Crimes Act 1961

Threatening, conspiring, and attempting to commit offences

310: Conspiring to commit offence

You could also call this:

"Planning a crime with someone can get you in trouble, even if you don't actually do it"

If you plan with someone to commit a crime, you can get in trouble. You can be jailed for up to 7 years if the crime you planned has a punishment of more than 7 years in jail. If the crime has a smaller punishment, you will get the same punishment as if you had actually committed the crime.

If you plan to do something outside New Zealand that would be a crime here, you can still get in trouble. You will not get in trouble if you can prove that what you planned was not a crime where you planned to do it. This is a defence you can use in court to try to avoid punishment.

There are some exceptions to this rule, and you will not get in trouble if there is already a specific punishment for planning a crime in a different part of the law.

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This page was last updated on 4 August 2025

View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM330794.

Topics:

Crime and justice > Criminal law

309: Conspiring to prevent collection of rates or taxes, or

"Plotting to stop rate or tax collection using violence or scare tactics is against the law"

311: Attempt to commit or procure commission of offence, or

"Trying to commit a crime or getting someone else to do it can still get you in trouble"

Part 11Threatening, conspiring, and attempting to commit offences

310Conspiring to commit offence

Subject to the provisions of subsection (2), every one who conspires with any person to commit any offence, or to do or omit, in any part of the world, anything of which the doing or omission in New Zealand would be an offence, is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 7 years if the maximum punishment for that offence exceeds 7 years' imprisonment, and in any other case is liable to the same punishment as if he or she had committed that offence.
This section shall not apply where a punishment for the conspiracy is otherwise expressly prescribed by this Act or by some other enactment.
Where under this section any one is charged with conspiring to do or omit anything anywhere outside New Zealand, it is a defence to prove that the doing or omission of the act to which the conspiracy relates was not an offence under the law of the place where it was, or was to be, done or omitted.

Compare

1908 No 32 ss 347, 348