Noteup and this will sometimes take you to where this section has been judicially considered by a court. There may be relevant journal articles noted, references in High Court of Australia transcripts etc. It doesn't always yield perfect results.
• TimeBase by using CaseLink allows you to see cases, which judicially consider legislation.
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How do I find out if a party to a case has been granted special leave to appeal to the High Court of Australia?
Go to the High Court Bulletin where they note up Special leave applications. This is issued only monthly so in between go to the High Court of Australia Registry Special Leave Applications Results
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How do I find the electronic version of Pagone, GT ‘Part IVA: The general anti-avoidance provisions in Australian taxation law’ (2003) 27 Melbourne University Law Review?
At the Melbourne University Law Review (MULR) website, they only have the table of contents.
Results from searches on Australian Public Affairs - Full Text; AGIS Plus Text and Lexis show that they do hold the MULR full text, but their latest issue was Volume 27 Number 2, not Number 3 which contains the Pagone article. The Pagone article will appear there, in due course. When it appears, because it is on a subscription website you will have to go through UNSW Library then enter your student/staff number and Unipass then to those particular databases.
A Google search on Pagone came up with Pagone, G General Anti-Avoidance Provisions In Australia which was published in May 2002 so this other article may be only a 6-12 months earlier than the MULR article.
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How do I find a copy of Justice Graham Hill “Scheme New Zealand or An Example of The Operation of Div 165” (2003) 1 (2) eJournal of Tax Research 147-59?
Go to http://www.atax.unsw.edu.au/ejtr/content/current_issue.htm then you have to register to view it.
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What is the difference between a Bill and an Act?
A Bill is the original document on which the Act of Parliament is based. Sometimes the wording in the bill will be exactly the same as the act. Often the bill will be heavily amended during the parliamentary session or subsequent ones. Some bills never get passed. The act would have passed both houses of parliament and be assented to by either the Governor (state) or Governor-General (federal).
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What is the explanatory memorandum? Why is it important? Where are they found in the Library?
The explanatory memorandum is the section by section analysis of federal bills of parliament provided to each member of parliament. They are important for interpreting the legislation. They are listed as an extrinsic source under the Acts Interpretation Act 1900 (1900). They can be usually found in a Law Library filed or bound together with federal bills of parliament. Electronically, they can be found since 1996 at the Australian Parliament House website and SCALEplus.
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What is the second reading speech? Why is it important and how do I find a copy?
They are important for interpreting the legislation. They are listed as an extrinsic source under the Acts Interpretation Act 1900 (1900). They can be usually found in a Law Library as part of the parliamentary debates for the relevant jurisdiction. Electronically, they can be found since 1996 at the Australian Parliament House website either under Current Bills or under Old Bills.
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What is Royal Assent? Why is it important?
Royal assent is the date an Act of Parliament is signed by either the Governor-General or the Governor. Prior to the assent date, the Bill of Parliament is not part of the law. The assent date is an important date as some Acts commence on the date of assent. Some Acts if not specified in the Act itself, commence 28 days after the date of assent. Further information about commencement dates is in the next question.
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How do I work out when an Act of Parliament commences?
An Act of Parliament may commence in one of the following ways:
• Date of assent by the Governor or Governor-General
• Date mentioned in the act of parliament
• Date to be proclaimed by the Governor or Governor-General
• 28 days after the date of assent unless the contrary intention appears in the Act as provided by the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 (Cth) s 5
• Retrospectively e.g. Civil Liability Act 2002 (NSW) was assented to on 18 June 2002 but commenced on 20 March 2002.
• Contingent on some other event occurring e.g. an act may commence on a date contingent on say 50 nations signing a particular treaty.
If you go to SCALEplus once you have found the contents to the act, scroll down to the Notes field at the end of the contents, and this will yield commencement information.
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How do I find out if a Section of an Act is in force?
An Act and or a Section is in force when the Act commencement is gazetted in the Government Gazette. Fortunately, students do not often have to peruse the Government Gazettes as the same information is often reproduced in many places such as:
• Acts Tables which are published on a monthly basis for most Australian jurisdictions
• Australian Current Law – Legislation
• Australian Legal Monthly Digest
• SCALEplus for federal legislation has Notes at the end of each Act of Parliament, noting commencement dates of the Act and the various sections. Likewise the New South Wales Parliamentary Counsel website has similar information under Historical notes, for each Act of Parliament.
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What is a reprint?
Reprint usually refers to a reprinted Act of Parliament containing the original Act together with amendments. This term is being superseded by electronic publishing, where Acts of Parliament are continuously updated.
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How do you find the date of the latest reprint?
The date of the latest reprint can be found a number of ways:
• The monthly table of Acts of Parliament for the relevant jurisdiction
• Australian Current Law – Legislation
• Australian Legal Monthly Digest
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Where can I find the full text of a piece of legislation?
• AustLII for all Australian jurisdictions
• TimeBase for all Australian jurisdictions. Best to go via the University of New South Wales Library gateway of Sirius
• SCALEplus for current federal legislation
• New South Wales Parliamentary Counsel’s Legislation website for New South Wales legislation
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How do you find cases on a Section of an Act?
Good sources include:
• CaseBase via the University of New South Wales Library Sirius gateway
• Federal Statues Annotations on Butterworths Online via the University of New South Wales Library Sirius gateway
• Commonwealth Statutes Annotations (Lawbook Co) available in print
• Australian Legal Monthly Digest in The Complete Legal Research System via the University of New South Wales Library Sirius gateway
• Australian Current Law – Reporter on Butterworths Online via the University of New South Wales Library Sirius gateway
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How do I find legislation where I only know the subject?
Wicks Subject Index to Commonwealth Legislation, available only in print. Wicks also has an index to New South Wales legislation, and there are others compiled by others for Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania.
Another good source is a legal encyclopedia such as Halsbury’s Laws of Australia on Butterworths Online via the University of New South Wales Library Sirius gateway and The Laws of Australia in The Complete Legal Research System via the University of New South Wales Library Sirius gateway
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Why is it when I click on a link in CaseBase, it doesn’t work?
The University of New South Wales Library does subscribe to a number of law reports via Butterworths Online, so when these appear in CaseBase, you can get the full text. Unfortunately, the links to the full text of Butterworths/Lexis/Nexis journals does not work via CaseBase. You can get the full text of these journals by exiting CaseBase then going to Lexis then clicking on Legal excluding the US then find Australia then law reviews, then click on journals.
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I am trying to get Esquire Nominees Ltd v Federal Commissioner of Taxation (1975) 4 ATR 75 also reported in (1973) 129 CLR 177 from AustLII, as I thought AustLII held all High Court decisions back to 1901. I checked 1975 and 1973 High Court cases but could not find it.
There was a decision by Gibbs J on this matter in 1972 and as this is published with the 1973 decision of the High Court in (1973) 129 CLR 177 both of these are published on AustLII under 1972 decisions not 1973.
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How do I correctly cite media releases?
Here are a couple of options:
Australia. Minister for Revenue and Assistant Treasurer. Senator the Hon Helen Coonan, Consolidation - corporate unit trusts and public trading trusts, Media Release, CO19/03, 27 March 2003
Australia. Minister for Revenue and Assistant Treasurer. Senator the Hon Helen Coonan, Consolidation - corporate unit trusts and public trading trusts, Media Release, CO19/03, 27 March 2003 http://assistant.treasurer.gov.au/atr/content/pressreleases/2003/019.asp
The reason, I have done it above, is so when you go looking for this press release, it is under Coonan's previous portfolio, not under her name, as she is now Minister for Communications.
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How do I find out whether the University of New South Wales Library holds a particular item?
Go to the University of New South Wales Library website then click on Catalogue (LRD). It is best to search All Fields.
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How can I use the library at my local university?
Approach your local library with your student card and photo ID and request borrowing privileges. Details are in the annual Atax Student Guide in the section Atax Library Guide then Other University Libraries. To read materials in another university library is usually not a problem though at least one university library has security such that non library patrons are not permitted to enter. To obtain borrowing privileges, there is a scheme called the University Library of Australia to cater for students wishing to borrow from other university libraries.
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