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Updates

Backcaptured gazettes, annual volumes of Acts as passed and related material (October 2022)

We have recently completed a major backcapture project to scan a large amount of hard copy material held in our library’s collection. Unfortunately, we are not resourced at this time to upload this scanned material to the website for direct user access but we are happy to help with user enquiries and email backcaptured material we have saved on our network.

A full list of material in our backcaptured collection and details of how to contact us with an enquiry is available on the Historical information page.  

COVID-19 legislation (November 2020)

We now have a special website page for NSW COVID-19 legislation. You'll find links to—

  • Public health orders, including current and historical versions
  • Environmental planning orders
  • Acts of Parliament
  • Regulations.

Information about the COVID-19 pandemic generally is available at the following links—

New features (October 2020 onwards)

  • Breadcrumbs for search hits located in schedules—to make it easier to locate a search hit in the context of the whole title, breadcrumbs are now displayed in the same way (above the timeline) as search hits in the body of a title.
  • Export functionality—the Export link on the right of the screen above the dark blue task bar facilitates downloading XML files, including bulk downloads, for the In force and Repealed collections on the website. (Click the blue Help ? button on the Export page for more information.)
  • Search page point-in-time button—by clicking the enable/disable point-in-time buttons on the website Search page, you can now decide if you want your search to return results as at a particular point-in-time date (default is the date you’re searching) or return results for all relevant versions of titles with no selected point-in time date. (Note that your selection sticks for all subsequent searches until you change it again.)
  • My favourites—the My favourites page (link on the main dark blue task bar) explains how you can save time navigating around the website by setting up your own favourites list of up to 10 of the titles you need to access regularly.
  • Resizing the Contents pane—you can now drag the Contents pane to your preferred width and have it stick at that width until you change it again.
  • Most popular titles list—this list will now be a permanent feature at the top of our Noticeboard and will be updated weekly with the titles most frequently accessed by our users each week.
  • Timeline enhancement—the timeline functionality for linking to other versions of a title now ‘remembers’ the provision being viewed and opens the selected version at the same provision.
  • Consultation drafts—a note on the Notification page now refers website users to the special consultation drafts page.
  • Hyperlinks for Bills assented to—on the Notification page the Bills assented to are now hyperlinked to the as made PDF.
  • PBBH Bills listed in ‘This week’—Bills that have been passed by both Houses (but not yet assented to) will now appear in a separate list in the Home page ‘This week’ column and have RSS feeds available.
  • Minor changes to the display and functionality of search results for some collections—improvements have been made for searching Bills, legislative histories and the website information and help pages.
  • ‘Sticky’ search navigation buttons—the search navigation buttons at the top of the legislation display area are now ‘sticky’ i.e. the buttons conveniently remain ‘stuck’ at the top of the display area in a shaded box as you navigate between hits so you don’t need to scroll up repeatedly to use them.
  • Displaying the hits for searches in a single title—the list of hits now displays automatically after a search in a single title so you no longer need to click the Show hits button to open that list.
  • Enhanced layout for bills—you can now easily distinguish between Government and non-Government bills in all Bills page browse lists. Non-Government Bills are marked with an asterisk in the list and you can also filter by type of bill—All/Government/Non-Government.
  • Supplementary list of repealed SI titles made under a Parent Act—when you click the Statutory instruments button (pale blue task bar) for an In force or Repealed Act, you can now expand a second drop-down table of repealed statutory instruments made under the Act. (Note that the repealed table opens even if there are no entries.)
  • View Legislative history button in Actions column—we have now added a View legislative history button in the Actions column on browse and search results pages as a shortcut to open the Legislative history page for the of What's New

Archive

November launch of NSW Government Gazette standalone website—users control publishing of their notices (October 2021)

Note—as a result of ongoing technical development issues and the pressure of other project work on staff in our small office, we have reluctantly decided to pause our standalone gazette website project for now.

