THIS CHAPTER OUTLINES legislation of more general application that places particular duties and obligations on human service actors among others and legislation that is directed primarily at human service activity. Some areas of mainly human service endeavour, especially those involving the exercise of executive government powers and duties through public authorities, are controlled by specific legislation. Obvious examples of these are corrections and juvenile justice, health including mental health, social security, immigration, child protection, family law and adult guardianship. In human services tradition, these were called ‘statutory practice areas’ – this is something of a misnomer, given the extent of legislative imperatives in all areas of human service practice. This chapter also briefly introduces administrative law, a major category of public law, which defines the powers of authorities (such as the state) and controls the administration of legislation. It ends with a comment on the absence of law concerning licence to practice in the human services.

Proscriptive and prescriptive legislation that is particularly relevant to human service work commonly specifies powers and permissible delegations (including the power to make subordinate legislation), duties, classes of people to whom the Acts are directed, prohibited acts and factors that must be taken into account when making decisions under the authority of the Acts. This type of legislation also declares types of breaches and penalties, and the legal immunities provided for authorised action under the Acts. It sometimes provides for administrative and judicial review processes.