Commonwealth Consolidated Acts

EVIDENCE ACT 1995 - SECT 153

  (1)   It is presumed, unless the contrary is proved, that a document purporting:

  (a)   to be any government or official gazette (by whatever name called) of the Commonwealth, a State, a Territory or a foreign country; or

  (b)   to have been printed by the Government Printer or by the government or official printer of a State or Territory; or

  (c)   to have been printed by authority of the government or administration of the Commonwealth, a State, a Territory or a foreign country;

is what it purports to be and was published on the day on which it purports to have been published.

  (2)   If:

  (a)   there is produced to a court:

  (i)   a copy of any government or official gazette (by whatever name called) of the Commonwealth, a State, a Territory or a foreign country; or

  (ii)   a document that purports to have been printed by the Government Printer or by the government or official printer of a State or Territory; or

  (iii)   a document that purports to have been printed by authority of the government or administration of the Commonwealth, a State, a Territory or a foreign country; and

  (b)   the doing of an act:

  (i)   by the Governor - General or by the Governor of a State or the Administrator of a Territory; or

  (ii)   by a person authorised or empowered to do the act by an Australian law or a law of a foreign country;

    is notified or published in the copy or document;

it is presumed, unless the contrary is proved, that the act was duly done and, if the day on which the act was done appears in the copy or document, it was done on that day.

Note:   Section   5 extends the operation of this provision to proceedings in all Australian courts.