We are certainly not abandoning this important project and expect to be able to resume work later in the year. In the meantime, the gazette website project team will be focusing on other important project work.

We’d like to thank those stakeholders who’ve given us such encouraging and positive feedback about the project, especially those who so enthusiastically agreed to be our external testers—we hope you’ll still be available to help when we resume the work. (added May 2022)

In August 2020, we launched the gazette portal and notice lodgement form as phase 1 of our gazette streamlining process. In November 2021, we expect to roll out the final phase of the project, a NSW Government Gazette standalone website that holds all gazette data currently on the NSW legislation website.

The new gazette website gives users control over when notices are lodged and published—a notice can be published any day, any time straight after it’s been lodged and confirmed. If you’re an existing gazette client, you’ll log in with your existing credentials.

 Features of the gazette website include:

  • a layout specially developed to meet the needs of gazette clients and users
  • self-publishing of notices (via the lodgement form users are already used to)
  • a live feed on the Home page to easily confirm a notice has successfully published
  • granular options for browsing to notices, including subject category pages
  • enhanced display of notices in web pages (with PDF download also available)
  • improved and expanded search functionality with multiple filtering options
  • multiple user-help options
  • no restriction on the size of PDF notices (though they must still be searchable).

The NSW Government Gazette website will still be managed by the Parliamentary Counsel’s Office and there will be quick links between the legislation website and the gazette website.

As we approach our launch date, we’ll be in touch directly with our existing gazette clients.

NSW Government Gazette—new field (tabling) from 12 July 2021 (June 2021)

NSW Government Gazette notices are now lodged through the notice lodgement portal accessible from the Gazette page. You’ll also find there everything you need to get started—links to how-to videos, FAQs, notice templates and an email ready to send to a dedicated Gazette Help box. If you get stuck, contact us at the NSW Parliamentary Counsel’s Office and our gazette team will be happy to help.

New field for the gazette portal lodgement form

From the week beginning Monday, 12 July we will be adding a new mandatory field to the gazette portal lodgment form to identify those documents that have to be tabled in Parliament and are subject to disallowance. Under the Interpretation Act, section 40, tabling is a requirement for statutory rules made in NSW.

The question will be:

Does your document have to be tabled in Parliament? (PCO will arrange the tabling for you.)

(Yes/No)

There will be hovertext for the new field explaining about tabling and how to find out if that’s a requirement for your notice.

Your agency’s legal team will be able to advise but, essentially, the Act or instrument under which the notice is made will include a provision specifying one of the following:

  • that sections 40 and 41 of the Interpretation Act apply
  • that the notice is required to be tabled in Parliament.

Please note this will be a mandatory field, so anyone lodging gazette notices will need to know the correct response before a notice can be lodged.

Where tabling is required, PCO will provide the tabling information to Parliament on your behalf.

Transfer of maps to the Planning Portal (April 2021)

Local Environmental Plan (LEP) and State Environmental Planning Policy (SEPP) maps are no longer accessible on the NSW legislation website. Instead, all LEP and SEPP maps, including historic versions, are available on the NSW Planning Portal.

To assist our users, we have redirection hyperlinks in place from this website to the Planning Portal for users wanting to access maps. If you click on an LEP or SEPP Maps button or the link to a map in legislative text, you will be redirected to the Planning Portal’s maps page for the relevant title or, in a small number of cases, to the landing page for Environmental Planning Instruments on the Planning Portal, from where you can easily navigate to the title you want. The Planning Portal page will open in a new window.

You will find redirection hyperlinks back to the legislation website from the Planning Portal maps pages if you need to return to the legislative text of the title (or you can just return to the legislation website window).

If you have set up your own favourites links for maps on our website, we encourage you to replace them with new links to the Planning Portal maps pages.

Accompanying this website change will be a new approach for councils wanting map-only amendments drafted. For more information about how these changes affect councils and what councils need to do, please see https://www.planning.nsw.gov.au/plans-for-your-area/local-planning-and-zoning/resources.

