Act of Parliament/Statutes

Introduction

Note: The APA style guide focuses on legal sources from the United States and United Nations, and refers readers to The Bluebook: A uniform system of citation (Bluebook, 2015), which does not cover Australian legal sources. In Australia, the Australian Guide to Legal Citation (AGLC) is widely used by the legal community as a standard for legal citation to which we will refer here.  AGLC (4th ed.) 2018 is published by the Melbourne University Law Review Association Inc in collaboration with the Melbourne Journal of International Law Inc.

Some of the following examples are taken from the AGLC. Please check with your school or course description for any specific requirements regarding referencing.

In-text citations

Paraphrasing

By virtue of s 130.1 of the Mental Health Act 2014 (Vic) . . .

According to the Mental Health Act 2014 (Vic) s 29 . . .

Notes on style

  • Start with the short title of the legislation and the year in italics if referring to an Act in the body of the text.
  • The long title of an Act should only be used if the Act does not have a short title.
  • The year in which the Act was originally passed is considered to be part of the title of the Act and therefore should be included in italics following the title, whether or not the Act includes it in the official short title.
  • Following the title and year, include the abbreviated form of the jurisdiction of the legislation enclosed in brackets e.g. (Cth) for Commonwealth and (Vic) for Victoria.
  • To pinpoint a section or paragraph of an Act, use the abbreviation s or para followed by a space and the number. Other abbreviations are detailed in AGLC 4 section 3.1.4.

Direct quote

Place direct quotes between double quotation marks " " and provide the title and year of the Act in italics, jurisdiction in brackets and section number(s) (if applicable).

"A person receiving mental health services in a designated mental health service may be kept in seclusion if seclusion is necessary to prevent imminent and serious harm to the person or to another person" (Mental Health Act 2014 (Vic) s 110).

Reference list

Template

Statute name Year (jurisdiction) s xxx. URL

Examples

Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) s 124(1). http://www6.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ca2001172/s124.html

Mental Health Act 2014 (Vic) s 110. https://www8.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/vic/num_act/mha201426o2014174/s110.html

Mental Health Act 2014 (Vic) s 115.1. https://www.legislation.vic.gov.au/as-made/acts/mental-health-act-2014

Mental Health Act 2014 (Vic) s 115.1. http://www.legislation.vic.gov.au/Domino/Web_Notes/LDMS/PubStatbook.nsf/edfb620cf7503d1aca256da4001b08af/0001F48EE2422A10CA257CB4001D32FB/$FILE/14-026aa%20authorised.pdf

Notes on style

  • The formatting of statutes appears the same in the reference list as in your text.
  • Start with the name of the statute in italics, followed by the year the statute was passed in italics. Then in brackets, state the abbreviation for the jurisdiction which passed the Act, e.g. (Cth) for Commonwealth, or the State abbreviation. Finally, the section number and subsection number, if referring to a particular section of the statute.
  • Include the URL from which you retrieved the material. (optional; this is not strictly required for legal citations but may aid readers in retrieval)