What is an Act?
An Act is a law made by Parliament. It is sometimes called a Statute.
As a cornerstone of New Zealand law, Acts state the law on a topic. They may override the common law, authorise the making of secondary legislation, and implement international treaties and agreements. They are a good place to start when trying to understand the law in any area.
Types of Acts
The five types of Acts are as follows.
Public Acts: Acts that apply to everyone in New Zealand. Most Acts are public Acts.
Local Acts: Acts that affect a particular area of New Zealand only.
Private Acts: Acts that are for the particular interest or benefit of a person or body.
Imperial Acts: Acts of the Parliaments of England, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom that are part of the law of New Zealand under the Imperial Laws Application Act 1988.
Provincial Acts (or Ordinances): Acts that date back to the time when New Zealand was a colony divided into provinces. Each province had the jurisdiction to pass legislation that only applied within that province.
On this website, you can search for Acts by type on the Advanced search page.
This website provides all current Acts, as-enacted versions of almost all Acts, and all consolidations of Acts since 2008. We continue to add historical material to the collection. See Previous versions of legislation available on this website for more information.
To learn about the status of Acts – what is in force, how they come into force, and what is official - see About legislation status.
A proposed Act is a Bill. See About Bills to learn about Bills.
What is the difference between principal and amendment Acts?
A principal Act sets out the law that applies to a particular topic. An amendment Act makes changes to existing legislation: see About amendment legislation. On this website, when viewing an Act, the Act’s left-hand tab near the top of the page will be labelled either Principal Act or Amendment Act, shown in the examples below.
What are consolidation or reprint Acts?
A consolidation (or, previously, a reprint) is a version of an Act that incorporates the amendments made to the Act so that it shows the law as at its stated date.
There may be multiple consolidations of an Act, each with different "as at" dates. These enable a user to locate a specific version of an Act with amendments incorporated "as at" a particular date.
Consolidations begin with “Version as at …”, and are identified as a consolidation in the Notes at the end of the Act, as shown below.
Earlier versions may use the term reprint rather than consolidation. Reprints are identified as a reprint in the Act starting information, and also in the Notes at the end of the Act.
Structure of an Act
All PCO-published legislation shares a similar legislative structure. Here we note some key features of Acts. Understanding the features of an Act helps you to better understand the Act’s contents and how it works.
The units that make up an Act generally include:
starting information
sections
Parts
schedules.
Note that the features of early Acts may be different.
Act starting information
The starting information of an Act includes:
New Zealand Coat of Arms (if it is an official version)
Act title
Administrative information: type of Act, date of assent, and where to find commencement information
contents list.
For a consolidated Act, the starting information also includes:
“Version as at” date, if the Act has been amended, or “Reprint as at” date for older versions
note about changes to this version of the Act
name of the administering agency.
Act sections
A section is the basic unit of an Act. Each section has its own number and usually deals with a separate subject or idea. Another term for a section is “provision”, a generic term that can also include clauses or other basic units of legislation.
Section format
Sections are numbered and have a bold section heading.
A section can include:
subsections: numbered as (1), (2) below section numbers
paragraphs: numbered as (a), (b) below section numbers and often below subsection numbers; if there are more than 26 paragraphs, numbers are used instead of letters
subparagraphs: (i), (ii) below paragraphs
subsubparagraphs: (A), (B) below subparagraphs.
An example of a section with subsections, paragraphs, and subparagraphs is shown below.
Types of section
Within an Act, Section 1 states the name of the Act.
Section 1 or 2 usually includes commencement information setting out when the Act comes into force. See also About legislation status.
For an amendment Act, section 3 often notes the principal Act being amended.
Sections 1 to 3 of an Amendment Act are shown below.
There may be a purpose section and an overview section – usually near the start of the Act, or at the start of specific Parts, if they apply only to those Parts.
There may be one or more interpretation sections. These give a standard meaning to words or phrases that occur in the Act. Normally, they also apply to any secondary legislation made under that Act. The word or phrase being defined is usually shown in bold.
There may be a transitional and savings section. This usually refers to a schedule (see below), which provides the detail. Transitional provisions say how the new law applies to existing situations. Savings provisions preserve existing rules that would otherwise be affected by the new law.
Some sections may enable secondary legislation to be made. These sections are called empowering provisions. Empowering provisions are followed by a publication note. The publication note sets out the following for any secondary legislation that is made under that section:
how it must be published
whether it must be presented to Parliament
whether Parliament can disallow it.
There is also a link to any secondary legislation made under the section, if available through the NZ Legislation website.
Act Parts
An Act may be divided into large blocks, called Parts. There may also be subparts and lower-level topic headings.
Act schedules
An Act may include schedules, which appear at the end of the Act. Schedules typically cover detailed matters.
The basic unit of a schedule is a clause. Clauses can be divided into subclauses, paragraphs, and subparagraphs. Clauses can be grouped into Parts and subparts.
If there are transitional and savings provisions, they are usually in the first schedule. Transitional provisions say how the new law applies to existing situations. Savings provisions preserve existing rules that would otherwise be affected by the new law.
Some older consolidation or reprint Acts may include relevant sections of amendment Acts that continue to apply alongside the principal Act. These are called “skeletons”, though not labelled as such in legislation. In hard copy prints of legislation, this was originally how relevant sections from amendment Acts that contain substantive requirements alongside the principal Act were included.
An example of a “skeleton”, from the end of the Tax Administration Act 1994, is shown below.
