← Blog · 2026-05-15
The state of open data in New Zealand (2026)
On paper, New Zealand has a strong open-data story. In practice I spent a lot of hours reading copyright footers, and the answer to “can I put this in a product?” is still it depends.
It depends on the agency, what kind of legal entity it is, and whether anyone there applied NZGOAL (or anything) to this dataset. Silence is not open — under the Copyright Act it defaults to all rights reserved.
I learned that the slow way: about sixty NZ sources, one copyright page at a time. Below is the map as of early 2026. Licences change; treat this as a method and a snapshot, not a substitute for checking the source.
NZGOAL — good framework, not a magic wand
Cabinet approved NZGOAL in 2010. The default recommendation is Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0) for government copyright works, and no rights reserved for bare facts. Attribution, reuse, commercial use: fine under CC-BY. As policy goes, it’s clear.
The catch is the word framework. It bites hardest for core Public Service departments. Crown entities, CRIs, and SOEs have their own boards and incentives. They can adopt NZGOAL; many have. They don’t have to. “We never put a licence on it” does not mean open.
So don’t ask “is this government data?” Ask: “did this agency license this dataset?”
Group 1 — mostly clean (CC-BY)
Good news first: a lot of the economic and spatial stuff you actually need is clean. CC-BY 4.0 or CC-BY 3.0 NZ, attribution as the condition, commercial use allowed.
| Agency | Typical content |
|---|---|
| Stats NZ | Census, economic and social stats, SDMX series |
| LINZ | Titles, parcels, addresses, base geospatial layers |
| MBIE | Economic, energy, building, procurement feed |
| Treasury | Fiscal forecasts, financial statements, debt tenders |
| RBNZ | Monetary, financial stability, exchange rates |
| Ministry of Justice | Court and charge statistics |
| MPI | Primary industries, SOPI |
| Customs | Tariff schedule (no IP rights at all) + reference FX |
| NZTA / Waka Kotahi | Traffic, crashes, road network |
| Electricity Authority | Wholesale generation and pricing |
| Stats NZ Geo, MfE, DOC, EECA, ACC, PHARMAC, TEC, Charities Services, NZQA | Domain datasets, generally CC-BY |
Rule of thumb: core department, statistical or spatial work → probably fine. Customs is the extreme good case — the tariff classifications claim no copyright/IP at all.
Footnote: NZQA statistics are CC-BY, but exam papers and assessment schedules have commercial restrictions. Read the whole copyright page.
Group 2 — Crown entities that kept tighter terms
“Government” still isn’t enough. Some Crown agencies deliberately did not adopt open default — personal / academic / non-commercial only, or permission required for commercial use.
Examples I’ve hit: Medsafe, Health Quality & Safety Commission, Firearms Safety Authority, Real Estate Authority, Guardians of NZ Superannuation.
They’re not always being difficult. Regulators worry about misuse; some datasets sit next to private or sensitive relationships; funds have their own disclosure rules. Fair enough from their seat. From your seat the outcome is the same: not open by default. Check the statement.
Group 3 — co-ops and industry bodies
This one surprises people. Dairy, red meat, horticulture — a lot of the export economy’s detailed stats live in levy-funded bodies and co-ops. Almost none of that is reusable for a commercial product.
DairyNZ, LIC, Fonterra, Global Dairy Trade, Beef + Lamb, wine/kiwifruit/apples/etc. industry groups: members-only, non-commercial educational use, or all rights reserved. Sometimes the file is on a public page; the terms still block redistribution.
Again, structural rather than evil: they’re accountable to levy payers or shareholders, not to NZGOAL. If you need ag numbers you can ship, go to Stats NZ (Agricultural Production Survey) and MPI (SOPI). Less granular, actually usable.
Three rules that held up
- Listed-company investor PDFs are closed by default. Monthly traffic, operating stats, co-op disclosures — written for investors, not open data. Public ≠ reusable.
- Industry body / co-op data is almost always locked. Assume closed; find the government aggregate.
- “Government dataset” proves nothing. Only the agency’s own copyright statement does. Core department doing stats/spatial → optimistic. Crown entity / CRI / SOE / co-op / industry body / listed co → read carefully.
How I check a new source
- Find the agency copyright / “about this site” page (not just a portal footer).
- Look for an explicit CC-BY or NZGOAL line.
- Treat silence as restricted.
- Note the entity type (department vs Crown entity vs private).
- Attribute anyway. Cheap insurance.
That’s roughly the work eolas does for every table it carries: read the licence, store it on the dataset, only serve what we can stand behind. If you’ve been doing that by hand for every new source, you’re not alone — I got sick of it too.