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Public Works Act 1981

Gazetting, revocation, amendment, and registration of documents

55: Amending or revoking documents

You could also call this:

“Fixing mistakes in official documents”

If someone makes a mistake in a document created under this law, they can fix it. This applies to all kinds of official documents like Proclamations, Orders in Council, notices, and declarations.

If there’s an error in how the document looks or what it says, or if there’s a problem with how it was made or published in the official government gazette, it can be corrected. The person who has the authority to make the original document can make a new document of the same type to fix the mistake or cancel the original one.

When this happens, it’s as if the correction was made on the same day as the original document. This means the fix applies from the start, not just from when they made the correction.

If the original document is a type of law called “secondary legislation”, the document that fixes it is also secondary legislation. Even though it’s a new document, it works as if it was part of the original from the beginning, even if it hasn’t been published yet.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM46325.

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"Changing your mind about taking someone's land for public projects"

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Part 4 Gazetting, revocation, amendment, and registration of documents

55Amending or revoking documents

  1. If any Proclamation, Order in Council, notice, declaration, or other document executed under this Act is found to contain any error in form or substance, or if any error in form or substance exists in or in relation to its making or gazetting, the Governor-General, Governor-General in Council, Minister, or other authorised person, as the case may require, may in a subsequent document of the same type amend or revoke the first-mentioned document to correct the error, and the subsequent document shall be deemed to have taken effect on the same date that the first-mentioned document took effect.

  2. If the first-mentioned document is secondary legislation, the subsequent document—

  3. is also secondary legislation (see Part 3 of the Legislation Act 2019 for publication requirements); but
    1. has effect in accordance with subsection (1) despite not being first published.

      Notes
      • Section 55(2): inserted, on , by section 3 of the Secondary Legislation Act 2021 (2021 No 7).