Australian Legislation and Regulations

Australian legislation and regulations

Australia is a federation with power to make laws shared between three levels of government: Federal, state and local. This is based on the Westminstersystem of government with each level of government run by a democratically-elected parliament or council.

Australia has two types of laws:

statute law
common law.

Statute law

Legislation is the act of making or enacting statute laws. Statute laws are laws made in federal, state and territory parliaments.

The proposed law, called a ‘bill’,is usually introduced into parliament by a minister or sometimes by a back-bencher. Bills are debated by both the lower and upper houses of parliament. Sometimes one or both houses will demand amendments or changes. The bill becomes an act of parliament or a law when it has been passed by both the houses, and signed by the Governor-General (federal) or Governor (state). The judiciary is the legal arm of the government with the role of enforcing Australia’s laws.

The Federal Government generally makes laws on matters that affect the country as a whole, and on matters where it would be unhelpful for the law to be different in each state(eg immigration, currency). The powers of the Federal Government are listed in Section 51 of the Australian constitution.

State governments can make laws on any issue that the Federal Government can not. State laws usually cover issues like education, health, the environment, and emergency services.

In some situations the Federal Government and the states make laws on the same issue. Where a federal law and a state law are not consistent, the federal law is followed.

Local government powers are established by acts of parliament in each state to look after matters relevant to the local community, for example garbage collection, public parks and sporting grounds, libraries, and local planning matters.

Common law

Common law refers to laws based on court decisions. The courts interpret and apply the law made by parliament. Where those laws are unclear or where there is no relevant statute law they make decisions that are then recorded in law reports. These decisions set precedent, which are added to the common law (or judge-made law).

Applying the law

A number of commonwealth government councils have the power to declare national standards and codes of practice. These documents are the basis for a nationally consistent regulatory framework.

National standards are detailed technical documents developed for Standards Australia by expert working parties drawn from industry and government agencies. Each individual standard has a descriptor that:

shows whether it is an Australian or an Australian/New Zealand standard
gives its unique number and year
describes what it is about.

For example, AS/NZS 4360 (2004) is the Australian/New Zealand Standard 4360, revised in 2004 and titled ‘Risk Management’.

Codes of practice are technical documents on specific issues approved by a government minister. These documents provide practical guidance on ways to achieve compliance with relevant legislation.For example, the Responsible Gambling Code of Practice (SA).

The national standards and codes of practice are not legally enforceable unless state and territory governments adopt them as regulations under their acts.

Regulations are the way that the legislation is applied. They are more local, specific in nature, and are generally developed by local councils.

If, for example, you want to hold a festival on the beach or in a park, your first point of contact would be the local council as they have regulations about the use of their public spaces. In some cases, special permission might be needed and this request might have to be approved and passed in a council meeting.

If the festival involved the service of alcohol in a public space this would be much more problematic as service of alcohol has a myriad of licensing laws associated with it, and these are set in place by acts of parliament. In this case the act is set by state and territory parliaments.

Finally, some laws are established by the federal government, such as taxation law, and compliance with Goods and services tax (GST).

Fortunately most local councils and state and territory governments provide guidelines for event organisers running events in public spaces (outdoor sites) that help them to understand and keep up to date with these obligations.

Event organisers running events in accredited and licensed venues such as hotels and conference centres can generally rely on these venues to have the necessary approvals, such as liquor licence, fire safety systems, building code approvals etc. However every event organiser running a business must meet the core requirements of a small business, and these too are available on small business websites in each of the states and territories.

Address regulatory requirements – Solo Activity 1