Lessons from Reformers: New Zealand Commits to Publishing Secondary Legislation Online

This case study is part of the Regulatory Governance in the Open Government Partnership publication. 

Regulatory Governance in the Open Government Partnership When citizens understand and help to shape the rules that govern society, regulations are more effective, business environments are stronger, and levels of corruption are lower. This paper looks at…

Although New Zealanders prior to 2016 could access their country’s legislation for free on legislation.govt.nz, the same was not true for secondary legislation (mostly rules and regulations), which were often unavailable in machine-readable formats or not available at all. As a result, as part of its 2016–2018 OGP action planAction plans are at the core of a government’s participation in OGP. They are the product of a co-creation process in which government and civil society jointly develop commitments to open governmen..., the government committed to centralizing all official primary and secondary laws online – including those drafted by Crown entities, statutory bodies, and other nongovernmental bodies.

Implementation has required a multitiered process. An initial step involved conducting a legal review to identify acts that constitute secondary legislationCreating and passing legislation is one of the most effective ways of ensuring open government reforms have long-lasting effects on government practices. Technical specifications: Act of creating or r... as opposed to mere administrative provisions. The Parliamentary Counsel Office (PCO) in charge also carried out external research to better understand how people access and use secondary legislation. These insights will inform later stages of the project.

As an intermediate next step, in its follow-up 2018–2020 OGP action plan, the PCO committed to listing all secondary legislation on the main legislation website with hyperlinks to the location of the text. Beyond the importance of providing easy access to all legislation online, New Zealand’s step-by-step approach is also a model for other countries looking to integrate long-term ambitious reforms into the two-year OGP action plan cycle. 

Featured Photo: New Zealand Parliament. Photo by: asanojunki0110