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Legislation Act 2019

Parliamentary Counsel Office - Objective and functions of PCO

130: Functions of PCO

You could also call this:

"What the Parliamentary Counsel Office (PCO) does to help make and manage laws in New Zealand."

The PCO has several jobs. You can think of the PCO as a team that helps make laws. Their jobs include drafting, publishing, and consolidating legislation, which means they help write, share, and organise laws for Part 3. They also revise Acts, which are like big books of laws, according to a plan outlined in subpart 3 of Part 3.

The PCO examines some Bills, which are like proposals for new laws, to see how they might affect people and other laws. They tell the Attorney-General about their findings. The PCO also gives advice to government departments on how to write and publish certain types of laws.

They provide guidance on how to design, write, and share laws, and they keep an eye on how well these processes are working. The PCO does other jobs too, like anything else that this Act or other laws say they should do, and anything the Attorney-General asks them to do related to writing and publishing laws.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM7298453.

Topics:
Government and voting > Government departments
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129: Objective of PCO, or

"The PCO's goal is to make laws easy for you to find, use, and understand."

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Part 6Parliamentary Counsel Office
Objective and functions of PCO

130Functions of PCO

  1. The functions of the PCO are—

  2. to draft, publish, and consolidate legislation (including, where appropriate, with aids for users and supporting documents) for the purposes of Part 3:
    1. to revise Acts in accordance with the current revision programme (as provided in subpart 3 of Part 3):
      1. to examine all local Bills and private Bills, and those Members’ Bills that the Attorney-General directs be examined, and to report to the Attorney-General on their effect (in particular, on whether they affect the rights of the Crown or the public and on their relationship to other legislation):
        1. to advise departments and agencies on the drafting and publication of secondary legislation that is not drafted by the PCO:
          1. to provide guidance and other support for, and keep under review, practices relating to the design, drafting, and publication of legislation:
            1. to perform any other functions set out in this Act or any other legislation:
              1. to perform the other functions relating to the drafting and publication of legislation that the Attorney-General directs be performed by the PCO.

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