Finding 2nd reading speeches using Hansard Online 1992-2008
Example of how to find the 2nd reading speech for the Evidence Act 2001
First find the date of the 2nd reading speech. You can do this either by using the Tasmanian Legislation database, finding the Evidence Act 2001, clicking on the Title of the Act in the left hand pane and scrolling down to the bottom of the right hand screen (or use Control End) and clicking on “Sessional Version”.
Once the Sessional Version loads go to the bottom of the right hand screen again and you will see that the 2nd reading speech for the Evidence Bill was on 2 October 2001 in the House of Assembly and 6 November 2001 for the Legislation Council. Alternatively if you have access to the print bound volumes of Acts for 2001, find the Evidence Act and check at the end of the Act for the dates.
Now go to the Parliamentary Web Site
On the drop down menu for Hansard (blue bar under page header) choose House of Assembly. When you are on the House of Assembly page click on Advanced Search (top of page).
and fill in as in the example below using the two fields “All of the words” and “The exact phrase” and ticking the Hansard box:
When you click on search you will get the results shown below:
This is where the dates you have looked up, either online or in print, can help you choose the most likely link for getting to the page you want. The result at the end of the list is the only one with the date 2nd October 2001 so click on that to bring up the following page:
The page you have retrieved contains pages 28 – 108 of the House of Assembly Hansard for Tuesday 2 October 2001. Fortunately it lists your search terms at the top of the page. If you click on the term “Evidence Bill 2001” it will take you to the text of the 2nd reading speech for the Evidence Bill 2001.
Starting with the words “Evidence Act 2001” highlight all the text down to the words “I commend the bill to the House” and copy, then paste into a word document. It is also a good idea to insert the date – 2nd October 2001 – and the words “House of Assembly” at the beginning of the document.
If you don’t want to have the highlighted search terms in your document you can use the Download link at the top of the document and then use Edit, Find to get to the text you want and highlight, copy and paste. Save your document.
Be aware that not all searches will go as smoothly as this one has. Sometimes the date of the 2nd reading in both the print and the online version can be wrong so you have to try other dates close to the one you have identified.
Sometimes the second reading of the Bill will occur in a different year from that of the Act.
Prior to 1997 you will not be able to access the sessional versions of Act in the online database.
Consider whether spending time doing the search is a productive use of your time, when you can ask your Library to request a copy of the 2nd reading speech from the Parliamentary Library and you will probably get it in around 10 minutes.
Supreme Court Library – Legislation Guides – Finding Second Reading Speeches – issued 3 September 2014