We are excited to welcome you to the redeveloped NZ Legislation website. Our aim is to make it easier for you to find and use all New Zealand legislation.
What’s new
There's both new content and new features on the site for you to explore.
New content:
Secondary legislation drafted and published by other agencies is available through the website – links to over 8,000 items of secondary legislation, published by around 90 agencies. This is still a pilot – see Pilot of secondary legislation service below.
As-enacted versions of approximately 16,000 pre-2008 Acts are available both as web pages and in PDF format, converted from scans of the original printed annual bound volumes of Acts.
New and improved features include:
mobile-responsive layout and navigation
a collapsible contents panel, making legislation easier to navigate
filters to quickly refine search results
browse or search by administering agency
clear display of legislation status
consistent and clear feedback on your search query
toggle to hide history notes and repealed sections
an in-page drop-down for legislation versions
links to the amendments incorporated in each version
search and filter on Amendment Papers
an API
improved accessibility, particularly for those using screen readers, keyboard navigation, or text magnification or custom spacing.
Features coming in the future
We received a lot of valuable feedback during the public demo phase and are committed to building the features you’ve told us matter most. Two features on our development roadmap are tools to tag and deliver specific sections of legislation, and a contextual search experience designed to give you a clearer window into why a search result is relevant.
We will continue to refine the site based on your input, so please keep sharing your feedback.
Old website still online at classic.legislation.govt.nz
We are still adding features to the new site, such as the ability to tag sections, which users have told us they value. If there’s a feature you rely on that isn’t on this website, you can still access it at classic.legislation.govt.nz. The classic site will continue to provide up-to-date official legislation during a transition period.
Why change?
The classic website was much loved, and used by thousands of New Zealanders every day. However, a full redevelopment has allowed us to deliver new, modern services:
More secondary legislation: The old website does not provide access to all New Zealand legislation. Secondary legislation published by agencies is not searchable on the old website, so we are improving access to this important information. Our pilot service for secondary legislation is part of the new website.
Mobile-responsiveness and better accessibility support: The new website is designed to look great across all screen sizes and devices, as well as meeting more accessibility requirements.
A new data service: The launch of an API (Application Programming Interface) means people can access, query, and display legislative data in new ways.
A new collection of historical Acts: The redeveloped website means we can more easily publish historical legislation, in connection with our digitisation programme. It allows you to search pre-2008 as-enacted Acts, and we will add more historical legislation in the future.
Features you’ve been requesting: Over the years we have received many requests for improved or upgraded features. The new platform has allowed us to add many new ways for searching, browsing, and interacting with legislation.
Pilot of secondary legislation service
The agency-published secondary legislation on this website is a pilot and there are known issues with this material collected from agency websites. These will be addressed as agencies improve how they publish their secondary legislation and as we continue to develop our tool and processes. Whether or not an instrument is collected does not affect whether legislation is validly made or in force.
See Agency-published legislation available on this website for more about agency-published secondary legislation, how the data is collected, and known issues with the data.
Existing links to legislation will not break
Redirects are in place so that any links you have saved to specific legislation will not break.
If you have saved a search string, however, the link to your results will break. You will need to re-do your search.
RSS feeds
If you use RSS feeds, your existing feeds will stop working. You will need to update your feed reader with new URLs.
Read more about RSS feeds on this website: Keep up to date with legislation.
Get help and give feedback
You can get help with using the website at:
or feel free to contact us.
If you spot something odd or have a suggestion, use the Feedback tab to send us your feedback.