Delegated legislation comes in many forms

Delegated legislation is made under the authority of an Act, not by the Act directly. For example, parliament may delegate this authority to a minister, statutory bodies or office holders.

Regulations are the most common type of delegated legislation. There are many others, including:

• determinations
• ordinances
• proclamations
• orders
• rules
• by-laws
• standards
• principles.

Some jurisdictions refer to delegated legislation as ‘subordinate legislation’, ‘subsidiary legislation’ or ‘statutory rules’.

Some, but not all, types of delegated legislation are legislative instruments. ‘Legislative instrument’ is defined in section 8 of the Legislation Act 2003. All legislative instruments are registered on the Legislation Register. Regulations are legislative instruments.

The Legislation Register also contains notifiable instruments. These are not legislative, but are notices about legal matters of interest to the public. An example is the Order to Call Out the Australian Defence Force Reserves [No. 2], made during Australia’s bushfire crisis in 2020.

Style for regulations titles is roman type, title case

Use title case (maximal capitalisation) and roman type for the titles of regulations. 

Always capitalise ‘Regulations’ or ‘Regulation’ when you write the title of regulations and refer to particular regulations.

Cite the title exactly without altering the spelling. The year forms part of the title. There is no comma between title and year.

The basic unit of regulations is a regulation (reg)

Regulations are compilations made up of individual regulations. Each regulation might be divided into subregulations.

Use lower case when citing an individual regulation or subregulation, unless they begin a sentence.

Some titles are singular so check to make sure you write the title correctly. A singular regulation still contains regulations and subregulations.

The shortened forms of regulations and subregulations are:

• reg
• regs
• subreg
• subregs.

Regulations receive a unique identifier when registered on the Legislation Register – for example, F2019C00400 (Ombudsman Regulations 2017). You can use the identifier to search for regulations or to point users to earlier superseded regulations.

Other delegated legislation follows title case, no italics

Style for all other titles of delegated legislation is the same as for regulations. 

Use roman type and title case for citations that give the full title.

Use an initial capital for a reference to a specific instrument. Use lower case for generic references.

Determinations

Use the long form ‘Determination’ for in-text citations and notes.

Use a capital ‘D’ when you refer to a particular determination or to determinations.

Use a lower case ‘d’ when you write about generic determinations.

Orders

Use the long forms ‘Order’ and ‘Orders’ for in-text citations and notes.

Use a capital ‘O’ when you refer to a particular order or to orders.

Use a lower case ‘o’ when you write about generic orders.

Ordinances

Use the long forms ‘Ordinance’ and ‘Ordinances’ for in-text citations and notes.

Use a capital ‘O’ when you refer to a particular ordinance.

Use a lower case ‘o’ when you write about generic ordinances.

Acts in the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory were known as ordinances until self-government.

Rules

A rule is made by judges or legislation setting out how a court will conduct its proceedings.

Don’t use ‘rule’ and ‘ruling’ interchangeably. They are different things. Rulings are authoritative decisions made by a court or similar body about matters before them.

Use a capital ‘R’ when you refer to a particular rule or rules.

Use a lower case ‘r’ when you write about generic rules.

Units for rules are ‘rules’ and ‘subrules’.

Use lower case for their shortened forms:

• r (rule)
• subr (subrule)
• rr (rules)
• subrr (subrules).