So long, farewell ... to the Carriage of Goods Act 1979

The Contract and Commercial Law Act 2017 comes into force on 1 September 2017, and with its arrival the Carriage of Goods Act 1979 will pass into history.  Its provisions, fairly substantially re-written, will now be found in Part 5 of the new Act.

The re-wording of the Act has been carried out in accordance with the Legislation Act 2012.  This aims to make New Zealand statute law “more accessible, readable and easier to understand” using modernised language and rearranging the sections in a more logical way, while not (intentionally) changing the effect of the original statute.

We have prepared two documents to assist with the transition to the new legislation.  The first is a comparison between the original Act, and the proposed provisions set out in the Contract and Commercial Law Bill, with the explanatory comments that accompanied the Bill included in bold.  The second document is a comparison between the original Act and the new Part 5, showing the final version and including the new section numbers.  There are quite a few differences between the Bill and the Act, so the explanatory notes may be useful as an aid to understanding what has been done.

Please click here to download your copy of the comparison between the original Act and the Bill, and here for the comparison between the original Act and the new Part 5.