VPRS 7584 Acts Given Royal Assent

Full description

This series consists of bound copies of acts sent from Parliament to the Governor for Royal Assent. The front page of each individual Act is annotated detailing its passage from final passing in Parliament to granting of Assent.

These Acts were originally sent from Parliament in paper folders usually containing other Acts. Each Act was then forwarded to the office of the Attorney-General and annotated with a formal request that the Act be scrutinised to determine whether there were any legal objections or any other reasons to withhold Assent. This request was made, signed and dated by the Official secretary to the Governor.

Upon receipt at the Crown Law Offices, the Act was treated as an item of inward correspondence and was allocated a Law Department registry member (annual single number system). This number was placed on the Act as well as a 'Received' stamp. After scrutiny another annotation was made that there were no legal objections nor any reason to withhold Assent. This statement was signed and dated by the Attorney-General and/or the Solicitor-General.

The Act was then returned to the Governor and another annotation recommending that the Act be presented before the Executive Council for the Governor to grant Assent was made by the Official Secretary. The Act was usually presented to the Governor on the same day and was signed or initialled. The date of publication of the Governor's Proclamation of Assent in the Government Gazette was subsequently stamped on the Act. Acts were then bound to form these volumes the contents of which usually reflect the total legislation passed in a particular session of Parliament.

The only exception to the above procedure relates to the consolidated Statutes of 1915, 1928 and 1958. Annotations are made on the first page of the first Act in each volume rather than on every Act.

Volumes are similar in content to the resultant printed copies of the Acts, although in some instances (especially volumes after c1930s) content order is not identical. Volumes for the period 1903-1915 (items 48-62) do not contain spines. This series also differs from the printed Acts in that there are no table of contents, page references and other similar publishing detail.

Although the range of Acts in each volume is specified on many spines, Acts were generally not numbered as this was the responsibility of the Clerk of Parliament and was done after Assent was granted. Some Acts in this series were subsequently numbered. The attached item list, therefore, identifies both the Parliamentary session and the range of Act numbers covered by each volume.

Acts after 1975 were located in a vault under the Old Treasury Building Melbourne. These Acts are yet to be bound. They are now located in P2 consignment