Public Access to Legislation Project
Welcome to the Public Access to Legislation (PAL) Project home page.
Read the media statement from the Attorney-General, 16 January 2008.
The PAL Project, designed to improve the way in which New Zealand legislation is made available to the public, was completed in January 2008. It has involved the implementation of a new XML-based drafting and publishing system within the PCO, and the provision of the New Zealand Legislation website. The new website provides free access to Acts, regulations, Bills, and Supplementary Order Papers.
The legislation on the website is at present an unofficial version of New Zealand legislation. The PCO will now undertake a process of "officialising" the legislation, so that the website can ultimately become an official source of New Zealand legislation. This process is expected to take around three years. See Making online legislation official on the New Zealand Legislation website.
The Interim Website of New Zealand Legislation, which has been provided by Brookers since 2002, will continue to be available (at interim.legislation.govt.nz) during a transition period of around three months from the completion of the project. The transition period is to enable the PCO to bring the legislation available through the new website fully up to date with recent legislative amendments, and to progressively migrate the collection of Bills currently before the House of Representatives. If an Act or regulation is not up to date on the new website, an alert message is displayed that links to the amending legislation. All Bills currently before the House continue to be available on the New Zealand Parliament website.
Free access to New Zealand Legislation
- New Zealand Legislation website
- Acts
- Regulations
- Bills
- Supplementary Order Papers
- See About this site for more information
- Available during the transition period: the Interim
Website of New Zealand Legislation (hosted by Brookers)
- Acts and regulations: current versions with amendments incorporated
- New Zealand Parliament website
- Bills introduced since the start of 2003, and earlier Bills still before the House, in PDF format
- Supplementary Order Papers relating to Bills currently before the House, in PDF format
- Knowledge Basket
- Bills and Supplementary Order Papers
- Acts: original versions (amendments not incorporated), and reprints published since 1 November 2002
- Regulations: original versions (amendments not incorporated), and reprints published since 1 October 2003
Project history
The PAL Project was originally scheduled to go live in February 2003, but the PCO and Unisys identified a number of issues that required further work. In May 2003 the Government sought, and later gained, independent assurance that the system, when implemented, would be operationally stable, maintainable, and capable of future enhancement.
The PAL Project resumed in March 2005 following agreement between the PCO and Unisys on the commercial basis on which the project could proceed, and Cabinet approval of that agreement.
The PAL system for drafting and publishing legislation was implemented within the PCO, Office of the Clerk, and Tax Drafting Unit of the Inland Revenue Department in November 2007.
The New Zealand Legislation website became available to the public in January 2008.