Plain Language Bill

I move, That the Plain Language Bill be now read a second time.

It’s good to take the first call on the second reading of the Plain Language Bill. The bill has now been reported back from the Governance and Administration Committee. I particularly want to acknowledge the select committee, who did a lot of detailed work on the bill; officials from the Parliamentary Counsel Office; also the Public Service Commission, who provided extremely useful advice on the bill; and a good number of submitters, who submitted to the committee and have helped to make this bill a much better, more useful bill now that has been reported back from select committee. I’m going to talk through a number of the changes that the select committee made, because they are numerous.

First, though, I do just want to note the importance of plain language in our public documents and, actually, in all documents. One of the pieces of information that experts on plain language often talk about is that for those of us who have the opportunity and privilege often to attend education institutes like universities, we often are trained to use academic language and to reach a word limit, and often we need to have that trained out of us when we go into the working world. That was my own experience in my first public sector role. As a young graduate, I had a communications role and was sent on a number of plain-language courses run by an organisation in Wellington called Write Ltd, who do an excellent job of training many public servants in Wellington and across New Zealand, and they’re experts on plain language.

What that’s taught me was the importance of ensuring we think about the reader, we think about the person who is going to be reading that document and the importance of them being able to understand it. As an electorate MP, it’s an issue that does come across my desk a lot. People will often bring forms in, letters from the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), from Immigration New Zealand, that are challenging for them to understand—and particularly our migrant community. I’ve also had situations where migrants have been sent emails that actually have had a life and death component to them, where they needed to exit from a dangerous situation and the documents were difficult for them to understand. It goes to the heart of this issue, which is that all citizens of New Zealand, or residents of New Zealand, should have the right to be able to understand what is being asked of them, and understand their rights and obligations as citizens and residents of this country.

So I’m just going to take the House through a number of the changes that we made at select committee, just so that we can explain further how this bill has changed coming back at this point. Mr Speaker, while I know I wouldn’t normally bring you into the debate, I do want to acknowledge you and your chairing of the committee and your role in these changes as well.

So, first of all, I’ll begin with clause 4, which sets out what documents must use plain language. It was important to us that we were very explicit about which documents would be used and which ones wouldn’t. One of the areas where we’ve made it clear in the bill is that, for example, a document that would go through, say, a Cabinet process—just because it was subject to the Official Information Act doesn’t automatically make it a requirement for it to be in plain language. We’re very clear that it was about the purpose of that document, in terms of the readers, and I’ll just actually take the House through that particular section, in terms of what documents must use plain language.

So in the legislation, a document for which a reporting agency is responsible is a relevant document for the purpose of plain language if the document is in English—although I’ll make some commentary around that a little bit later—and if the agency considers that the intended audience for the document is the public generally, rather than just one or more person. The document also provides information about what services are provided by or on behalf of a reporting agency, or information about how to obtain those services, including any document that is necessary to obtain any of those services or provides information about filing, registering, or lodging information with, or giving information to, a reporting agency, or explains to the public how to comply with a requirement that a reporting agency administers, enforces, or provides information to the public about a requirement that a reporting agency administers or enforces that may affect their rights or interests, or provides information as part of a public education initiative. We made a specific note in the bill that a department publishing on its internet site a guide to the services it provides would also be covered.

So we also made a number of changes specifically around the definition of “plain language” and how that will be achieved. One of the changes we made was that the definition talks specifically about recognised guidelines of plain-language writing. It’s important I note in the second reading speech—and I’ll also raise it again in the committee of the whole House—that we placed the obligations on defining those guidelines with the Public Service Commissioner. We’ve put that role at that heart of those guidelines.

One of the points that we’ve noted as a committee is the importance of using internationally recognised definitions of plain language in putting those guidelines in place. One of the reasons that we’ve done that specifically is that there is currently an International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) standard being developed internationally on what is plain language. So we’ve written the bill in a way that when that ISO standard does make its way through that process and becomes an internationally accepted standard, the bill is written so that it enables the commissioner to reference that ISO standard. And that’s the appropriate guideline to use once that standard has been fulfilled. I note that Write Ltd, who I mentioned earlier, have participated in the development of that ISO standard, so we will have New Zealand influence over it.

