The Parliament’s Digitisation project has expanded our collection of digitised historic bills and tabled papers, which provides a unique insight into more than 160 years of lawmaking at the Parliament of NSW.
A bill is a proposed law that becomes an Act after passing both Houses of Parliament in the same form and receiving assent. Some bills never become laws, some are amended on their journey through the Houses, or multiple versions may be introduced.
Parliament has just published an extensive repository of 11,500 PDFs and 15,000 records of historic bills introduced into NSW Parliament since 1856. This includes the relevant dates of when a bill passed through Parliament as well as bill text, various versions, and explanatory notes (where available). They are located under ‘BILLS’ on the website homepage.
Tabled papers are documents such as messages from the Governor, statutory instruments, petitions, bills and others.
The archive of tabled papers has been expanded by an additional 80 years and 100,000 records. You can now access papers dating from 1824 to 1938 (previously only 1824 - 1855) by completing the steps below.
- Select ‘All by date’ from the HANSARD & HOUSEPAPERS dropdown on the website homepage
- Click on the filter tab and select ‘all tabled papers and reports’ as your paper type. Apply the historic dates between 1824 and 1938 that you are interested in
- Click ‘Apply filter’
Take a quick trip down memory lane and revisit our state’s history:
