Patch 2025.10

October 2025 proposals

Bills would protect job settlements, change childcare rules, ease overseas checks, restrict under-16 social media, and criminalise sexual deepfakes; dropped plans covered coal-mining and repairs.

• Proposal to modernise valuers law — This proposal would replace the 1948 valuers law with a modern version without major policy changes.
• Proposal for agreed employment endings — This proposal would protect talks about ending a job and prevent a legal complaint after an employee agrees to a settlement.
• Proposal to change early childhood regulation — This proposal would change early childhood rules and create a director responsible for licensing, certification, enforcement, and guidance.
• Proposal to streamline overseas investment checks — This proposal would create a faster pathway for lower-risk overseas investment while keeping existing checks for sensitive assets.
• Proposal to restrict social media under 16 — This proposal would require social media platforms to verify ages and stop people under 16 creating accounts.
• Proposal to criminalise sexual deepfakes — This proposal would treat non-consensual sexually explicit deepfakes showing someone’s likeness as intimate visual recordings under two laws.
• Proposal to stop new coal mines dropped — This dropped proposal would have stopped new coal mines and expansions of existing coal mines from 1 January 2025.
• Proposal to give consumers repair rights dropped — This dropped proposal would have required manufacturers to provide repair information, parts, and tools, and allowed consumers to request repairs.
• Proposal to change Easter alcohol sales — This proposal would change alcohol sales rules for Anzac Day morning, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, and Christmas Day.
• Proposal to change telecommunications rules — This proposal would require larger telecommunications providers to join a dispute scheme and change rules for fibre access and industry funding.
• Proposal to cover overseas telecom providers — Would apply some telecommunications rules to overseas providers serving New Zealand and create a way to address breaches.
• Proposal to allow hunting herds in national parks — Would allow deer, tahr, wild pigs and chamois in national parks to be managed as special hunting herds.
• Proposal to broaden community law centre funding — Would let community law centres use a special fund to support their legal services, including indirect costs.
• Proposal to change borrowing rules — Would change rules for borrowing, some leases and land buy-back deals as part of wider financial-services reforms.
• Proposal to move MetService under NZIES — Would allow NZIES to acquire MetService and require it to publish its access policy for observational weather data.
• Proposal to improve financial dispute resolution — Would change registration and dispute-resolution rules for financial-service providers and improve the system for their customers.
• Proposal to change building rules for small homes — Would change building rules for small stand-alone dwellings.
• Proposal to change vocational education and training — Would change the vocational education and training system.
• Proposal to change customary marine title rules — Would change rules about customary marine title.
• Proposal to set rules for abuse-in-care redress — Would set rules for State-care abuse redress, including limits for some serious offenders and protection for agency apologies.
• Proposal to close commercial greyhound racing — Would close commercial greyhound racing from 1 August 2026 and set up a transition agency for the industry.
• Proposal to change gene technology rules — It would create a new system for approving and managing gene technology and genetically modified organisms.
• Proposal to change company address information — It would change how company address information is handled.
• Proposal to change abuse-in-care rules — It would change legislation about responding to abuse in care.
• Proposal to change pig welfare rules — It would change rules for managing pigs, including systems used for farrowing and mating.
• Proposal to settle Ngāti Rāhiri Tumutumu claims — This proposal would record a Crown apology and put parts of the Ngāti Rāhiri Tumutumu settlement into effect.
• Proposal to settle Ngāti Hāua claims — This proposal would give legal effect to parts of the Ngāti Hāua historical Treaty claims settlement.
• Proposal to change budget reporting rules — Would change how the Government reports financial risks, taxes, forecasts and wellbeing in its budget documents.
• Proposal to scrutinise new laws — It would set standards for laws and require agencies to explain any mismatch.