Patch 2025.04

April 2025 proposals

Proposed laws would tighten benefits, replace compulsory mental-health law, permit strike pay cuts, give TAB betting control, require children’s jackets, protect buyers, and widen levies.

• Benefit recipients would face tighter requirements — The proposal would make some people reapply more often, add non-financial sanctions, and require jobseeker profiles for some applicants.
• Proposal to replace compulsory mental healthcare law — The proposal would replace the current law with new rules focused on rights, decision-making, safety, and less restrictive compulsory care.
• Partial strikes could mean pay deductions — The proposal would let employers deduct 10 percent or a proportionate amount from pay during partial strikes, with notice required.
• TAB would control all legal online betting — The proposal would make TAB New Zealand the only legal domestic operator of online racing and sports betting.
• Children on small boats would need life jackets — The proposal would require everyone under 15 to wear a life jacket on recreational craft measuring 6 metres or less.
• Proposal to protect home buyers from sunset clauses — Would generally require a purchaser’s written consent before a vendor uses a sunset clause.
• Proposal to widen immigration levies — Would allow immigration levies on wider groups, including for linked education, health, and training costs.
• Proposal for minor technical law changes — The proposal would make 96 minor and technical changes across 42 Acts, including changes affecting some businesses’ customer checks.
• Proposal to stop new coal mining — The proposal would prohibit new coal mines and expansions of existing coal mines after 1 January 2025.
• More venues could sell alcohol to take home — The proposal would let some restaurant, food-manufacturer, club, and licensed premises sell alcohol to take home or offer low- and no-alcohol options.
• Proposal to extend collective agreement rights dropped — The dropped proposal would have covered some workers in triangular employment arrangements by collective agreements applying to the work they perform.
• Proposal to expand cybercrime investigation powers — Would create preservation directions and confidentiality duties to support domestic and overseas criminal investigations.
• Proposal for tougher coward-punch offences dropped — The dropped proposal would have created an offence for recklessly or intentionally striking someone’s head or neck when they could not defend themselves.
• Proposal to change school board priorities — Would make educational achievement school boards’ highest priority and add duties on attendance and assessment information.
• Proposal to ease some UAE investment rules — Would raise the investment-consent threshold for some UAE investors from $100 million to $200 million for specified services.
• Proposal to expand Police vetting — Would set rules for Police vetting, including updated checks with consent and self-requested checks for some people.
• Proposal to define Treaty principles dropped — The dropped proposal would have defined Treaty of Waitangi principles in law and guided how government decisions and legislation use them.
• Proposal to settle Ngāti Hāua claims — The proposal would put parts of the Ngāti Hāua historical claims settlement into law, including pardons and redress arrangements.