Water sharing plans (November 2020)

We are now providing access to consolidated versions of water sharing plans amended from 1 July 2020. The consolidations are unauthorised versions prepared by the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment.

End-of-year gazette arrangements (October 2020)

PCO will observe the Christmas–New Year shutdown period from Friday, 25 December 2020 to Friday, 8 January 2021. The last standard gazette for 2020 will be published on Friday, 18 December 2020, though we will make arrangements to gazette genuinely urgent notices up to 24 December 2020.

The first standard gazette for next year will be published on Friday, 15 January 2021.

The weekly deadline for submission of notices before the shutdown period remains the same i.e. midday on Thursdays for standard gazettes. For urgent gazettals, we require as much notice as possible and the request should come from director or executive director level.

For details of how to arrange an urgent gazettal during the shutdown period, email nswgazette.help@pco.nsw.gov.au and see the auto-reply.

Consultation drafts (October 2020)

We now have a special page for public consultation drafts of Bills and statutory instruments.

Please note that consultation drafts are published on this website for information only. All comments should be provided to the relevant government department—see the relevant department’s website for more information.

Welcome to the new official NSW legislation website (August 2020)

We’ve been developing our new website from the beginning of this eventful year and it’s now being launched as the official site for NSW legislation from 31 August 2020, providing access to authorised NSW legislation and related information.

You’ll find easy access to Bills introduced, Acts, statutory instruments and environmental planning instruments as made, and in force and repealed point-in-time consolidations of Acts, statutory instruments and environmental planning instruments. On the Tables page you can run printable current, point-in-time and cumulative reports for NSW legislation. Background and historical information about NSW legislation can be found on the Information and Historical information pages.

Our new website has a host of new features and functionality not available on our old website and we’ll be highlighting these over the coming weeks in our website tips (below) to help you make the most of the new website.

During our beta development period, we’ve received lots of helpful feedback and questions and, based on that feedback, we’ve prepared a comprehensive set of FAQs that you’ll find on the Help page. If you still have questions, you can contact us via our Website Help service. And we welcome your feedback on the new website.

Legislation websites are by their nature and content very complex and this new site features more advanced functionality than we’ve previously offered. While we’ve checked our content and all functionality extensively, there will inevitably be some glitches. Please let us know if you spot anything that’s not quite right so we can fix it.

The NSW legislation website is managed by the Parliamentary Counsel’s Office.

Website tips

  • Some terminology used on this website is different to the old website—see our FAQ for an easy-to-follow guide.
  • You can now hide the Home page photo carousel.
  • There are more RSS feed options for subscriber alerts.
  • The 'This week' column on the Home page now has direct links to as made legislation.
  • The creation history section at the bottom of the Legislative history co-locates all the initial documents and dates for a title.
  • The table of versions in the Legislative history has a column that includes hyperlinks to the amendments consolidated in each version of the title.
  • The timeline gives you quick access to historical versions of legislation and allows you to generate comparisons between versions. You can hide the timeline if you prefer—your selection will 'stick' until you change it.
  • Search functionality has been enhanced to allow searching across legislative histories as well as the legislation collections. The results show search terms in context—see our FAQ on showing search hits.
  • We now have separate Gazette and Notification pages—access to the gazette portal to lodge a notice is via the Gazette page.
  • Clause headings used in schedules are now displayed in the Contents pane.
  • We now have separate browse pages for in force and repealed legislation and a browse-by-year option for all the legislation landing pages.
  • To help you find the legislation you want faster, the in force and repealed browse pages have more options then the old website for filtering, sorting and display.
  • The key to abbreviations used in legislative histories is now linked to the key icon on the pale blue task bar.

NSW Government Gazette—lodging notices from 31 August 2020 (June 2020)

From the week beginning Monday, 31 August we’re introducing a new way to lodge and publish gazette notices and a new format for the gazette.

