The bill systematically replaces the citation "Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act 2022" with the reordered form "Healthy Futures (Pae Ora) Act 2022" across a long list of primary Acts and secondary instruments. Most changes are straight text replacements intended to harmonise legislative references after the 2022 Act was enacted.
Beyond the mass find-and-replace, the bill makes a few targeted technical edits that could have legal or operational consequences: it redirects the definition of "New Zealand Health Plan" in the Disabled Persons Community Welfare Act to section 4 of the Healthy Futures Act, it alters how the Children’s Act lists the Healthy Futures Act, it repeals clause 7 of Schedule 1B in the Employment Relations Act, and it adjusts headings and internal cross-references in the Pae Ora Alcohol Levy Order 2025. Those specific changes, and the administrative task of updating dozens of regulations, are the aspects practitioners should review closely.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill directs textual amendments across dozens of statutes and subordinate instruments to change a statutory citation to a different ordering of the same title. It also contains a few consequential edits: a new cross-reference for the New Zealand Health Plan definition, an insertion into the Children’s Act listing, a repeal of a clause in the Employment Relations Act Schedule 1B, and renumbering within the Pae Ora Alcohol Levy Order 2025.
Who It Affects
Crown agencies that reference the Healthy Futures Act (Health New Zealand, agencies administering social services, immigration, taxation and benefits), regulated service providers who rely on statutory definitions (disability supports, residential care), legal drafters and courts that interpret cross-references, and teams that maintain statutory instruments and public-facing forms.
Why It Matters
On its face this is a housekeeping exercise that reduces inconsistent citations across the statute book. But the targeted edits change where some definitions are sourced and remove at least one subordinate clause; those moves could shift interpretation or operational practice in narrow but material ways, and they create an implementation task across many departments and regulatory instruments.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The bill is principally a statutory tidy-up: it instructs amendments across a long list of Acts and regulations to use the sequence "Healthy Futures (Pae Ora) Act 2022" instead of the earlier-printed "Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act 2022". For almost every entry the change is purely textual and does not alter wording beyond the title order.
The government drafts these replacements to eliminate inconsistency between instruments and the authorised short title of the 2022 Act.
There are, however, a small number of non-pattern edits. The Disabled Persons Community Welfare Act’s definition of "New Zealand Health Plan" is replaced so that the Act now explicitly takes its meaning from section 4 of the Healthy Futures Act; that centralises the source of the definition in the 2022 Act rather than relying on a lateral citation.
The Children’s Act entry is rewritten so that the Healthy Futures Act appears in the statute’s list of children's agencies references—this formalises that relationship inside the Children’s Act framework.The Employment Relations Act change is broader than a citation swap: the bill repeals clause 7 of Schedule 1B. The text here is a straight repeal without additional transitional wording in the bill text provided, so readers should check the original Schedule 1B clause 7 content to understand what rights, obligations or transitional arrangements are being removed.
Finally, the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Alcohol Levy Order 2025 receives minor internal changes—the order’s enacting statement and a Schedule heading are adjusted, and cross-references within that order are updated to point to "Schedule 2." These are administrative fixes but matter to the operation of that levy instrument.Across government the practical consequences will be administrative: updating forms, internal guidance, IT systems and online registers, and ensuring subordinate instruments and contracts reflect the new citation. Because a few edits change where definitions are sourced or remove a clause outright, agencies and regulated parties should review those specific amendments rather than treat the bill as purely cosmetic.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill replaces the phrase "Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act 2022" with "Healthy Futures (Pae Ora) Act 2022" across dozens of primary Acts and subordinate instruments.
It revises the Disabled Persons Community Welfare Act so "New Zealand Health Plan" is defined by reference to section 4 of the Healthy Futures (Pae Ora) Act 2022.
The Children’s Act 2014 text is altered so the Healthy Futures Act is listed among the statute’s referenced children's agencies.
The bill repeals clause 7 of Schedule 1B to the Employment Relations Act 2000 (the text of the repealed clause is not restated in this bill).
It amends the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Alcohol Levy Order 2025 by changing a clause heading to "Schedule 2" and updating internal cross-references accordingly.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Primary Acts—mass citation harmonisation
This part contains the core mechanism: targeted amendments to many named Acts that replace one ordering of the 2022 Act’s short title with another. Mechanically each amendment is a textual substitution in a definition, schedule or provision. Practically, this reduces internal inconsistency and makes statutory citations uniform across the statute book, which assists drafters, regulators and courts when locating the controlling Act.
