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 RSS

newzealand.govt.nz offers RSS feeds from some government organisations so you can keep up to date with the latest news and information.

RSS feeds are available on the newzealand.govt.nz homepage or you can sign-up to have the RSS feed delivered by your RSS reader.

What is RSS? >

SEARCH

newzealand.govt.nz is driven by a powerful search engine which finds information, resources, news, images, databases and more from across the New Zealand government web domain (.govt.nz) and other government-funded websites (such as local government, academic and health board websites).

About the search engine

The Vivisimo search platform uses a combination of MSN Live Search results and other government information to provide additional features such as content filtering, highlighting of popular results and grouping results by topic.

HOW SEARCH WORKS

Our Search functionality delivers the following:

Content filtering - newzealand.govt.nz provides filtered searches of government information, news and images.

The example below shows how to search for an image by selecting the 'Images' tab at the top of the Search Box.

The example below shows how to search all government news by selecting the 'News' tab.

Grouping of results by topic - newzealand.govt.nz groups search results so information is easily viewed by topic or agency. Topic groups are automatically generated based on the content of the search results and will change and vary as content changes. The example below shows how results returned can be viewed by either topic or government agency.

Search Spotlights - newzealand.govt.nz Search Spotlights highlight popular results based on your search terms.

In the example below, results from a search on policy analysts jobs from the jobs.govt.nz website are highlighted in a Spotlight Box.

Contact details for government agencies are also highlighted in spotlight boxes. The example below shows contact details for the Ministry for Culture and Heritage.

SEARCHING

The quickest way to search newzealand.govt.nz is by keyword search.

Simply enter the words that most accurately describe what you're looking for in the Search Box at the top of each page. Then click on the link from the search results that best answers your question.

An Advanced Search form is also available to make more targeted searches.

USING THE SEARCH BOX

The Search Box at the top of the page uses tabs to filter your keyword search. The default tab on the Search Box will present relevant results from your keyword search from all New Zealand government agency websites.

Images - the "images" tab will present you with photos, pictures, logos, graphics etc that are relevant to your keyword search.

News - when you use the "news" tab, the search engine will present you with the latest from the news sections of New Zealand government websites.

You can also download the Search Box and include it on the site of your choice.

SEARCH TIPS

Type in your most important words (keywords)

The search engine 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".

Capitals 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.

Māori words

The newzealand.govt.nz search engine is configured to search Māori words whether they have been used with a macron, double vowels or single vowels. This means that all versions of a word will be returned when you search.

In its use of the Māori language, newzealand.govt.nz adheres to the orthographic conventions of the Māori Language Commission (1995).

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.

Find images, photos and pictures

Select the images tab on the Search Box and enter your keyword. For example selecting images and entering cows will bring back images of cows, not text information.

Find government news

Select the news tab on the Search Box and enter your keyword. For example selecting news and entering education will return pages from the news sections of sites dealing with education.

Contact a government agency

Put the name of the agency, or its abbreviation into the Search Box. For example entering either Ministry for the Environment or MFE will return the contact details at the top of the results list.

Contact Members of Parliament

Simply put the MP's name into the Search Box and their contact details will be returned at the top of the search results.

Find a law

Put an act or legislation in the Search Box with your keyword – for example enter Privacy Act and the act itself will be returned.

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, Quit, SPARC.

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.

CONSULTATION SEARCH

'Consultation Search' is also available on the Participate pages. Simply enter a keyword or phrase in the "Search for Consultations" box on the Participate page and you'll receive a list of consultations from relevant government websites.

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 IS RSS?

RSS or Really Simple Syndication enables you to have information sent directly to your computer.

Subscribing to free RSS 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 RSS feeds?

You don't need anything to view the RSS feeds displayed on newzealand.govt.nz. To view the whole article click on the appropriate RSS headline in the RSS section of the Home page.

Modern web browsers typically support RSS. However, for users of earlier browsers, such as IE6, you will need an RSS reader or aggregator to subscribe to and receive RSS. 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 RSS 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.