New Zealand Law MCP Server

The legislation.govt.nz alternative for the AI age.

Query 4,025 New Zealand public Acts -- from the Privacy Act 2020 and Companies Act 1993 to the Commerce Act 1986, Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015, and more -- directly from Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible client.

If you're building legal tech, compliance tools, or doing New Zealand legal research, this is your verified reference database.

Built by Ansvar Systems -- Stockholm, Sweden

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Why This Exists

New Zealand legal research is scattered across legislation.govt.nz, NZLII, the New Zealand Gazette, and various government agency websites. Whether you're:

• A lawyer validating citations in a brief or contract
• A compliance officer checking if an Act is still in force
• A legal tech developer building tools on New Zealand law
• A researcher tracing 168 years of legislative history from 1858 to 2026

...you shouldn't need a dozen browser tabs and manual cross-referencing through the Parliamentary Counsel Office website. Ask Claude. Get the exact provision. With context.

This MCP server makes New Zealand law searchable, cross-referenceable, and AI-readable -- with 4,025 public Acts, 184,118 provisions, and 47,194 legal definitions covering 168 years of legislation.

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Quick Start

Use Remotely (No Install Needed)

Connect directly to the hosted version -- zero dependencies, nothing to install.

Endpoint: https://newzealand-law-mcp.vercel.app/mcp

Client	How to Connect
Claude.ai	Settings > Connectors > Add Integration > paste URL
Claude Code	claude mcp add newzealand-law --transport http https://newzealand-law-mcp.vercel.app/mcp
Claude Desktop	Add to config (see below)
GitHub Copilot	Add to VS Code settings (see below)

Claude Desktop -- add to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "newzealand-law": {
      "type": "url",
      "url": "https://newzealand-law-mcp.vercel.app/mcp"
    }
  }
}

GitHub Copilot -- add to VS Code settings.json:

{
  "github.copilot.chat.mcp.servers": {
    "newzealand-law": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://newzealand-law-mcp.vercel.app/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Use Locally (npm)

npx @ansvar/newzealand-law-mcp

Claude Desktop -- add to claude_desktop_config.json:

macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "newzealand-law": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@ansvar/newzealand-law-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Cursor / VS Code:

{
  "mcp.servers": {
    "newzealand-law": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@ansvar/newzealand-law-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

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Example Queries

Once connected, just ask naturally:

• "What does the Privacy Act 2020 Information Privacy Principle 1 say?"
• "Find provisions about harmful digital communications"
• "Is the Commerce Act 1986 still in force?"
• "What sections of the Intelligence and Security Act deal with warrants?"
• "What EU laws does New Zealand privacy law align with?"
• "Find penalties for copyright infringement in NZ law"
• "What are the director's duties under the Companies Act 1993?"
• "Compare data breach notification requirements across NZ statutes"
• "Validate the citation s 22 Privacy Act 2020"

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What's Included

Category	Count	Details
Acts	4,025 public Acts	Census-first full corpus from PCO
Provisions	184,118 sections	Full-text searchable with FTS5
Legal Definitions	47,194 definitions	Extracted from interpretation sections
Year Range	1858--2026	168 years of continuous legislation
Languages	English + te reo Maori	Bilingual where available
Database Size	~300 MB	Optimized SQLite, portable
Freshness Checks	Automated	Weekly drift detection against PCO

Verified data only -- every provision is ingested verbatim from the Parliamentary Counsel Office's official XML. Zero LLM-generated content.

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Why This Works

Verbatim Source Text (No LLM Processing):

• All legislation text is ingested from the Parliamentary Counsel Office's official XML publications
• Provisions are returned unchanged from SQLite FTS5 database rows
• Zero LLM summarization or paraphrasing -- the database contains legislation text, not AI interpretations

Smart Context Management:

• Search returns ranked provisions with BM25 scoring (safe for context)
• Provision retrieval gives exact text by Act title + section number
• Cross-references help navigate without loading everything at once

Technical Architecture:

PCO XML --> Parse --> SQLite --> FTS5 snippet() --> MCP response
              |                        |
       Provision parser        Verbatim database query

Traditional Research vs. This MCP

Traditional Approach	This MCP Server
Search legislation.govt.nz by Act title	Search by plain English: "data breach notification"
Navigate multi-part Acts manually	Get the exact provision with context
Manual cross-referencing between statutes	build_legal_stance aggregates across sources
"Is this Act still in force?" --> check manually	check_currency tool --> answer in seconds
Find EU alignment --> dig through policy papers	get_eu_basis --> linked EU directives instantly
Check government website for updates	Weekly automated freshness checks
No API, no integration	MCP protocol --> AI-native

Traditional: Search legislation.govt.nz --> Browse Act --> Ctrl+F --> Cross-reference with other Acts --> Check New Zealand Gazette --> Repeat

This MCP: "What are the privacy breach notification requirements under s 114 Privacy Act 2020?" --> Done.