Centralising the New Zealand Health Plan definition
Rather than merely swapping a citation, the bill replaces the existing definition of "New Zealand Health Plan" with a direct referral to section 4 of the Healthy Futures Act. That change means all downstream provisions that invoke "New Zealand Health Plan" will now take their meaning from a single, specified provision in the 2022 Act. The practical implication is a single point of legal definition: any later amendment to section 4 will ripple through every statute that relies on this referral.
Listing the Healthy Futures Act among children's agencies
The bill replaces paragraph (c) in the Children’s Act definition of children's agencies so that the Healthy Futures Act appears explicitly in the list. This is an insertion by citation rather than a new substantive regime, but by making the Healthy Futures Act an enumerated reference the change clarifies which health-sector entities or rules are engaged when the Children’s Act triggers duties tied to 'children’s agencies.' Practitioners should check the downstream obligations that flow from that listing.
Repeal of clause 7 in Schedule 1B
The bill repeals clause 7 of Schedule 1B in the Employment Relations Act. The amendment is a deletion without explanatory text in this bill; that makes it essential to inspect the pre-existing clause 7 to understand what transitional arrangement, exemption, or definitional material is being removed. Employers, unions and employment advisers who relied on Schedule 1B should identify whether any workplace entitlements or processes are affected.
Internal renumbering and citation corrections
The order’s enacting statement and operative clauses are updated to match the new title ordering, and the heading for a Schedule is changed to 'Schedule 2' with internal cross-references adjusted accordingly. These are administrative edits that preserve the order’s operation but require officials to update the order text in consolidated databases and any implementation materials tied to the levy.
Consequential amendments to secondary legislation
This part applies the same textual substitution across a long list of regulations, orders and rules (health entitlements, medicines regulations, social security regulations and more). The immediate effect is to make subordinate instruments consistent with the primary Acts; the follow-on work is practical: updating templates, online guidance and regulatory guidance notes to reflect the amended citations.
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Explore Healthcare in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Parliamentary counsel and statutory drafters — fewer inconsistent citations in the statute book reduces drafting friction and citation errors when preparing future amendments.
- Courts and legal advisers — consistent statutory titles lower the incidental interpretive work of reconciling variant citations when a provision is litigated or advised on.
- Government agencies that administer health-linked entitlements (eg, social security, ACC, immigration) — a single, consistent reference reduces ambiguity about which Act governs eligibility and administrative powers.
- Regulated health and disability providers — the clarified source of the "New Zealand Health Plan" definition centralises interpretation and reduces the need to cross-check multiple instruments.
Who Bears the Cost
- Agency legislation and policy teams — they must update hundreds of internal documents, guidance notes, IT references and public-facing materials to align with the amended citations.
- Legal and compliance departments in service providers — they need to review contracts, policies and consent forms that cite the former title, and may need to update documentation (transactional costs and resource time).
- Entities relying on the repealed clause 7 of Schedule 1B — those parties face uncertainty and possible loss of transitional arrangements or protections if clause 7 previously preserved particular rights or processes.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The bill trades off the benefits of statutory tidy-up—consistency, reduced drafting error, and simpler citation—against the risk that apparently mechanical edits will change how specific provisions operate (by redirecting definitions or removing clauses) and the administrative burden of updating numerous instruments and systems.
On paper this is a housekeeping bill, but that label can obscure real consequences. Centralising a definition by pointing multiple statutes to section 4 of the Healthy Futures Act creates a single point of change: any future amendment to section 4 will alter the meaning of "New Zealand Health Plan" across all dependent statutes.
That can be efficient, but it also raises the stakes for alterations to the 2022 Act and increases the importance of carefully drafted transitional rules.
The repeal of clause 7 in Schedule 1B of the Employment Relations Act is the clearest example where a short textual edit could have outsized substantive impact. The bill does not reproduce the repealed text or add compensating transitional language within this instrument, which leaves parties to hunt down the removed clause and assess the practical effect.
More broadly, sweeping find-and-replace amendments across many instruments risk missed instances, version-control problems in consolidated laws databases, and a period in which agencies and third parties operate under different textual references—creating litigation risk and administrative friction.
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