Every rule that governs life in New Zealand — from how fast you can drive, to what your employer must pay you, to how a building must be constructed, to what a company must disclose — came into existence through a lawmaking process. Understanding how laws are made is understanding how the decisions that shape society get written down, debated, and enforced.
New Zealand's lawmaking process has several distinct layers. Primary legislation — Acts of Parliament — is made by Parliament and represents the most authoritative and deliberate expression of the law. Secondary legislation — regulations, rules, and orders — is made by the executive under powers Parliament has granted. Each layer has different processes, different levels of scrutiny, and different roles in the legal system.
Where Law Comes From
Before looking at process, it helps to understand where the ideas for new laws originate.
Government policy is the most common driver. A new government arrives with commitments made in its coalition agreement and election manifesto. Turning those commitments into law requires legislation. Ministers in each portfolio area — health, transport, environment, finance, housing — are responsible for developing the policy proposals that become bills.
Public service advice feeds into this process. Government departments research problems, assess options, consult stakeholders, and advise ministers on what legislation might achieve. A well-developed policy process involves extensive analysis before a bill is drafted — though this process is sometimes compressed when political pressure demands speed.
International obligations sometimes require domestic legislation. When New Zealand signs a treaty or international agreement, Parliament may need to pass legislation giving effect to its obligations. The Paris Agreement on climate change, for example, contributed to the Zero Carbon Act 2019. Trade agreements may require changes to domestic law.
Private members — individual MPs — can also introduce bills. Members' bills are drawn by ballot from a shuffled pool of bills submitted by non-government MPs. They are debated every second Wednesday. Members' bills have occasionally produced significant law — the 2013 Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Act legalizing same-sex marriage began as a private member's bill by Labour MP Louisa Wall.
Local authorities and private organizations can promote local or private bills for matters affecting specific localities or specific interests. These are relatively rare.
The Journey from Policy to Draft Bill
When a minister wants to introduce a law, the process typically begins well before Parliament sees anything. The minister's department develops a policy proposal — setting out the problem to be addressed, the options considered, the preferred approach, and the likely impacts. This goes to Cabinet — or a Cabinet committee — for approval to proceed to drafting.
The Parliamentary Counsel Office — a specialist government agency — drafts bills and regulations. PCO drafters translate policy intentions into precise legal language. This is skilled and demanding work. A poorly drafted law creates ambiguity, litigation, and unintended consequences. Good drafting makes the law clear, internally consistent, and compatible with the broader legal framework.
A Regulatory Impact Statement is required for significant new legislation — an analysis of the problem, the options, and the impacts. It must be publicly disclosed when the bill is introduced. A disclosure statement provides factual information about the policy background and content of proposed legislation. These requirements promote transparency about what a bill is intended to do and why.
Before introduction, the attorney-general must report to Parliament whether the bill is consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 — a requirement designed to flag potential infringements of rights, though it does not prevent Parliament from proceeding with legislation even if inconsistency is identified.
The Parliamentary Process
Once a bill is introduced to Parliament, it moves through a defined sequence of stages described in outline in the How Parliament Works article. Here the focus is on what actually happens and why it matters.
Introduction The bill is introduced to the House and printed for MPs. Under the standing orders, the first reading cannot occur until the third sitting day after introduction — giving MPs time to read and consider the bill before debating it.
First reading The minister introduces the bill, explaining its purpose and what it is intended to achieve. Each party states its initial position. The House votes on whether to send the bill to a select committee. Government bills almost always pass first reading — opposition parties rarely deny a bill even the opportunity for scrutiny.
Select committee The select committee stage is where legislation receives its most intensive examination. The committee — typically five to twelve MPs from across the parties — calls for public submissions, hears oral evidence, receives advice from departmental officials, and works through the bill in detail.
Public submissions can be written or oral. Anyone resident in New Zealand can submit on any bill. Submissions range from brief personal statements to detailed legal and technical analyses from law firms, industry bodies, unions, community organizations, and academic experts. The select committee hears oral submissions from those who request them — usually in Wellington, though committees sometimes travel to hear evidence in other cities.
After the submission period closes, the department analyses the submissions and advises the committee on which changes are warranted. The Parliamentary Counsel Office then drafts amendments in a revision-tracked document showing every proposed change. The committee works through these amendments, decides what to recommend, and prepares its report to the House.
Committees can — and regularly do — recommend significant changes to bills. Under MMP, where government parties do not always hold large majorities on every committee, there is genuine scope for cross-party influence on legislation. Bills sometimes emerge from select committee substantially different from how they were introduced.