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Available Tools (13)

Core Legal Research Tools (8)

Tool	Description
search_legislation	FTS5 search across 184,118 provisions with BM25 ranking. Supports quoted phrases, boolean operators, and prefix wildcards
get_provision	Retrieve specific provision by Act title + section (e.g., "Privacy Act 2020", section "22")
validate_citation	Validate a citation against the database -- zero-hallucination check. Supports formats: "Section 22 Privacy Act 2020", "s 22 Privacy Act 2020"
build_legal_stance	Aggregate citations from multiple statutes for a legal question
format_citation	Format citations per NZ conventions (full/short/pinpoint)
check_currency	Check if an Act is in force, amended, or repealed
list_sources	Dataset provenance, statistics, and coverage metadata
about	Server metadata, version, database fingerprint, and capability summary

EU/International Law Integration Tools (5)

Tool	Description
get_eu_basis	Get EU directives/regulations that a NZ statute aligns with
get_nz_implementations	Find NZ Acts that align with a specific EU directive or regulation
search_eu_implementations	Search EU documents with NZ alignment counts
get_provision_eu_basis	Get EU/international basis for a specific provision (pinpoint level)
validate_eu_compliance	Check EU/international alignment status with warnings

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EU Law Integration

New Zealand is not an EU member state, but many NZ laws autonomously align with EU directives and regulations through trade agreements, mutual recognition arrangements, and independent policy adoption. The Privacy Act 2020, for example, was designed with GDPR-level protections -- enabling New Zealand's EU adequacy decision for cross-border data transfers.

This server maps those alignments bidirectionally:

Capability	Description
NZ --> EU	Given an NZ statute, find the EU directives/regulations it aligns with
EU --> NZ	Given an EU directive, find NZ statutes that implement similar provisions
Provision-level	Pinpoint EU basis for specific sections, not just whole Acts
Compliance check	Detect references to repealed EU directives, missing alignment, outdated references

Key Alignments

NZ Act	EU Equivalent	Nature
Privacy Act 2020	GDPR (2016/679)	Autonomous alignment; NZ has EU adequacy decision
Commerce Act 1986	EU Competition Law	Autonomous alignment with EU competition principles
Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013	MiFID II, MAR	Autonomous alignment for financial regulation
Consumer Guarantees Act 1993	Consumer Rights Directive	Similar consumer protection framework

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Data Sources & Freshness

All content is sourced from the authoritative New Zealand legal database:

• New Zealand Legislation -- Parliamentary Counsel Office (PCO), the official source of NZ legislation
• License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Automated Freshness Checks (Weekly)

A weekly GitHub Actions workflow monitors the data source:

Source	Check	Method
New Acts	PCO publication feed	Diffed against database
Amendments	PCO XML date comparison	All 4,025 Acts checked
Repeals	Status field monitoring	Flagged when Acts change status
Drift detection	Golden hash comparison	6 anchor provisions verified

Full provenance metadata: sources.yml

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Security

This project uses multiple layers of automated security scanning:

Scanner	What It Does	Schedule
CodeQL	Static analysis for security vulnerabilities	Weekly + PRs
Semgrep	SAST scanning (OWASP top 10, secrets, TypeScript)	Every push
Gitleaks	Secret detection across git history	Every push
Trivy	CVE scanning on filesystem and npm dependencies	Daily
Dependabot	Automated dependency updates	Weekly

See SECURITY.md for the full policy and vulnerability reporting.

