About this site

Rulebook measures Australia's federal laws. It starts with the Constitution, and is adding every Act of Parliament: how long each is, when it was made and by which government, how often it has been amended, what it makes an offence, what powers it delegates, and how it has fared in the High Court.

The aim is to let anyone see the size and shape of the Commonwealth's statute book, and ask for themselves whether each law still earns its place.

Our approach

We count things a reader can check. Where a judgement is needed, such as whether an offence has an identifiable victim, we answer a fixed question for every law in the same way, quote the words of the law that the answer rests on, and publish the questions. We don't combine answers into scores or rankings. The questions are drawn from standards Parliament and its advisers already apply to new laws: the principles of the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills and the Australian Law Reform Commission's report Traditional Rights and Freedoms (ALRC Report 129, 2015).

See the methodology for the detail.

Where the data comes from

• Federal Register of Legislation (Office of Parliamentary Counsel): the text of every law, its compilations and amendment history. Used under CC BY 4.0.
• Australian Electoral Commission and the Parliamentary Handbook: referendum results.

Sources and data loads lists every file we use, with its SHA-256 fingerprint.

Source code

The code that loads the data and runs this site is open source, on GitHub.

Corrections and suggestions

If something looks wrong, open an issue on GitHub. Include the page address and, if you can, the source that shows the correct figure.

Who built it

Built by James McHugh at Local IT Help. The site is independent and is not affiliated with the Australian Government.