Official legislation online today

The New Zealand Legislation website at legislation.govt.nz is now an official source of legislation, Attorney-General Christopher Finlayson said today.

“This important development puts official up-to-date legislation in the hands of New Zealanders at no cost”, he said. “They can be confident that they are accessing the authoritative source.”

Previously, only printed legislation from the Parliamentary Counsel Office or the New Zealand Government was official. Hard copy legislation dated quickly, and could be expensive and difficult to use.

Mr Finlayson noted the significant achievement of the Parliamentary Counsel Office in extending official status to online legislation. This included confirming the accuracy of the legislative database - translated to page numbers, it involved detailed checking of around 85,000 pages.

“This has restored the Government’s intellectual property in New Zealand legislation, and has now made it freely available for all to access and reuse,” Mr Finlayson said.

Details of which versions of legislation are official, and developments in printed legislation, are available at legislation.govt.nz/news.aspx.

The change is a result of the Legislation Act 2012, which up-dates and modernises the publication of legislation.