To stay up to date when new legislation, or new versions of legislation, is published, you can subscribe to web feeds (RSS feeds) using a feed reader application. Feeds will deliver updates as soon as they are published. Look for the web feed symbol.
We offer three types of feeds:
pre-built web feeds covering common scenarios
document version feeds
search-based feeds
Pre-built web feeds
Document version feeds
Document version feed provides an update any time a new version of legislation is published.
To create a document version feed:
Navigate to the Versions tab of the legislation.
Click the web feed icon on the right-hand side.
Copy the link to the feed or directly open the link in your browser to view the feed XML.
You can create a document versions feed for any legislation, except agency-published legislation collected from agency websites through the pilot secondary legislation service.
Search-based feeds
A search-based feed provides an update in the feed any time new legislation is published that matches your selected search criteria.
To create a search-based feed:
Perform a Global search (see Search quickly with Global search) or navigate to the search results page.
Find the "Refine results" panel at the left-hand side.
Click the web feed icon on the right-hand side of the panel.
Copy the link to the feed, or directly open the link in your browser to view the feed XML.
Search-based feeds can be based on a search query or based on an "empty" search. Any filters you have applied in the search will control what appears in a feed based on that search. This is powerful when combined with an empty search query. For example, to create a feed containing new principal Acts, perform an empty search query, filter to "Legislation type" of "Act" and "Act type" of "Principal", then copy the web feed link.
For searches like these which return many results, the exact items you see in the feed will likely differ from what you see in the search results, as feed items are ordered chronologically based on when they are published to the website, while search results are sorted by "most relevant" by default.
Use our web feeds with a feed reader
To use our web feeds, you will need a feed reader application. Some options you could use are:
The desktop version of Microsoft Outlook lets you add feeds directly to your inbox. Search online for “RSS feeds in Outlook” for instructions on how to add them to your inbox.
Feedly is a web-based feed reader, with apps for Android and iOS.
NetNewsWire is an open-source feed reader for MacOS, iOS, and iPadOS.
Web feeds from the old legislation website
If you used web feeds from the old legislation website, you can continue to use them until the old site is decommissioned. Just update the domain name in the feed URL from legislation.govt.nz to classic.legislation.govt.nz.
However, we encourage you to migrate to web feeds from the new website.
Use of classic site web feeds as de facto API
As the old legislation website did not include a developer API, many developers used its web feeds as a "de facto API". If you have built software that uses these web feeds in this way, you can continue to do so (until the old site is decommissioned) by updating the base domain to classic.legislation.govt.nz. However, this should be considered an unsupported use.
We encourage you instead to migrate to our new API, which has been developed to provide a supported way to programmatically access legislation data.
If you are a developer who has used previous web feeds in lieu of an API whose use case is not met by our new API, please email us at contact@pco.govt.nz. We would be keen to learn more about your use case and work with you to enhance our API so that it meets your needs.