Using this site
newzealand.govt.nz makes it easy to search and browse the online information, services and resources offered by New Zealand government organisations.
This simple guide will help you get the most out of newzealand.govt.nz.
Search
newzealand.govt.nz's search engine crawls all .govt.nz sites and a large number of other government-funded sites to find and deliver information, tools, images, news and resources.
Find out how to get the most out of search>Browse subject areas
Use the specially selected subject areas to browse through New Zealand government online.
Learn more about browsing the site >Participate
Keep up to date with what's happening in Parliament, participate in discussion forums, and become more involved in your community.
Participating and being involved is easy – find out how >Sign up for feeds
newzealand.govt.nz offers feeds from some government organisations so you can keep up to date with the latest news and information.
Feeds feeds are available on the newzealand.govt.nz homepage or you can sign-up to have the feed delivered by your reader.
What are feeds? >SEARCH
newzealand.govt.nz is driven by the Google search engine service which finds information, from across the New Zealand government web domain (.govt.nz) and other government-funded websites (such as local government, academic and health board websites).
SEARCH TIPS
One is good, but more are better.
The more words you enter the more likely your search will return relevant results. Instead of typing ‘form’, type in ‘passport form’.
Contact a government agency.
To find contact details for a government agency, type in the agency name or the agency abbreviation. For example, 'Ministry for the Environment' or 'MFE'.
Contact Ministers of the Crown
To get contact information for Ministers, type their name in the search box. For example, ‘John Key’.
Find legislation.
To find a specific piece of legislation, type your search term and then filter results by clicking on the ‘Act’, ‘Bill’ or ‘Regulation’ link on the left hand navigation panel.
Make your search turn up local results.
Type in 'noise Auckland' instead of just 'noise' and get information relating to noise in Auckland.
Find an exact document.
If you know the exact title or phrase of the item you are searching for, put quotes around the title or phrase. For example, "Speech Notes: Anti-Spam Bill - First Reading".
Search a specific domain.
To search only within a specific domain like .ac.nz or .mil.nz, use the command site:domainname. For example, 'site:ac.nz' searches only academic websites in New Zealand.
Search one website.
To search a government website, use the command site:sitename. For example, 'site:safetravel.govt.nz' only searches www.safetravel.govt.nz pages.
Using capitals is not necessary.
newzealand.govt.nz search ignores capital letters. 'University of Waikato' produces the same result as 'university of waikato' or 'UniVerSity oF WaIkaTo'.
Type in your most important words (keywords)
The search engine service will look for the words you type in the Search Box and bring back results that have all those words on a webpage.
You do not need to put in whole sentences or ask a whole question. The search engine only needs the keywords you are looking for. For example, if want to know what the weather is like in Hamilton, you can just enter weather Hamilton.
More words are better
The more specific you can be, the better the search result. Passport application form is going to get you directly to the form rather than general information about passport application.
Search for a whole phrase
Putting quotation marks around some words will bring back results that have those exact words as one phrase. For example, "development goals".
Capitfrssals don't matter
newzealand.govt.nz search ignores capital letters. University of Waikato produces the same result as university of waikato or UniVerSity oF WaIkaTo.
Get the exact document
If you know the exact title of the item you want, putting quotes around the title will find it.
Search across a specific domain
To search only within a specific domain like .ac.nz or .mil.nz, use the command site:domainname. For example, site:ac.nz searches only academic websites in New Zealand. For example, site:ac.nz creative writing
Search one website
To search a specific government website, use the command site:sitename. For example, site:safetravel.govt.nz Afghanistan only searches for information on Afghanistan held on www.safetravel.govt.nz pages.
BROWSE
http://newzealand.govt.nz links to a selection of the most popular and topical information held on government websites.
The websites selected and displayed in Browse have been chosen by our team to give a snapshot of the government services available, and to showcase some of the great initiatives offered by government, e.g. Sorted, and Quit.
ABOUT NEW ZEALAND
For people wanting to know more about New Zealand, visiting New Zealand or travelling in New Zealand, the About New Zealand section offers an overview of what government has to offer – from visas to planning a walk in a national park.
Browse results can be accessed via the left-hand navigation or by clicking on the topic headings and photos on the main About New Zealand page.
A-Z OF GOVERNMENT AGENCIES
The A-Z of government agencies provides a browseable A-Z listing of the organisations contact details.
PARTICIPATE & BE INVOLVED
People wishing to actively participate, engage or have their say with New Zealand government and its many processes, should browse the Participate pages of newzealand.govt.nz.
The Participate section is the best way to find out what topics are under consultation across government.
CONTACTING NEWZEALAND.GOVT.NZ
If you have any questions about newzealand.govt.nz or have feedback and comments you’d like to share, contact us by or use our Feedback form.
WHAT ARE FEEDS?
Feeds enable you to have information sent directly to your computer.
Subscribing to free feeds of your favourite online content is an easy and free way to keep up with the latest information, services, resources and news available from government organisations.
How to use feeds?
You don't need anything to view the feeds displayed on newzealand.govt.nz. To view the whole article click on the appropriate feed headline in the feeds section of the Home page.
Modern web browsers typically support feeds. However, for users of earlier browsers, such as IE6, you will need an feed reader or aggregator to subscribe to and receive feeds. This software collects any feeds you have subscribed to and displays them in your browser so you can view them when it suits you. Note: please see your administrator about installing such a tool if this it not your own PC.
Free or inexpensive feed readers are available from websites such as MSN Live and Google.
OPENSEARCH
For browsers that support OpenSearch, you can add newzealand.govt.nz to the list of Search Engines you can use from within your browser to search across New Zealand government information and services.
For Internet Explorer
After navigating to search.newzealand.govt.nz, click the down arrow to the rightof the OpenSearch box. In the list that is shown, choose Add Search Providers > Search New Zealand as shown in the figure below.
Once you have added Search New Zealand to your list of OpenSearch search engines, you can use it at anytime. Simply select "Search New Zealand" from the list, type in some search terms and hit enter.
For Firefox
After navigating to search.newzealand.govt.nz, click the down arrow to the left of the OpenSearch box. In the list that is shown, choose Add "Search New Zealand" as shown in the figure below.
Once you have added Search New Zealand to your list of OpenSearch search engines, you can use it at anytime. Simply select "Search New Zealand" from the list, type in some search terms and hit enter.
