Supplementary Order Papers become Amendment Papers
8 December 2023
Helping to make Parliamentary terminology easier to understand
Parliament has agreed to change the name Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) to Amendment Paper (AP). The new name was introduced after the House of Representatives on 7 December 2023 adopted a Sessional Order implementing the change. That Sessional Order and the new name took effect today.
Supplementary Order Papers, now Amendment Papers, contain amendments to a Bill and are an important mechanism in the legislative process. The new name better describes their function, helping to make Parliamentary terminology easier to understand.
Form of Amendment Papers
Amendment Papers look almost identical to SOPs, with an identifying number at their top left corner. They will be undated, however. As SOPs were originally printed as supplements to the Order Paper, they were required to carry the date of a sitting day of the House. This date often bore little relation to the date the SOP was released or considered by the House. An AP’s date of release will continue to be published on both the Parliament and NZ Legislation websites.
How to find Amendment Papers
You can find APs on this website under the related Bill’s Versions and APs tab. Any earlier SOPs are also available under the related Bill’s Versions and APs tab.
Background material
Read more about this procedural change in the Business Committee’s Review of Standing Orders 2023, Hansard for debate on adopting the proposals in that report, and the Sessional Order implementing the change.
Severe weather legislation
22 March 2023
View a collection of legislation produced in response to severe weather events:
Better links between Acts and secondary legislation
29 August 2022, updated 5 September 2022
We've made some changes to the NZ Legislation website to improve access to secondary legislation. This is the next phase in developments that began when the Legislation Act 2021 came into force in October last year—see Secondary legislation on the NZ Legislation website.
A new Secondary legislation tab applied to all Acts
Every Act has a new Secondary legislation tab that provides information about any secondary legislation made under that Act.
If there is secondary legislation published on the NZ Legislation website under that Act, it is listed under the tab. By default users see principal current secondary legislation only, but can choose to include amendment and revoked secondary legislation.
The tab also identifies the empowering provision and the agency that administers the secondary legislation.
Only secondary legislation drafted by the Parliamentary Counsel Office is published on this website. Secondary legislation made and published by other agencies is not listed under the new tab. So if an Act allows secondary legislation to be made, the secondary legislation tab includes a reminder that there may be other secondary legislation not shown, and suggests the user check with the administering agency.
More about secondary legislation …
A clear statement of who administers each Act
Every Act states clearly which agency administers it, immediately under the title of the Act.
This makes it easier for you to know what agency to contact if you have questions about the legislation.
Legislation Act 2019 comes into force 28 October 2021
22 October 2021
The Legislation Act 2019 comes into force on 28 October. The Act promotes high-quality legislation for New Zealand that is easy to find, use, and understand.
Read more about the Act, including how it provides principles and rules about the interpretation of legislation: About the Legislation Act 2019 …
Secondary legislation on the NZ Legislation website
22 October 2021
You may soon notice some changes on the NZ Legislation website:
The label “Legislative Instrument” will be replaced by “secondary legislation”. You’ll see this when using the website’s search and browse tools, and on search results pages, from 28 October 2021.
For Acts that allow secondary legislation to be made, it will be easier to see where the secondary legislation must be published, and whether it must be presented to Parliament. This information will be shown in a table added under the provisions within an Act that identify a power to make secondary legislation. Tables will be added to hundreds of Acts over several months, with work starting on 28 October 2021.
The Secondary Legislation Act 2021 makes thousands of technical amendments to hundreds of Acts on 28 October. While we will update the affected Acts as quickly as possible, the process will take several months to complete. In the meantime, each Act will carry a note saying that some in-force amendments have not been incorporated.
What is secondary legislation?
Secondary legislation is law made:
by someone other than Parliament
under a power that Parliament has formally delegated in a particular Act.
There is also a small amount of secondary legislation made not under an Act but under the Royal prerogative. Secondary legislation is defined in section 5 of the Legislation Act 2019.
Secondary legislation can have titles like “regulations”, “rules”, and “Orders-in-Council”.
Not all secondary legislation is available from the NZ Legislation website. All secondary legislation drafted by the Parliamentary Counsel Office is published here in full. But some secondary legislation is drafted by other agencies and published by them in other places, typically on their website or in the NZ Gazette.
Why the changes?
The changes stem from the Legislation Act 2019 and Secondary Legislation Act 2021 coming into force on 28 October 2021. They are part of a reform of secondary legislation that provides certainty as to what counts as secondary legislation, where it must be published, and what Parliamentary oversight applies to it. See Legislation Act changes for more details.
Website now using HTTPS
18 December 2020
The New Zealand Legislation website now uses HTTPS. This means the website uses a protocol called transport layer security (TLS) to encrypt information exchanged between the site and your device. So, any searches you perform on the overall website or the pages you view cannot be seen by other parties.
For more information about keeping yourself private and safe online, see https://www.ownyouronline.govt.nz/. [link updated 1/8/2024]
COVID-19 legislation
8 April 2020
View a collection of legislation produced in response to COVID-19: