Data as at 12 Dec 2022
Table of Contents
The Commonwealth statute book today
People experience the statute book at particular moments in time: they open the book in an effort to find the body of in force legislation that creates their rights and imposes obligations on them. It is the in force statute book, not the one that existed 100 years ago, that most immediately structures Australia’s social, economic, and political life today. The statute book can be opened at any point in time, and will look different, often radically different. This section opens the Commonwealth statute book on 12 December 2022.
This page is intended as a case study in using data sets from the DataHub. The page demonstrates how the more than 280,000-page in force Commonwealth statute book can be explored quantitatively. The analyses just scratch the surface of what is possible, but prompt questions such as ‘who has made the legislation in force today?’, ‘what are the important areas for Commonwealth lawmaking today?’, and ‘how significant is delegated legislation today, compared to the laws made by Parliament?’ The page uses the In force Commonwealth legislation data set.
Using various combinations of several columns from this data set — ‘legPages’, ‘subject’, ‘administrator’, ‘forceStatus’, and ‘principalAmending’ — a rich picture of the Commonwealth statute book can be painted. This picture is one that raises more questions than it answers. To pose three further questions raised by this page:
- Why do certain subject-matters generate so much lawmaking?
- Why do some Government departments make such voluminous use of delegated legislation?
- Most fundamentally, how did the Commonwealth statute book grow so vast? Is it trends in our society and economy? Growing demands on the state? The Commonwealth Government taking over areas previously legislated by state governments? Changing approaches to law design or lawmaking? The ease with which electronic documents can be produced?
The data sets published on the DataHub offer the first complete and publicly accessible empirical basis on which to explore these questions.
Snapshot of in force legislation
The statute book today is vast. Figure 1 shows the total number of Acts, regulations, and other legislative instruments currently in force.
Figure 1: Principal Acts and legislative instruments in force1
Figure 2 shows the total number of pages contained in Acts, regulations, and other legislative instruments currently in force. Delegated legislation accounts for a majority of the pages in the Commonwealth statute book today, though the small number of Acts (see Figure 1) nonetheless contain a huge body of law. The number of pages is also a poor measure of the importance of legislation: Acts often contain more important types of law than delegated legislation. Attorney-General Department guidance, for example, encourages the placement of significant offences in Acts rather than delegated legislation.
Figure 2: Pages of Acts and legislative instruments in force on 12 December 2022
Figure 3 shows how many times larger the in force Commonwealth statute book is compared to selected texts. For example, the Commonwealth statute book is equivalent in length to 533 copies of James Joyce’s Ulysses, and 252 copies of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace.
Figure 3: The Commonwealth statute book as a multiple of selected texts
In force legislation by subject matter
Figure 4 shows the pages of Acts and legislative instruments by their subject matter, as classified by the ALRC. It is clear that different areas of Commonwealth law make use of Acts and delegated legislation to differing degrees. Civil aviation, for example, has many more pages of delegated legislation than pages of Acts, while tax and excise legislation presents the opposite picture.
Figure 4: Acts and legislative instrument pages by subject matter
Figure 5 shows the number of Acts and legislative instruments by their subject matter. The data is very different from that in Figure 4. The two figures suggest that some areas of lawmaking have many relatively short legislative instruments. For example, appropriations and grants instruments are 5 pages on average, while civil aviation instruments are 2 pages. In contrast, health-related legislative instruments are 34 pages on average and transport instruments are 47 pages on average. Overall, the average length of a legislative instrument is 9 pages.
Figure 5: Acts and legislative instruments by subject matter
In force legislation by administering department
This following figures show the portfolios that administer the body of in force legislation. Looking at the total volume of legislation in this way, including both Acts and legislative instruments, offers new approaches to understanding Commonwealth lawmaking. For example, while the Department of Treasury administers the most pages of Acts, the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts administers the largest body of legislation overall, including the most pages of legislative instruments.
Figure 6: Pages of in force legislation by department
Figure 7 shows the number of Acts and legislative instruments administered by each portfolio. Remarkably, the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts administers well over half of all of legislative instruments. The vast majority of these instruments relate to civil aviation.
The Figure is dramatically different to Figure 6 because there are many more legislative instruments than Acts. Acts are, on average, significantly longer than legislative instruments. The average in force legislative instrument is just 9 pages, compared to the 97 pages in the average in force Act.
Figure 7: Principal Acts and legislative instruments in force by department
Legislative instruments by lawmaker
The statute book today is a result of the labours of many authors. In addition to the Parliament, the ALRC has identified at least 85 different persons who have produced legislation that is currently in force. Figure 8 shows the number of in force pages of legislation made by the top ten lawmakers other than the Parliament. The Governor-General makes legislation on the advice of the Government of the day. The top ten lawmakers shown in Figure 8 have made 90% of all pages of legislation presently in force.
Figure 8: Pages of in force legislative instruments by lawmaker
Figure 9 shows the number of in force legislative instruments made by the top ten lawmakers. The Civil Aviation Safety Authority has made by far the most legislative instruments, accounting for well over a third of all legislative instruments currently in force.
Figure 9: Number of in force legislative instruments by lawmaker
#AusLawTracker
The #AusLawTracker provides a picture of the scale of legislative activity since 1901, containing key numbers on different types of legislation, both in force and all legislation ever made.
| Commonwealth Acts of Parliament | |
| Principal Commonwealth Acts in force | 1,225 |
| Pages of Principal Commonwealth Acts in force | 118,254 |
| Principal Commonwealth Acts passed | 5,070 |
| Amending Commonwealth Acts passed | 8,223 |
| Pages of Principal Commonwealth Acts passed | 133,609 |
| Pages of Amending Commonwealth Acts passed | 157,263 |
| Commonwealth Regulations | |
| Principal Commonwealth regulations in force | 841 |
| Pages of Principal Commonwealth regulations in force | 31,878 |
| Principal Commonwealth regulations made | 4,740 |
| Amending Commonwealth regulations made | 24,168 |
| Pages of Principal Commonwealth regulations made | 89,581 |
| Pages of Amending Commonwealth regulations made | 109,258 |
| Commonwealth Legislative Instruments (excl. Regulations) | |
| Principal Commonwealth legislative instruments in force | 16,812 |
| Pages of Principal Commonwealth legislative instruments in force | 132,362 |
| Principal Commonwealth legislative instruments made since 2010 | 13,974 |
| Amending Commonwealth legislative instruments made since 2010 | 7,636 |
| Pages of Principal Commonwealth legislative instruments made since 2010 | 241,719 |
| Pages of Amending Commonwealth legislative instruments made since 2010 | 69,666 |
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The ALRC always focuses on principal legislation when examining the ‘in force’ statute book. The ALRC does so because amendments should have been compiled into the text of principal Acts or instruments, to create compilations of principal legislation. Compilations can be compared to ‘as made’ legislation, which is legislation in the form in which it was originally made. The text of ‘as made’ legislation may not reflect the law as in force because it will not include any later amendments that may have been made. The statute book in force at any time will be comprised of a mix of compilations and as made legislation that has never been amended. Once an Act or legislative instrument is amended, and those amendments commence, the Office of Parliamentary Counsel will prepare a compilation of the legislation that includes the amendments.↩︎