Public Access to Legislation Project
Frequently asked questions
If you have a question that cannot be answered from the information provided below, please email contact.pco@parliament.govt.nz.
- What are the expected benefits of the New Zealand Public Access to Legislation Project?
- How will the public access the PAL database?
- Will the PAL Project produce and maintain a resource that is free to use?
- What will be available on the website following the completion of the PAL Project?
- What legislation will be made available in hard copy form after the project is finished?
- Why are deemed regulations (such as Rules) not included in the material to be made available by the PAL Project?
- What is the Parliamentary Counsel Office's time frame for this project?
- When will legislation on the website be official?
- Will the Parliamentary Counsel Office website be any different from the commercial databases currently available?
What are the expected benefits of the New Zealand Public Access to Legislation Project?
The Public Access to Legislation Project (PAL Project) will enable the Crown to fulfil its statutory responsibility to make legislation available to the public, both as enacted and in an up-to-date form with amendments incorporated. Benefits of this project include:
- better access to up-to-date, comprehensive, and authoritative legislation for all New Zealanders, including individuals, corporations, community agencies, and interest groups
- better access to Bills as they pass through the House; this will particularly benefit those who wish to make submissions on Bills and others who may be affected by proposed legislation
- better and easier access for Ministers, members of Parliament, select committees, and parliamentary staff to a comprehensive database of enacted legislation, Bills as they pass through the House, and proposed amendments to Bills.
How will the public access the PAL database?
The public will access the new database via a website on the Internet. They will do so via home PCs, public libraries, and at other locations where Internet access is available.
Will the PAL Project produce and maintain a resource that is free to use?
The PAL Project will make electronic versions of Acts, Bills, and Statutory Regulations available to the public free of charge over the Internet. The public will also be able to print copies of legislation from the website free of charge. Printed versions of Acts, Bills, and Statutory Regulations will continue to be made available for purchase at a reasonable price.
What will be available on the website following the completion of the PAL Project?
It is planned to make the following material available on the website:
- Acts and Statutory Regulations as soon as possible after they have been enacted or made
- Acts and Statutory Regulations in an up-to-date form, with amendments incorporated as soon as possible
- Bills at each stage during their progress through the House (ie, Introduction copies, bar-2 and bar-3 Bills)
- Supplementary Order Papers.
The following will not be available on the website:
- deemed regulations (ie, Rules, codes of practices, and various other legislative instruments that are not published in the Statutory Regulations series)
- international treaties and conventions.
What legislation will be made available in hard copy form after the project is finished?
- Bills at each stage
- Acts as enacted (all), both individually and in bound volume form
- Statutory Regulations as made (all), both individually and in bound volume form
- reprints of selected Acts (ie, with amendments incorporated) (pamphlet copies only)
- reprints of selected regulations (ie, with amendments incorporated) (pamphlet copies only).
The PCO no longer publishes bound volumes of reprinted legislation. Volume 42 of the Reprinted Statutes of New Zealand series was the last to be published.
More information about reprints.
Why are deemed regulations (such as Rules) not included in the material to be made available by the PAL Project?
The PAL Project, as currently scoped, will cover only the legislation that the Parliamentary Counsel Office is responsible for, ie, Acts, Bills, and Statutory Regulations. It will therefore cover deemed regulations (such as Rules) only if they are published in the Statutory Regulations series (which means that they must be drafted by the PCO).
What is the Parliamentary Counsel Office's time frame for this project?
Stage 1 of the PAL Project, which involved project planning, scoping, and analysis, and evaluation and selection of solution components, was completed in December 2001.
Stage 2 involves implementation of the new systems and processes to improve public access to legislation. After being delayed since March 2003, the project resumed in March 2005. For more information, see the Project history.
When will legislation on the website be official?
On the completion of the PAL Project, the Parliamentary Counsel Office will provide an unofficial version of legislation on the Internet. Enactments in the unofficial database will be officialised over a period of time. The PCO has planned to complete this officialisation process over 3 years.
The PCO uses the term "officialisation" to describe the steps necessary to make each enactment in an acquired database an official version of New Zealand legislation. This includes the exercise of the powers conferred by section 17C of the Acts and Regulations Publication Act 1989. That section authorises PCO compilers to make certain editorial changes to a reprinted enactment (such as changes to punctuation and layout) so that it can be reprinted in a format and style consistent with current legislative drafting practice.
Will the Parliamentary Counsel Office website be any different from the commercial databases currently available?
The Parliamentary Counsel Office website will offer a basic public electronic database of legislation that is fully searchable. Unlike the value-added products produced by private sector legal publishers, it will not offer more sophisticated features such as links between legislation and relevant court decisions, or commentary on legislation.