So the other matter I just wanted to note around the commissioner’s role is that the original bill said that the commissioner may issue guidelines. Actually, what the committee felt was that it was better for us to place the onus on the commissioner but that they must issue guidelines. So the commissioner must issue guidelines, but then we have given some more, I guess, room for the commissioner to be able to actually do that issuing of those guidelines.

The other component we’ve included is the importance of accessibility within those guidelines. We heard from a number of submitters from disability groups, who made us very good submissions about how important it is for them to understand information that they have access to. One of the examples I’ll use—and I’ll just briefly mention that we made specific noting of template-type letters that are used, for example, to inform people of their rights and obligations—and an obvious one, would be template letters that go out to people on behalf of the Ministry of Social Development. I had representation made to me by a constituent who is—

💬 Simeon Brown: Was it a submission or was it to you?

—vision-impaired. Yes, Mr Brown, they did submit. What she explained to me was that there’s a very basic use of a PDF template letter where you can allow it to actually read out information to you. It hadn’t been implemented within a particular letter that she received, and, as a result, she couldn’t read the letter. She rang MSD, spent a long time on hold, and MSD refused to read the letter out to her and told her she needed to get somebody to read it to her. All of this is a transaction cost that actually would have saved her and MSD a lot of time if she had been able to have a reader put on that. So it’s one of the reasons why we’ve said that the commissioner must include those accessibility guidelines for exactly that type of situation that presents itself.

I could speak for another few minutes on this because there’s much more to say, so I’m looking forward to further contributions. There are many more changes that the committee has made which I look forward to having deep discussion on during the committee of the whole House. I thank everyone for their participation in considering this bill, and I commend it to the House.

Well, Mr Speaker, if there ever was a problem looking for a solution, this piece of legislation is exactly that. This is the Plain Language Bill, which I honestly thought the Labour Party would dump at the select committee, but here they are, standing up and talking about how important this piece of legislation is and how it’s going to fix all the ailments and problems up and down the country. If only our Public Service departments and agencies were told from on high, from this Parliament, that they must issue plain language guidance to all the public servants out there to ensure that the letters, the documents, and the reports they write are in plain language!

Well, this piece of legislation will not fix one single problem. In fact, it will create many more problems in New Zealand, and that is why the National Party opposes this legislation. We oppose it because there is no evidence that there is a problem to be solved, and it will only lead to more bureaucrats, more bureaucracy, and more control by the Government over our bureaucracy, which should be free from political influence. We know that these plain-language officers, which will be inserted into Public Service departments and agencies up and down the country, will turn into the language police of the Government of the day to ensure that the Government’s messaging has more influence through the Public Service departments.

Let me just tell members that this is a Government that has already increased the Public Service by 14,000 more bureaucrats here in Wellington, costing $1.8 billion every single year in staff costs, and this bill will only mean more of these staff in the Public Service. This is a Government that only knows how to do three things: more tax, and we saw that with the KiwiSaver tax; more spending, and we see that with a 68 percent increase in spending under this Government in the last five years; and more bureaucracy—this bill will cost more and add more bureaucracy.

Every single Public Service department will be required to have plain-language officers.

💬 Hon Member: How much will they be paid?

We don’t know how much they’re going to be paid. We don’t know how many plain-language officers they will be appointing. There are significant questions around the cost-benefit ratio that were not addressed at the select committee and which we do not have in the select committee report, and that is exactly how this Government operates. Cost-benefit analysis? Who cares? They want to look as if they’re doing something and that’s exactly what’s happened here.

There were a number of submitters who I think made some excellent points in regard to this legislation. The New Zealand Law Society pointed out that there wasn’t a cost-benefit analysis in the regulatory impact statement. There was a lack of a departmental disclosure statement, a regulatory impact statement, and a cost-benefit analysis. So we’re passing a piece of legislation, we’re identifying a problem, but we’re not asking what the cost is, how many more staff will there be, and what actual benefits or outcomes we’re going to achieve from it—none of that stuff. Absolutely none of that stuff. This is exactly how the Labour Party governs New Zealand.

The Legislation Design and Advisory Committee submitted that the policy objective was best achieved more effectively through non-legislative means. How many hours of parliamentary time, select committee time, have we been spending on a piece of legislation that literally just needs Ministers saying to their departments and agencies, “Can you please make sure people can read your documents.”? That’s all that’s needed.

💬 Hon Paul Goldsmith: Give us an example.

