Online Compilations of Acts are very useful for research and study, however, in Western Australia, they are currently not the official authorised version of Legislation and cannot be presented in court. Therefore, it is important that, in practice, you know how to update an Act, especially if you are using hardcopy print versions if necessary.

• The updated print version of the Act has to be presented as an authority in court.
• You may be asked to update an Act as a clerk in a law firm.
• You may need to locate the historical version of an Act at a certain point in time, which precedes online access.

Steps to updating a Western Australian Act

1. Locate an online compilation of the Act.
2. Check the history of amendments in the Compilation Table at the end of the act. For WA Acts this includes a history of reprints. 
3. Locate the latest Reprint.
4. Check the Compilation Table in the online compilation, to see if there have been any amendments since the last Reprint.
5. If you are updating only one provision, then you need to determine which amendments apply to that provision. For WA use the in-text annotations. 
6. Check commencement details to make sure that recent amendments are in-force.
7. For point-in-time updating check for reprints and amendments occurring before the required date.

Steps to updating a Commonwealth Act

1. Locate an online compilation of the Act.
2. Use the Table of Amendments at the end of the compilation to see all the amendments - this is located in the Endnotes section of the Act.  

Some paper copies of WA and Cth legislation are on the shelf in the Legislation Collection on Level 3 of the Beasley Law Library.