Our gazette notice lodgement portal is now ready to use on the Gazette page. You’ll also find there everything you need to get started\u00c2\u0097links to how-to videos, FAQs, notice templates and an email ready to send to a dedicated Gazette Help box. If you get stuck, contact us at the NSW Parliamentary Counsel’s Office and our gazette team will be happy to help.

The new gazette format will involve compiling individual subject category volumes to make it easier for gazette users to find relevant notices. Notices will appear in the volume for the category selected when a notice is lodged and the volumes will continue to be published on the Gazette page of the legislation website. 

In force collection—amendment Acts not included (June 2020)

From 1 July 2020 we are changing our approach to how we publish amendment Acts.

Amendment Acts will no longer be available in the In force collection and updated versions of those Acts with commenced provisions removed will not be produced.

The original versions of all amendment Acts will still be available in the As made collection and consolidated versions of legislation will continue to be available in the In force collection as soon as possible after the amendments commence.

Launch of beta as the new legislation website (June 2020)

We expect to launch the beta site as the new website legislation website on Monday, 31 August.

We’re working hard in the time left to make sure it’s ready but there’s a bit of time left for you to preview it as the beta site to see the changes since you last looked—we still welcome your feedback. Be sure to make use of the Help (FAQ) page where you’ll find answers to the feedback questions we’ve been asked during the development period.     

Legislation websites are by their nature and content very complex and this new site features more advanced functionality than we’ve previously offered. While we’ve checked our content and all functionality extensively, there will inevitably be some glitches. Please let us know if you spot anything that’s not quite right so we can fix it. 

 

NSW Government Gazette—a new way to lodge notices (June 2020)

From the week beginning Monday, 31 August we’re introducing a new way to lodge and publish gazette notices and a new format for the gazette.

We’re rolling out our gazette notice lodgement portal, an online system we’ve developed in-house and had tested by some of our regular gazette clients. To lodge a notice, you’ll log in from the Gazette page on the legislation website where you’ll find links to how-to videos, FAQs and an email ready to send to a dedicated Gazette Help box. Our gazette team will also be happy to help on the phone.

The new gazette format will involve compiling individual subject category volumes to make it easier for gazette users to find relevant notices. Notices will appear in the volume for the category selected when a notice is lodged and the volumes will continue to be published on the Gazette page of the legislation website.

More detail will be available in the emails you receive from now on when you contact our gazette team.

Updated FAQ page (April 2020)

We’ve started uploading FAQs to answer the feedback questions we’ve been receiving. Find them on the Help page.

Welcome to the Beta (March 2020)

Welcome to the beta version of the new NSW legislation website.

This ‘under construction’ version of the website will be available over the coming months while we work to refine and develop it before launching it as the new official website, which is expected to be mid-year.

We hope you’ll take the time to familiarise yourself with some of the slightly changed page layouts and also discover the new features and functionality we’re building in to the website to give all users better access to NSW legislation and legislative information. You can expect to see changes from visit to visit as development continues, so we recommend regular return visits.

Given the website is still under development, you need to be fully aware of the following limitations—

  • Content that is currently on this beta website was uploaded in July 2020 and is ‘frozen’ as at that time, for example, you may see now-repealed titles appearing in the In force collection.
  • Initially, none of the legislative content on this beta website will change at all, though the features and functionality will continue to change and informational text will be gradually uploaded.
  • The beta website may perform slowly at times, especially when downloading very large files.

Please understand you cannot rely on the versions of legislation available on this beta website—legislation.nsw.gov.au remains the official website for NSW legislation.  

By late April we hope to upload all current content and then start publishing simultaneously to the official website and the beta website. We will let you know when this happens, though the beta website will still not be the official website until we have completed all planned development and testing.

We would welcome your feedback about the beta website—please send us a feedback email. (You can also click the Feedback button on the beta website.)


Last updated 14 October 2022 at 15:16