The default timeframe for select committee consideration is six months — though this can be shortened. All government bills except those taken under urgency, and appropriation bills, are referred to select committees.
Second reading Parliament debates the select committee's recommendations and votes on whether to accept them and proceed with the bill in principle. This is the main substantive debate on the bill as a whole.
Committee of the whole House All MPs examine the bill in detail, clause by clause. Further amendments can be proposed. This stage can be brief for uncontroversial bills and extended for contentious ones.
Third reading Final debate and vote. If the bill passes, it goes to the Governor-General.
Royal Assent The Governor-General signs the bill into law on the advice of the Prime Minister and Attorney-General. This is a constitutional formality that has never been refused. The bill becomes an Act of Parliament.
Types of Bills
Government bills are introduced by ministers and represent the government's legislative agenda. They receive priority in parliamentary time.
Members' bills are introduced by individual MPs who are not ministers. They are drawn by ballot from a pool of submitted bills and debated every second Wednesday. They receive limited parliamentary time but have occasionally produced significant legislation.
Local bills are promoted by local authorities and relate to specific localities. They are relatively rare.
Private bills are promoted by individuals or organizations for their own specific interests — a private company seeking a particular legislative right, for example.
Urgency: The Shortcut and Its Controversies
Parliament can declare urgency — a procedure that compresses or eliminates the normal legislative stages, including the select committee process. Under urgency a bill can be introduced and passed into law within a single sitting day, or across a compressed period of days, without public submissions or detailed committee scrutiny.
Urgency has a legitimate role for genuinely time-critical legislation — budget bills, emergency responses, and legislation with mandatory deadlines. It has also been used to pass significant, controversial legislation quickly, avoiding the scrutiny and public participation that the normal process provides.
The Equal Pay Amendment Act 2025 is a recent and prominent example. The government introduced the bill on 5 May 2025 and Parliament passed it the same day under urgency — amending a significant piece of employment legislation without any select committee hearing or public submissions. The bill raised the threshold for pay equity claims and discontinued 33 existing claims. Nationwide protests followed. A group of former MPs from multiple parties convened an unofficial "people's select committee" to allow affected groups to make submissions that the parliamentary process had not permitted.
The use of urgency for the Equal Pay Amendment Act drew sharp criticism from legal academics, opposition parties, and affected workers — not necessarily because the policy change was wrong, but because bypassing public participation in significant legislation undermines democratic norms. The Prime Minister defended the use of urgency, saying the bill would save the government billions of dollars and needed to be reflected in the budget being delivered that month.
This tension — between speed and scrutiny, between political convenience and democratic process — is recurring in New Zealand lawmaking.
Secondary Legislation: Laws Made Without Parliament
Acts of Parliament are not the only source of law. A large volume of law is made through secondary legislation — regulations, rules, orders, and other instruments made by the executive under powers Parliament has delegated in Acts.
Secondary legislation typically deals with technical detail, implementation specifics, and matters that require frequent updating. The principles set out in an Act are the policy — the regulations fill in the operational detail. Examples include building regulations specifying technical construction standards, immigration instructions setting out visa criteria, food safety standards specifying permitted additives and testing requirements.
Secondary legislation is made by ministers through Cabinet or through specialist bodies — the Governor-General issues it by Order in Council, formal meetings of the Executive Council. It comes into force typically 28 days after being notified in the New Zealand Gazette — the official government publication where new laws and official notices are published.
The volume of secondary legislation is enormous. Hundreds of instruments are made each year — far more than Acts of Parliament. Much of the detailed regulatory framework governing industry, environment, health, transport, and commerce is found in secondary legislation rather than in Acts.
Parliamentary oversight of secondary legislation operates through the Regulations Review Committee — a select committee that examines all secondary legislation and can investigate complaints. If the committee finds secondary legislation is objectionable — exceeding its empowering authority, infringing rights, or otherwise problematic — it can recommend disallowance. The House can, by resolution, disallow any secondary legislation.
In May 2025, Parliament voted to disallow part of regulations that had required tikanga Māori to be taught and assessed as part of every core law school subject — a rare use of the disallowance procedure that attracted significant controversy and criticism from legal academics.
The Regulatory Standards Act 2025
One significant recent development in New Zealand's lawmaking framework is the Regulatory Standards Act 2025, passed in November 2025. Introduced by ACT leader and Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour, the Act codifies principles that should guide the development of legislation and regulation — including requirements around proportionality, protection of property rights, and the economic costs of regulation.
