School Zone Dates - What Does "Publicly Notified" Mean?

I was curious about exact school zone dates in NSW. I found a NSW Education page listing the "gazetted school days" here(online.det.nsw.edu.au) which implies there'd be a NSW Government Gazette entry listing them, but I can't find one at the official site for the NSW Gazette(legislation.nsw.gov.au).

The NSW Road Rules 2008 legislation says a "school day" is "…any day other than a Saturday or Sunday, a day that is a public holiday or a day publicly notified as a school holiday for government schools." (emphasis is mine).

Apart from the Government Gazette, does anyone know what the legal definition of "publicly notified" might be?

And no I don't have any particular agenda for looking into this. I'm just curious whether it's possible to join the dots from the legislation to the road.

Comments

  • The legal definition for the days of school is from your first link.

    https://online.det.nsw.edu.au/calendar/?do=setViewPeriod&cat…

    Even if the last day of schools is Monday Dec 15 2014 and you get caught speeding in a school zone on Wednesday Dec 17 2014, you will get a fine for a school zone as it is one of the officially listed "gazetted school days"

    • It's the fact that DET page refers explicitly to "gazetted school days" that leads me to ask where they are gazetted. That should be the NSW Government Gazette shouldn't it?

      I realise OzBargain, like many online resources, isn't a definitive source of truth on legal matters, but doesn't it seem unlikely that someone could get away with standing up in a court of law and saying "I wasn't breaking a Road Rule because an Education Department web page told me so"? :)

      PS. The link to the RTA regarding school zones, at the bottom of that DET page, is broken, so questioning the accuracy of the site isn't unreasonable.

      PPS. The "Terms and Conditions" at the bottom of the page also explicitly disclaim any responsibility for errors or omissions. Not reassuring as a "source of truth".

  • if in doubt throw it out.

  • I've done some more digging into this, and I've discovered the following:

    • I have confirmation from the NSW Parliamentary Counsel’s Office that school term dates are not gazetted and haven't been since at least 2001. Hence the references on the education website to "gazetted" dates appear either outdated or inaccurate.
    • The NSW Dept of Education and Communities (DEC) seems to be where the other departments (including Transport) all point, although I haven't found anything explicitly listing the website as the definitive source of truth.
    • NSW is divided into Eastern and Western Divisions by NSW DEC and the dates for school zones vary between them. I can't find a map of those divisions, just an alphabetical list of schools in the western division(schools.nsw.edu.au).
    • Kids in the west must be smarter so require a week's less education each year.
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