It is sometimes necessary to establish the content of an Act at a specific point in time. For example, for auditing purposes you may need to check which tax rates applied at a certain time in the past, or indeed what the tax law was at the time before the introduction of GST.

This has been variously called the point in time, backdating or historical approach to Legislation.  You can use a mixture of print and online resources to update legislation to a particular point in time.

Legislation to a point in time

The most thorough method is to:

1. Locate an online compilation of the Act.
2. Browse to the legislative history in the Endnotes table at the end of the Act.
3. Look at the Table of Acts to see the history of amendments to the Act. (Note that Reprints are not listed in Cth Acts). You can check the latest reprint in Federal Statutes Annotations (Lexis+).
4. Make a note of the amendments up to the point in time in which you are interested.

OR

Search for Act by name or number and select All versions to see all previous compilations.

Historical Compilations Online

The Federal Register of Legislation and LawNow include historical superseded compilations. (A compilation becomes superseded each time the Act is amended).

LawNow Legislation (Lexis+)

1. Select from the jurisdictions offered.
2. In the Acts column, select Historical Versions.
3. Browse to the Act you want to update.

History of Specific Provisions within Acts

1. Locate an online compilation of the Act.
2. Browse to the Endotes table at the end of the Act.
3. Look at the Legislation History to see the history of amendments to specific provisions in the Act. They are listed numerically.
4. Note down the title and number of amending Acts which have affected the provision in which you are interested.
5. Locate the amending Numbered Acts online, or on the shelf in the Legislation collection on Level 3 of the Beasley Law Library (if available).