Supporters argued it would improve the quality of New Zealand's regulatory environment and reduce unnecessary regulatory burden. Critics — including Labour, the Greens, Te Pāti Māori, and numerous academics — argued it embedded libertarian economic ideology into the legislative process, was hostile to regulatory legislation protecting the environment and workers, and inadequately incorporated Te Tiriti o Waitangi principles. Opposition parties committed to repealing the Act if they returned to government.
How Law Is Interpreted and Applied
Once a law is made, it must be interpreted and applied — first by government officials implementing it, and ultimately by courts when disputes arise.
The Interpretation Act 1999 provides rules for how Acts should be interpreted. The key principle is purposive interpretation — courts look at the purpose of the legislation to determine what a provision means, not just its literal words.
The Bill of Rights Act 1990 requires courts to interpret legislation consistently with the rights it affirms — freedom of expression, freedom of religion, protection against arbitrary arrest, and others — wherever possible. Where a meaning consistent with the Bill of Rights is available, courts prefer it.
New Zealand courts cannot strike down primary legislation as unconstitutional. But they can — and do — interpret legislation narrowly to protect rights, declare legislation inconsistent with the Bill of Rights, and review secondary legislation for consistency with the Act that empowers it. Judicial review of government decision-making and secondary legislation is an important check on executive power.
The Law in Practice
New Zealand has an accessible legal system. All Acts of Parliament and secondary legislation are freely available online at legislation.govt.nz. The Parliamentary Counsel Office maintains up-to-date consolidated versions of all legislation with amendments incorporated — so the law as it currently stands is always publicly available.
This accessibility matters. Citizens, businesses, lawyers, and courts need to be able to find and understand the law that applies to them. New Zealand's freely accessible, up-to-date legislation database is a genuine achievement in legal transparency.
Quick Q&A
What is the difference between an Act and a regulation? An Act of Parliament — primary legislation — is made by Parliament through the full legislative process including select committee scrutiny and three readings. A regulation — secondary legislation — is made by the executive under a power Parliament has delegated in an Act, without going through the full parliamentary process. Acts set out policy principles; regulations provide operational detail.
Can anyone submit on a bill? Yes — any person or organization resident in New Zealand can submit written feedback on any bill referred to a select committee. Submissions can also include a request for an oral hearing before the committee. This is the primary mechanism of public participation in the lawmaking process.
What is urgency and when should it be used? Urgency is a parliamentary procedure that compresses or eliminates normal legislative stages, allowing bills to pass without select committee scrutiny or public submissions. It is intended for genuinely time-critical situations. Its use for significant, controversial legislation — as occurred with the Equal Pay Amendment Act 2025 — is persistently criticized as undermining democratic process.
What is the New Zealand Gazette? The official government publication in which new laws, regulations, official notices, and government decisions are formally published. Secondary legislation is notified in the Gazette when it comes into force.
Can Parliament make any law it wants? Almost. New Zealand's Parliament is constitutionally supreme — there is no court that can strike down primary legislation for being unconstitutional. The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 requires legislation to be interpreted consistently with fundamental rights where possible, and the attorney-general must report any inconsistency. But these are political and interpretive constraints, not legal bars to Parliament's lawmaking power.
Key Takeaway
Laws in New Zealand are made through a layered process designed to balance democratic deliberation with practical efficiency. At its best the system produces carefully scrutinized legislation shaped by expert advice, public input, and cross-party debate. At its worst it produces legislation passed under urgency without public participation, or technical regulations of significant practical importance that never receive meaningful parliamentary scrutiny. Understanding how laws are made means understanding both the formal process and the political pressures that can compress or bypass it — and why the quality of lawmaking matters for the quality of governance.
Sources
Ministry of Justice — Who Makes and Applies the Law
Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand — Legislating
Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet — About the Legislation Programme
Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet — Secondary Legislation
Parliamentary Counsel Office — About Legislation: Terminology
Library of Congress — New Zealand: Controversial Changes to Pay Equity Legislation Enacted, June 2025
Library of Congress — New Zealand: Parliament Partially Strikes Down Regulations Requiring Māori Law and Philosophy to be Taught in Law Schools, June 2025
Wikipedia — Regulatory Standards Act 2025
Victoria University of Wellington Centre for Public Law — Chapter 3: Regulations, Disallowable Instruments and Other Delegated Legislation