Everyone on a small recreational boat will have to wear a lifejacket rather than simply carry one, after Parliament unanimously passed the Maritime Transport (Lifejackets on Recreational Craft) Amendment Bill on Wednesday.
The bill applies to recreational craft of six metres or less in length. Once it takes effect, every person on board will need to wear a properly fitted lifejacket while the vessel is underway. It is the first time New Zealand has had a single national wearing rule for small boats.
Until now the national rule has only required lifejackets to be carried on board. Whether they had to be worn depended on where you were, because each regional council sets its own bylaw. Roughly half of regional councils already have a wearing rule of some kind, which has left boaties facing different obligations on either side of a regional boundary.
Associate Transport Minister James Meager, who welcomed the vote, pointed to last year’s toll. “In 2025, 17 people died in recreational craft incidents on our waters. Sadly, 12 of those people were found not to be wearing a lifejacket,” he said in a statement released after the third reading.
“These are tragic and preventable deaths. This legislation creates one clear, simple national rule for everyone to follow, which is a common-sense and long overdue change,” Meager said.
The timing matters. “The changes will come into effect 28 days after the Bill receives Royal Assent, meaning the new rule will be in place for the peak summer season,” he said. Maritime New Zealand is leading the rollout alongside the Safer Boating Forum, which includes Coastguard and Water Safety New Zealand, and will run public education on what the change means before the holidays begin.
The bill was sponsored through its final stages by National MP Shane Reti, who told Parliament the change had been a long time coming. “Passing this bill has been described as the biggest drowning prevention opportunity in a generation,” he said in a statement issued after the vote.
Reti said the select committee had heard that 15 percent of all drownings last year happened on small recreational craft where lifejackets were not worn. “Officials estimate that an average of 10 lives per year could be saved. Tasmania had a 60% reduction in their first year of policy introduction and we are looking for the same benefits,” he said.
He also made the point that the new law tidies up rather than expands. “Removing variability with a nationally consistent policy will benefit water users and monitoring authorities. All existing exemptions such as surfers and sports events are retained,” Reti said. Surfing and organised sporting events are not caught by the wearing rule.
The bill has an unusually long history for a members’ bill. It first went into the ballot in 2013 and sat there for more than a decade before being drawn last year in the name of National MP Cameron Brewer. It had its first reading on 22 October 2025 under its original name, the Life Jackets for Children and Young Persons Bill, and in that form it would have applied only to people under the age of 15.
That changed at select committee. In March 2026 the Transport and Infrastructure Committee broadened the bill to cover people of all ages and reopened public submissions until mid April. The committee reported back in July with unanimous cross-party support, which is why the third reading went through without opposition.
Water safety groups had been pushing for the wider version. In a statement in July 2026, Water Safety New Zealand’s Glen Scanlon set out the case from the long-run numbers. “In the past 25 years a total of 441 lives were lost in craft-related incidents, the fact that 336 of these people were not wearing a lifejacket is just overwhelming. We can save lives through this legislation change. And we must,” he said.
Coastguard chief executive Carl McOnie said in the same statement that the sector had argued for the change for years. “We are very pleased our message has been heard. This represents the biggest drowning prevention opportunity in a generation. This is a practical, evidence-based step that will save lives,” he said.
Waikato regional harbourmaster Chris Bredenbeck offered the one bit of local evidence New Zealand already has. Waikato has required lifejackets to be worn since 2013. “We have made lifejackets mandatory in the Waikato since 2013 and we’ve seen the results,” he said. “The culture change that we see on the water in the Waikato is possible in every region.”
Water Safety New Zealand’s figures put last year’s total drowning toll at 78 people. Seventeen of those were on a boat or other craft, and 12 of the 17 were not wearing a lifejacket.
For Reti the vote is close to a full stop. The Whangārei MP delivered his valedictory speech in late August after 12 years in Parliament and is not standing again at the general election on 7 November. Meager thanked both him and Brewer in his statement, along with the boating groups and submitters who worked on the bill.
Very little else in this Parliament has passed with every party voting the same way. With the House now in its final sitting weeks before the campaign, a bill that started as a children’s safety measure in a ballot box in 2013 will be law before the first long weekend of summer.
If you want to see where the parties sit on this and everything else before you vote, our voting tool lets you compare policies side by side.
Do you already wear a lifejacket every time you head out, or does a national rule feel like overreach on a small boat in flat water? Tell us in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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