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Search tips

Starting your search: search options

The ACT legislation register may be searched using a standard or advanced search. The standard search box appears in the top left hand corner of every page and searches all documents in the register. The advanced search may be accessed from the advanced link next to the standard search box or from the menu bar located at the top and bottom of the screen.

Both search types use the same search language described below.

Advanced search options

The advanced search box allows you to refine the scope of your search for 3 different groups: category, version and format.

The category group lists the type of legislation and other material available on the register. You can use the checkboxes in this group to restrict your search to particular types of legislation and other material.

The version group contains 3 options: current, future and historical. Current versions are restricted to:

• current legislation - that is, the latest version of a republication that is completely up-to-date.
• as made Acts and subordinate laws not yet incorporated into a republication. Acts and subordinate laws are republished as quickly as possible after they have commenced, therefore few as made Acts or subordinate laws will fall into this category.
• current approved forms
• disallowable instruments and notifiable instruments - generally the status of these instruments is not indicated on the register.
• current bills before the Legislative Assembly

Future version means any legislation that is not yet effective.

Historical version means any legislation that has been superseded or repealed.

Legislation on the register is available in pdf (portable document format) and rtf (rich text format). Sometimes the rtf or pdf is large, so the file is zipped (compressed to reduce file size). Unfortunately, zipped files cannot be searched.

All authorised legislation is in pdf.

Unauthorised legislation is in rtf. As the register does not have authorised legislation for most of its historical legislation, selecting the rtf is the best option for searches of historical legislation.

Doing your search: search words

Key points to consider:

• Consecutive words should be surrounded by double quotes.
• However, the words "and", "near", "or" and "not" are search operators (see table) and do not normally form part of a phrase. To include a search operator inside a phrase, surround the phrase in double quotes. For example, to search for something near and far without near or and being interpreted as operators, write "something near and far".
• Phrases containing the following characters must be surrounded by double quotes: &, |, ^, #, @, $, (, ). For example, for AT&T, use "AT&T".
• To use a (") in a search, surround the phrase in quotation marks and then use ("") where the (")s occur. For example, for "X" factor use """X"" factor".
• Case is not significant when entering a search. So Parliament and parliament will produce the same results.
• Punctuation marks such as a full stop (.), comma (,), colon (:) or semicolon (;) are ignored when searching.
• Common words such as "a", "an", "is", "other", "than" etc. are not indexed so don't use them as search words. A search cannot consist solely of common words. For example, a search for "other than" will not work and an error message is displayed.
• Common words used in searches will match any word in their place. For example, to search "chose in action" put "chose in action" in the search box. The result list will bring up "chose in action" but also "chose the action", "chose an action" etc. This is because the word "in" is not itself searched but is needed to bring up the whole phrase "chose in action".
• Searches may be refined by using Search operators and by using wildcards.

Using search operators

If you want to find documents with:

Other facts:

• The near and and operators match the same documents. The difference is that when the near operator is used, the documents are given a rank according to the proximity of the search words in the document. The closer the words are to each other, the closer the document appears to the top of the result list.
• Parentheses may be used to group search words. For example:
  • (word1 or word2) and word3 which is equivalent to (word1 and word3) or (word2 and word3).
  • (word1 or word2) and not word3 which is equivalent to (word1 and not word3) or (word2 and not word3).

Using wildcards

If you are not certain of the exact word or phrase you wish to find, use wildcards to broaden the search.

If you know the prefix of a word, use the prefix only and put a single asterisk (*) after the prefix. For example, searching for tax* will match taxi, taxable, taxation etc.

If you know the word you are looking for but are not sure about the form or forms in which it is used, a stem word wildcard may help. Use 2 asterisks (**) after the word to tell the search engine to match all similar words. For example, searching for fly** will match fly, flying, flown, flew etc.

Wildcards can only be used on words at the end of a phrase. They may not, for instance, be added to the second word in a three-word phrase. eg wholesale sale* tax.

Search results

Matched documents are listed in order of significance, with more significant documents appearing earlier in the result list. Significance is based on the closeness of the match, not the legal importance of a document.

Unlike some other search engines, search words are not highlighted in matched documents. You need to open a matched document and search for your search words within that document. We hope to highlight search words within documents in the future.