Welcome to the Office of Parliamentary Counsel Website
The Office of Parliamentary Counsel (OPC) provides timely, high quality legislative drafting and publication services. These include drafting and advisory services for Commonwealth Bills, legislative, notifiable and other instruments as well as comprehensive public access to Commonwealth legislation through the Federal Register of Legislation website.
For information on our specialist services, please see the Services and Training page.
This site is designed to be of interest to lawmakers, legislative drafters and anyone else seeking information about Commonwealth Bills, Acts and instruments. For information for clients working with OPC including frequently asked questions, please see the Client Information page.
OPC has been active in encouraging the use of plain language in legislation and developing and using plain language techniques. Please see the Plain Language page for further information. OPC has also developed the Guide to Reducing Complexity in Legislation as part of the Government’s initiative to reduce complexity in legislation.
Drafting Directions are instructions issued by the First Parliamentary Counsel to ensure that a consistent approach is taken in Commonwealth legislative drafting. They are available on the OPC Drafting Directions Series page. The OPC Drafting Manuals page includes the OPC Drafting Manual and the OPC Plain English Manual. The Drafting Manual gives an overview of Commonwealth legislative drafting techniques, including the Drafting Directions.
The Instruments Handbook provides information to assist Commonwealth rule-makers and agencies manage instruments in accordance with the relevant law. A Sunsetting Checklist is also available to help agencies review legislative instruments that are to sunset under the Legislation Act 2003.
In addition to information contained on this page, this site provides links to other sites related to legislation and legislative drafting.
We are interested in your views about our site and welcome your comments. These should be sent to our Webmaster.
| 
