Governor assents to public holiday and road traffic amendment acts

The Governor has assented, in the name and on behalf of His Majesty the King, to two amending Acts passed by the Legislative Council and the Legislative Assembly of Western Australia. The assents are notified for public information in the Western Australian Government Gazette No. 140 of 3 November 2026, under notice PA401 headed Royal Assent to Bills. Both Acts were assented on 28 October 2026.

The notification sits in the Parliament section of the gazette, on page 2537, and is signed by Sam Hastings, Clerk of the Parliaments, and dated 29 October 2026. The gazette states that the two laws were passed during the First Session of the Forty Second Parliament, and that assent was given “in the name and on behalf of His Majesty the King” on the date shown against each title.

The Parliament notice is one of five categories of official business carried in the same issue, alongside Environment, Justice, Local Government and Public Notices. The gazette is published by authority of the Government Printer for the State of Western Australia and appears each Tuesday and Friday.

The two Acts assented on 28 October

• Public and Bank Holidays Amendment Act 2026 — Act No. 19 of 2026, assent dated 28 October 2026.
• Road Traffic Amendment (Disqualification Notices) Act 2026 — Act No. 20 of 2026, assent dated 28 October 2026.

The short titles identify the fields each Act touches: the public and bank holidays statute and the road traffic statute, in the latter case the provisions dealing with disqualification notices. Both are amending Acts, meaning they alter existing legislation rather than establish new regimes, and both were numbered consecutively in the State’s 2026 statute series.

A second batch of assents in October

The 3 November notice follows an earlier round of assents published in the Western Australian Government Gazette No. 136 of 27 October 2026, which recorded three Acts assented on 21 October 2026:

• Building and Construction Industry (Security of Payment) Amendment Act 2026 — 16 of 2026.
• Retail Barring Orders Act 2026 — 17 of 2026.
• Finance Legislation Amendment (Housing Affordability) Act 2026 — 18 of 2026.

Taken together, the two gazette notices record five Acts of the State Parliament receiving assent in the space of eight days, from 21 to 28 October 2026. The October batch was signed by the same officer, Sam Hastings, Clerk of the Parliaments, and dated 22 October 2026; this week’s notice carries the clerk’s signature and the date 29 October 2026, the day after the two most recent assents.

What the notice records and what it leaves open

The Royal Assent to Bills notice is an administrative announcement, not a text of the laws. It sets out only three data points for each Act: the title, the date of assent and the Act number in the year’s series.

• No commencement provision is stated in the notice itself.
• No section references, penalty levels, transitional arrangements or dates of effect are given.
• No indication of what the amendments change in practice appears in the gazette entry.

The published wording is confined to the formula that the Governor assented to the “undermentioned Acts passed by the Legislative Council and the Legislative Assembly” and that the information is notified “for public information”. The gazette therefore establishes the fact and date of assent and the official numbering of both laws, while the operative text of the amendments lies outside the notice.

Royal assent is the step that turns a bill passed by both houses into an Act of Parliament, and its publication in the gazette is the point at which the assent becomes a matter of public record. For employers, workers and anyone whose obligations depend on the State’s public and bank holiday rules, and for drivers and licence holders whose dealings with the road traffic law involve disqualification notices, the 3 November gazette is the formal public marker that the two amending Acts have passed into law as Act No. 19 of 2026 and Act No. 20 of 2026.

Source: Western Australian Government Gazette, No. 140, 3 November 2026, Parliament (Royal Assent to Bills), p. 2537 (official reference: PA401).