NZ Railway Legislation

The Law

From earliest times, no public railway could be operated in New Zealand without an authorisation from Parliament in the form of an Act, passed by the General Assembly. This fact was tested several times by various Provinces from 1859 onwards. In nearly every attempt to begin early construction, the need to jump through legal hoop inevitably delayed the work. Auckland, Nelson, Christchurch, Dunedin and Invercargill all faced these challenges and without going in to the details of the respective railways, the following sections look at the legal journeys of each of these ventures.

Canterbury

The Canterbury Provincial Council was the first to attempt to tackle the problem of efficient transport between their Port and the centre of their town. They also had the biggest hurdle to over come with Port Hills separating the two.

Being the English settlement that it was, it is not surprising that Robert Stephenson was engaged as consultant, and that his scheme of tunneling through the Port Hills was agreed to, provided Mr. Stephenson could find a contractor to carry out the work. Canterbury being the first to construct railways, meant it was very difficult to see things outside their provincial area, so there was no incentive to look at the bigger picture of rail at the time. These were their tracks for their use, so when the contractor was agreed to, the Provincial Council passed the Lyttelton and Christchurch Railway Act 1860 expecting to be able to get the work underway.