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What's new?

This page notes recent updates and improvements to the legislation.govt.nz demo.


29 June 2025

Final content coming soon

If you can see this, you are viewing the preproduction site - and you will be able to preview final NZL content soon.


19 May 2025

This demo website now contains official versions of New Zealand legislation

All legislation published by the PCO under section 67 of the Legislation Act 2019 is available from this site. This includes the collection of Acts, Bills, and PCO-published secondary legislation.

When the legislation.govt.nz website is updated with legislative content, those updates are also published here, at demo.legislation.govt.nz.

See About this demo website for more information.


28 April 2025

New feedback gathering tool

The right-hand Feedback tab and Submit feedback in the top navigation now takes you to a feedback form. When you submit this form, PCO receives your message and a link to the URL on this site where you requested feedback. At PCO, we review and manage your feedback internally. This allows us to keep your information private and secure.

See our updated Privacy statement for more information.


Filters and links to secondary legislation

We've added links to secondary legislation made under a specific section. Directly under an empowering provision, a link will take you to a filtered view of secondary legislation.


05 March 2025

Divided Bills

We've added the relationships between divided Bills. You'll find previous versions of divided Bills in the "Versions" tab, as well as the related Bills that were created from a division.


10 February 2025

Amendments incorporated

We've added links to the amendments incorporated in each version of Acts and secondary legislation. You'll find these listed in the "versions" tab.


28 January 2025

Filter secondary legislation

On the "Related secondary legislation" tab you'll see a new "Refine results" button. This will take you to a page where you can sort and filter on the secondary legislation empowered by a particular Act.


23 January 2025

Collapsible contents pane

People have told us they like the new persistent contents pane, but they want to hide it when they don't need it. You can now collapse the contents pane with a new button at the top, and bring it back when you need it again.


21 January 2025

Original enacted versions of all Acts available

The as-enacted versions of all pre-2008 Acts have been added to this website. An as-enacted Act is the first version of that Act. We provide as-enacted Acts on this website, as a legal resource and for comparison with later versions of Acts. These pre-2008 versions were converted from scans of the original printed annual bound volumes of Acts. Generally, you can find these converted versions:

  • as the earliest version of the Act - for Acts that are in force

  • as the earliest version of the Act - for repealed Acts that already had versions on legislation.govt.nz

  • as the only version available - for repealed Acts that were not previously published on legislation.govt.nz

How to locate and read as-enacted versions of Acts

To locate and read the as-enacted version of an Act, navigate to the Act and open its Versions tab. Its as-enacted version is the first version and is noted to be as enacted.

A screenshot showing options for downloading as-enacted legislation, as a PDF or as an original scan.

For the as-enacted version of an Act, you have the option to download both a text .PDF of the converted Act or a scan of the original Act.

A screenshot showing options for downloading as-enacted legislation, as a PDF or as an original scan.

What if I find an error?

If you find a difference between the original scan of an Act and its PDF version, please note the error’s information. Then, contact us and send us the information. We fix errors when we have resources available.


13 January 2025

All versions

We've added all previous versions of Acts and secondary legislation to the demo site. You can find these in the Versions tab, or through the drop-down that appears at the top of the page when you scroll down.

A reminder that this demo website displays a static version of the content from legislation.govt.nz as at 10 April 2024, so you will find some recent versions missing.


18 December 2024

Year filter

You can now filter on a specific year, or across a range of years, in Advanced Search.


09 December 2024

Year sorting

You can now sort your results by year using the drop-down on the right-hand side of your search results. Please note that much of the agency-published secondary legislation does not have years, so it appears at the end of your results after you've applied a sort.


22 January 2025

Alerts

We've added the alerts that appear on the current site for reprints. We've also added an alert to tell you when you're looking at an older version of legislation, along with a link to take you to the current version.


03 December 2024

In-page version drop-down

Now, when you are scrolling through legislation you can use the drop-down on the top right of the page to change to another version. You'll go directly to the same section you are looking at, but in a new version.


02 December 2024

Secondary legislation filter

We've added an option in Advanced Search that lets you filter between agency-published and PCO-published secondary legislation.


27 November 2024

Secondary legislation linked to administering agencies

We've linked secondary legislation published by the Parliamentary Counsel Office to its administering agency. You can filter by administering agency with the drop down to the left of your search results, or through the browse page.


22 November 2024

Versions now available

We've added previous versions of Acts, Bills, and PCO-published secondary legislation to the site. As a first step, we've limited this to the previous ten versions. If you're looking at an older version of legislation, you'll see an alert and a link that will take you to the current version. We will add the full set of versions in the future and keep refining how versions look and are accessed on the site.


21 November 2024

Alphabetical sorting

You can now sort your search results from A-Z, or from Z-A. Give the new sorting drop-down a try and see what you think.


13 November 2024

Download legislation as PDF

PCO-published legislation can now be downloaded as a PDF. This includes:

  • Acts

  • Bills

  • Secondary legislation

  • Amendment papers


Filters added to Advanced Search

We've added new filters to the Advanced Search for Acts, Bills, and secondary legislation. Take a look and see what you think. We've added:

  • status

  • classification


04 November 2024

Demo site access is open. Try new functions and features

This demo website has new functions and features, and improvements to existing features. These include:

  • agency-published secondary legislation is searchable alongside Acts, Bills and PCO-published secondary legislation

  • filters to quickly refine search results

  • better feedback on your search query

  • new contents panel for legislation navigation

  • improved links between Acts and secondary legislation

  • filters and a browse page for administering agencies

  • clear visibility on legislation status

  • mobile optimisation

  • toggle to show or hide repealed sections and history notes

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