Commonwealth Consolidated Acts Commonwealth Consolidated Acts(1) A document purporting to be either the original or a certified copy of a certificate, entry or record of a marriage alleged to have been solemnised in, or under the law of, a foreign country and purporting to have been issued by:
(a) in the case of a marriage alleged to have been solemnised in a foreign country--an authority of that country or of that part of the country in which the marriage was allegedly solemnised; or
(b) in the case of a marriage alleged to have been solemnised under the law of a foreign country--an authority of that country;
is, for all purposes, prima facie evidence of the facts stated in the document and of the validity of the marriage to which the document relates.
(2) Subsection (1) does not apply to or in relation to a document if it is proved that the authority of the foreign country or of the part of a foreign country by which the document purports to have been issued was not, at the time of issue, a competent authority.
(3) In subsection (2), competent authority means:
(a) in relation to a foreign country:
(i) any authority that is prescribed in relation to that country by regulations made for the purposes of this paragraph; or
(ii) any other authority that is competent, under the law in force in that country, to issue the original or a certified copy of a certificate, entry or record of a marriage solemnised in, or under the law of, that country; and
(b) in relation to a part of a foreign country:
(i) any authority that is prescribed in relation to that part of that country by regulations made for the purposes of this paragraph; or
(ii) any other authority that is competent, under the law in force in that part of that country, to issue the original or a certified copy of a certificate, entry or record of a marriage solemnised in that part of that country.