Bills are proposed laws which Parliament considers. The Bill must receive the approval of each house before it can become legislation i.e. an Act, Statute or Law. Most bills are Public Bills and are introduced by the Minister whose agency will be responsible for implementing and administering the legislation.

Any Member of Parliament is entitled to prepare and present a private member's Bill for debate, but because the Government of the day is in control of the proceedings it may be difficult for non-government Bills to receive the same consideration that government Bills receive. Similarly, any Member may propose amendments to any Bill during the Committee stage, but such amendments will usually be accepted by the Government only if the proposal has been agreed to in advance.

The Tasmanian Parliamentary Library has prepared a fact sheet on 'how laws are made' which will provide you with further background information.

An Explanatory Memorandum explains the purpose and content of a bill clause by clause in numerical order and in plain language. Tasmania does not produce any explanatory memoranda.  Clause notes and fact sheets are available from 1983 (from the Parliamentary Library) and can be accessed electronically  from 2008 + via the Progress of Bills link on the Parliament website. The Bills Fact Sheets are also available on AustLII

Hansard is the name given to transcripts of parliamentary proceedings for both the House of Assembly and Legislative Council. Hansard are also commonly referred to as parliamentary debates.

Tasmania's hansard did not officially commence until mid 1979. The University Law Library holds printed Hansard from 1979-1995.  Online Hansard  is available from the Parliament of Tasmania web site from 1992 +

For further background information, the Parliamentary Library has produced an excellent fact sheet.

Mercury ROpen Access Repository:

These ROpen Access Repository appeared from 1920 to 1978 via an agreement between the Parliament and the newspaper. The earlier rOpen Access Repository contained almost verbatim reports, taken down by the journalists, rather than the edited newspaper versions.