Summary of the key law and content changes on ComplyWith (update as of 19 December 2018)

What laws have changed recently?

A new Customs and Excise Act and new Social Security Act came into force recently. Changes to the Employment Relations Act also came into effect. More information on these is below.

There have been too many other law changes impacting on ComplyWith content to detail in this newsletter. To find out about these please go to Updater in your ComplyWith.

We have recently made a significant improvement to Updater to give you greater clarity of law changes and changes that are editorial only (for example, enhancing existing content and new content for existing laws).

You can now search and display just the law changes, or just the editorial changes in Updater.

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A new Customs and Excise Act 2018

The Customs and Excise Act 2018 commenced on 1 October 2018 replacing the Customs and Excise Act 1996. Changes were also made to the Customs and Excise Regulations 1996.

Many of the compliance obligations in the 2018 Act are substantially the same.

Some key changes include:

  • the ability to store business records outside New Zealand (including in the cloud) if permitted by Customs
  • a new requirement to maintain competency to use a registered user system
  • certain importers can declare a provisional value on an import entry and provide a final value by the end of the next financial year.

New compliance obligations have been prepared for the 2018 Act. We have also taken the opportunity to expand our coverage to include obligations for arriving and departing craft.

A new Social Security Act and Social Security Regulations

The Social Security Act 2018 and Social Security Regulations 2018 commenced on 26 November 2018.

The 2018 Act and Regulations replace the Social Security Act 1964.

New compliance obligations have been prepared for the Act and the Regulations.

The new content focuses on the obligations of employers. Although the compliance obligations remain substantially the same, some of the obligations and penalties that were in the 1964 Act are now in the 2018 Regulations.

Changes to the Employment Relations Act

The first round of changes to the Employment Relations Act commenced on 12 December 2018.

One of the key changes is that union reps don’t need consent to enter workplaces for permitted purposes if there is a collective agreement or bargaining has been initiated.

The second round of changes commence on 6 May 2019. These include limits on 90-day trials and set rest and meal break requirements.

What else has changed?

We are continuing to improve all ComplyWith content, including recent improvements to the Finance and Electricity Industry sections.

What’s coming up?

Some important law changes coming up in the next few months are:

  • Letting fees for residential tenancies under the Residential Tenancies Act are banned from 12 December 2018.
  • Full surrender obligations under the Climate Change Response Act apply from 1 January 2019.
  • From 1 January 2019, the records that code holders keep under the Animal Welfare (Records and Statistics) Regulations must include the number of animals killed during the year that were bred for research, testing, and teaching but not used for that purpose.
  • The transition period to the Food Act 2014 for existing food businesses ends on 28 February 2019. All food businesses must comply with the 2014 Act from this date.
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