LibGuides: Researching Legislation: Historical 'Point-in-Time' Research

Point-in-time

When undertaking legislative legal research, it may be important to know what the law in force was on a specific date. This is often known as ‘point-in-time' or legislative history research. For example, for auditing purposes you may need to check which tax rates applied at a certain date in the past, or what the tax law was before the introduction of GST.

Note: You may need to use a mixture of print and online resources to find legislation from a particular point in time. For more information about the format of historical compilation of Acts see Formats of Acts.

Finding historical versions of Acts in official government websites

The Federal Register of Legislation and Victorian Legislation websites include historical superseded compilations of official versions of Acts. (A compilation becomes superseded each time the Act is amended.)

Click on the plus (+) icons below to find historical Acts for Commonwealth and Victorian legislation.

Finding historical consolidated Commonwealth Acts

Go to the Federal Register of Legislation website.
Click on the In Force tile on the homepage to locate the Commonwealth Act by title.
Type in the name of the Act in the search box. For example, Corporations Act 2001 to find the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth).
Under the Search in heading, select Name.
Under the Search using heading, select Contains all the words.
Under Filter by collection, select Act.
Click on Search.
Results are filtered by relevance. An orange dot indicates that there are unincorporated amendments contained in the consolidated version of the Act. A green dot indicates that the version incorporates all amendments and is in force.
Click on the title of the Act to view the full text of the Act.
In the Act’s record, select All versions.
Compilations will be listed in reverse date order. Scroll through the list. Refer to the Effective Date column to navigate to a relevant compilation of the Act. For example, if you require a version of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) as it was in force on 2 July 2023, you will need to refer to compilation number C122.
Click on the Effective Date for the compilation that you require.
This will display a full superseded version of the Act as it was in force at that point in time.

See the Federal Register of Legislation Help and Resources page for more search information.

Finding historical consolidated Victorian Acts

Go to the Victorian Legislation website.
Select In force from the top bar menu. Then select Acts in force.
You can either type in the name of the Act and click on Title from the drop-down menu. For example, “charter of human rights” to find the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 (Vic). Or you can browse Acts alphabetically from the Starting Letter list located below the search box. You can further refine your search by selecting a specific year to search within.
Look through the results list that has been generated to find the relevant Act. Then click on the title of the Act.
In the Act’s record, click on the authorised.pdf file to view the latest authorised version of the Act.
For point-in-time research purposes, you can also view historical versions of the Act in the Version history table.
Version histories are listed in reverse date order. For example, if you require a version of the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 (Vic) as it was in force on the 2 December 2013, you will need to refer to version number 011.