The Veterinary Council of New Zealand

  • manages the registration of veterinarians
     
  • promotes and encourages high standards and conduct
     
  • hears and determines complaints
     
  • exercises disciplinary powers

The Council's functions under Section 75 of the Veterinarians Act are:

  • to advise and make recommendations to the Minister on any matter relating to veterinarians and the practice of veterinarian science
     
  • advise the governing body of any New Zealand University in any matter relating to the education of veterinarians
     
  • to promote and encourage high standards of professional education and professional conduct among veterinarians
     
  • to consider reciprocal arrangements with registration bodies in other countries
     
  • to register persons, issue practising certificates, assess whether persons meet the requirement for continued registration or eligibility for a practising certificate, and peform the other functions relating to registration and practising requirements in accordance with Part 2, including -
     
    • to determine the institutions and the degrees and diplomas offered by those institutions that are recognised for the purposes of section 6(1)(a); and
       
    • to approve assessment programmes, post-graduate study, and post-graduate training for the purposes of section 6(1)(b)(ii) and (iii); and
       
    • to designate branches of veterinary science as branches in which veterinarians may practise as specialists for the purposes of section 7(i); and
       
    • to determine the form and content of applications for the purposes of sections 10(a) and (b) and 24(2)(a) and (b).
       
  • to keep and maintain the register and carry out the other functions relating to the register in accordance with Part 2
     
  • to receive, investigate, and hear complaints about, inquire into the conduct of, make assessments of, and discipline specified persons under Part 3
     
  • to investigate offences and bring prosecutions under the Act
     
  • to prescribe minimum standards for practising as a veterinarian, including standards relating to either or both of the following:
     
    • a person's fitness to practise as a veterinarian; and
       
    • the maintenance, examination, or improvement of the overall competence of a veterinarian to practise.
       
  • to prescribe -
     
    • examinations for the purposes of section 6(1)(b)(i); and
       
    • the form of the register and the information to be contained in the register under section 22.
       
  • to prescribe fees payable for the mattersreferred to in section 97 in accordance with section s98 to 100