AGLC4 Rule 3.1.1: Statutes (Acts of Parliament): Title

Begin the citation with the Act's short title in italics, falling back on the long title only when the Act has no short title. The title is reproduced as it stands in the statute book, adjusted for the punctuation and capitalisation rules of chapter 1. Where Parliament has numbered Acts that share a name, that number stays in the title.

AGLC4 page 67

Formatting

  • The title is italic.
  • The short title is used; the long title is used only where the Act has none.
  • Abbreviations inside the title take no full stops, following rule 1.6.
  • Capital letters follow rule 1.7.
  • A number Parliament put in the short title to tell same-named Acts apart is kept, written as No, a space and the numeral inside round brackets, with no full stop after No.
  • That bracketed number sits inside the italic title, before the year, where the short title places it.
  • A title that uses the word Ordinance keeps it; territory ordinances made before self-government are still cited under their own titles.

Examples

Quoted from the Guide, page 67
  1. 1
    Evidence Act 1995 (NSW). [Not: An Act about the law of evidence, and for related purposes (NSW)]
  2. 2
    Social Welfare Ordinance 1964 (NT).
  3. 3
    Financial Framework Legislation Amendment Act (No 2) 2012 (Cth).
  4. 4
    Financial Framework Legislation Amendment Act (No 3) 2012 (Cth).
  5. 5
    A New Tax System (Family Assistance) (Consequential Related Measures) Act (No 1) 1999 (Cth).

Not

Quoted from the Guide, page 67
  • [Not: An Act about the law of evidence, and for related purposes (NSW)]
    this is the long title, which is used only when the Act has no short title

Forms in the rule

Quoted from the Guide, page 67
  • ‘(No 1)’
  • ‘(No 2)’

See also

Check your footnotes against these rules

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Formats, examples, passages, tables and the forms marked Not are quoted from the Australian Guide to Legal Citation (4th ed, Melbourne University Law Review Association, 2018), with the page of the Guide they appear on. Titles, summaries and explanations are our own.