How we check

Legislation only

The only basis for a legal claim on this site is the text of an Act or Regulation, read on the official legislation register of the relevant state or territory. Official regulator pages (police, transport departments) are used for context and current dollar penalty amounts, and are always labelled as guidance. We never source legal claims from news articles, law-firm blogs, forums, or AI summaries.

Quoted, not paraphrased, where the law allows it

Where a provision carries the answer, we quote it verbatim, with a pinpoint section reference and a link to the official version. We don't quote every provision a page relies on. Following a rule back to its source runs through definitions and cross-references that add length without adding meaning. Those get cited. The part that decides the answer is the part we put in front of you. Most jurisdictions license their legislation under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; the attribution each licence requires, including the date we downloaded each source, appears in the Sources panel at the bottom of every page. South Australian extracts carry an additional disclaimer, and Northern Territory extracts an unofficial-version notice, directly on each extract as those jurisdictions' terms require. Extracts on this site are not official versions and are reproduced without alteration. We link to the official register for each source, but the register itself is the authoritative text, not our copy of it and not our link to it.

Victoria is the exception worth naming. It does not publish its legislation under an open licence the way the other states do. We still quote Victorian provisions word for word, exactly as published, with full attribution and a link to the authorised version, and we have asked the Chief Parliamentary Counsel for permission. If that is refused, those pages will move to close paraphrase and links instead.

Two dates on every page

Last updated is when the page content changed. Last checked is when we last re-verified every cited provision against the official register. It is only ever set by that verification, never by editing. Each page also shows its full history.

Human review

Our legal editor is Shawn B. He was admitted as a solicitor in Queensland in 2015 and does not practise in Australia. The pages here are written and edited to be read the way a lawyer would read the Act. Verdicts are deliberately conservative: where conditions apply, we say "legal, with conditions", never just "legal". If something looks wrong to you, tell us. When we change a page, the change is recorded in that page's history.

When the law changes

Every page carries the date its sources were last checked, printed on the page. When we re-check and something has moved, the page is updated and its history says what changed. Australian legislation changes constantly, so read those dates before you rely on a page.

Corrections

If you believe anything on this site is wrong, tell us. See the about page for contact details.

Where this can still go wrong

All of that is done carefully, but careful is not the same as guaranteed. A register can move a page and leave our link pointing nowhere. A provision can be amended between our last check and the moment you read the page. A council can apply a rule differently from the way the words read. And we can simply get something wrong.

So treat this as a well-sourced starting point, not the final word. Nothing here is legal advice, and none of these checks make it safe to rely on instead of a lawyer. If the answer matters to you, open the official register and read the provision yourself. Every page is built so that you can.