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Important Disclaimers

Legal Advice

THIS TOOL IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE

Legislation text is sourced verbatim from the Parliamentary Counsel Office's official XML publications. However:

• This is a research tool, not a substitute for professional legal counsel
• Verify critical citations against the official legislation.govt.nz for court filings and formal legal opinions
• Check the New Zealand Gazette for the most recent amendments and commencement orders
• EU/international alignments are editorial cross-references, not official government positions
• Te reo Maori provisions are included where available in PCO data, but may not cover all bilingual enactments

New Zealand-Specific Notes

• New Zealand Acts are identified by title + year (e.g., "Privacy Act 2020"), not systematic numbering
• Citation format follows NZ convention: "Section N, [Act Title Year]" or "s N [Act Title Year]"
• Some historical Acts (pre-1900) may have incomplete digitisation
• Imperial Acts still in force in New Zealand may not be fully covered
• Regulations (secondary legislation) are included where available in the PCO corpus

Before using professionally, read: DISCLAIMER.md | PRIVACY.md

Client Confidentiality

Queries go through the Claude API (or your chosen LLM provider). For privileged or confidential matters, use on-premise deployment via the npm package (npx @ansvar/newzealand-law-mcp). See PRIVACY.md for data handling guidance.

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Development

Setup

git clone https://github.com/Ansvar-Systems/newzealand-law-mcp
cd newzealand-law-mcp
npm install
npm run build
npm test

Running Locally

npm run dev                                       # Start MCP server
npx @anthropic/mcp-inspector node dist/src/index.js   # Test with MCP Inspector

Data Management

npm run build:db               # Rebuild SQLite database from raw data
npm run ingest                 # Ingest legislation from PCO
npm run drift:detect           # Run drift detection against golden hashes
npm run check-updates          # Check for amendments and new Acts
npm run validate               # Full validation (lint + test + contract)

Testing

npm test                       # Run all tests
npm run test:contract          # Run contract tests (golden file validation)
npm run lint                   # TypeScript type checking

Performance

• Search Speed: <100ms for most FTS5 queries
• Database Size: ~300 MB (comprehensive, portable)
• Provisions: 184,118 sections across 4,025 Acts
• Reliability: 100% ingestion success rate

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Related Projects: Complete Compliance Suite

This server is part of Ansvar's Compliance Suite -- MCP servers that work together for end-to-end compliance coverage:

@ansvar/eu-regulations-mcp

Query 49 EU regulations directly from Claude -- GDPR, AI Act, DORA, NIS2, MiFID II, eIDAS, and more. Full regulatory text with article-level search. npx @ansvar/eu-regulations-mcp

@ansvar/newzealand-law-mcp (This Project)

Query 4,025 New Zealand public Acts directly from Claude -- Privacy Act, Companies Act, Commerce Act, and more. Full provision text with EU alignment cross-references. npx @ansvar/newzealand-law-mcp

@ansvar/australian-law-mcp

Query Australian federal legislation directly from Claude -- Privacy Act, Corporations Act, Criminal Code, and more. Trans-Tasman legal research made easy. npx @ansvar/australian-law-mcp

@ansvar/uk-law-mcp

Query UK legislation directly from Claude -- Data Protection Act, Companies Act, and more. Commonwealth legal tradition comparison. npx @ansvar/uk-law-mcp

@ansvar/us-regulations-mcp

Query US federal and state compliance laws -- HIPAA, CCPA, SOX, GLBA, FERPA, and more. npx @ansvar/us-regulations-mcp

@ansvar/security-controls-mcp

Query 261 security frameworks and 1,451 controls -- ISO 27001, NIST CSF, SOC 2, CIS, and more. npx @ansvar/security-controls-mcp

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Contributing

Contributions welcome! See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

Priority areas:

• Case law integration (Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, High Court via NZLII)
• Historical statute version tracking
• Regulations (secondary legislation) expansion
• Te reo Maori language coverage improvement
• Cross-references to Australian law (Trans-Tasman mutual recognition)

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Citation

If you use this MCP server in academic research:

@software{newzealand_law_mcp_2026,
  author = {Ansvar Systems AB},
  title = {New Zealand Law MCP Server: Production-Grade Legal Research Tool},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://github.com/Ansvar-Systems/newzealand-law-mcp},
  note = {Comprehensive New Zealand legal database with 4,025 public Acts, 184,118 provisions, and 47,194 definitions spanning 1858--2026}
}

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License

Apache License 2.0. See LICENSE for details.

Data License

• Legislation: New Zealand Parliamentary Counsel Office -- Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

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About Ansvar Systems

We build AI-accelerated compliance and legal research tools. This MCP server makes 168 years of New Zealand legislation -- from the earliest colonial statutes of 1858 to Acts passed in 2026 -- searchable, citable, and AI-readable.

4,025 public Acts. 184,118 provisions. 47,194 definitions. One MCP server.

ansvar.eu -- Stockholm, Sweden

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_{Built with care in Stockholm, Sweden}