Well, that was the KiwiSaver thing. The KiwiSaver flip-flop was in absolute un-plain language. There was no disclosure of that in the press release. This is a Government that decided they were going to try and slip that through without telling New Zealanders what was happening, and that was absolutely not clear.

The other point I’d like to make is that this piece of legislation is incredibly unclear in itself because it says, and even the committee acknowledged, that plain language is subjective in nature and open to interpretation. Unbelievable. Plain language is subjective in nature and open to interpretation. So whose definition of plain language are we talking about here? Is the Labour Party definition, is it the National Party definition, or is it the Green Party definition of plain language? That just shows exactly how ridiculous—

💬 Joseph Mooney: Hopefully, not the Greens.

Well, it will end up being the Green Party. That’s exactly what will happen.

I’d like to touch on another select committee change that came though. This is a Government that came into office in 2017 saying, “We think too much money’s being spent on contractors and consultants. We need to re-establish the Public Service.”, and so they grew the Public Service by 14,000 more bureaucrats, but they’re also spending more money on consultants and contractors. One of the changes in the legislation is that the plain-language officers, in the original version, had to be appointed from within the department, but now they can come from without—now they can be contractors and consultants. So the Government can now have contractors and consultants come into the Public Service departments to be the plain-language police that this Government wants to have.

💬 Joseph Mooney: Trying to make jobs for themselves next year.

That’s a very good point, Mr Mooney. Maybe the exact reason is the Labour Party is trying to find jobs for their backbench come the next election. They need jobs for their backbench come the next election. We’ve seen the pressure build in that backbench as they know that 20 of them won’t have a job after the next election, and so maybe this will be a job for them. Rachel Boyack could find a job. Maybe this is a job she could be looking for after the next election. Maybe it’s a make-work scheme.

What we do know is that these plain-language police will become busybodies. Not only is plain language subjective in nature and open to interpretation but this well-intentioned—possibly well-intentioned—piece of legislation will lead to language police entering our Public Service departments and telling our Public Service what language they can use, what language they can’t use, and we know that those who control the language control the minds, and that is exactly the intent behind this legislation. So while there may be good intentions on the surface, what’s underneath is a sinister attempt to try and control language in New Zealand.

If you look at how this bill works, the Government departments need to report to the Public Service Commission on how they’re interpreting and using plain language in their departments. The Public Service Commission then needs to report to the Minister. This is all about centralisation of language and control, and that is on top of the 50 percent increase in communications staff that this Government has already employed across the Public Service departments. There are 50 percent more communications staff to propagate the Government’s message out to New Zealanders, to tell New Zealanders what they want them to know. There are probably more comms staff than there are journalists in some of our major newspapers in New Zealand, and this is a Government that is adamant that they want to control more and more of the messaging. We’ve seen the hundred-million dollars they’ve given to the media, the media slush fund. We’ve seen the significant number of communications staff, and now we’re seeing plain-language officers being inserted in there as well. This is all about the Government wanting to control the messaging to New Zealanders more and more and that is the sinister underlying message of this piece of legislation, and it’s another reason why the National Party cannot and will not support it.

The reality is that if New Zealanders had a choice today, if they had a choice as to what they think should be focused on in our Public Service, I think I know what they would choose. Would they choose more hip operations faster? Would they choose a police service that wants to crack down on crime? Do they want better educational standards so that their children can actually learn how to read and write and not have a plain-language officer to tell them what to do? Do they want a fire service that is able to respond to emergencies adequately with the right equipment and the right personnel? Do they need to have the potholes on our highways fixed in a timely manner so that our cars are not being damaged all the time? Or do we need plain-language officers in our Public Service departments?

Our solution is: improve the outcomes. Focus the Public Service on the operations, the things that need to be done, and the outcomes that New Zealanders pay their taxes to see done. Get the potholes fixed. Make our Public Service work for New Zealanders. Fight the crime. Make sure our young people are getting the education they need. Make sure that our children can read and write. That’s our solution. The Government’s solution? Plain-language officers. Plain-language officers are all they’ve got. After five years, all they’ve got is more bureaucracy and plain-language officers. The National Party proudly stands opposed to this piece of legislation and the Government should just dump it in the bin where it belongs.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am extremely disappointed that the member who has just resumed his seat, Simeon Brown, did not spend one single minute in our select committee as we were considering this bill. As the Opposition spokesperson on this matter, I’m really, really disappointed when you, Mr Speaker, have ably chaired the Governance and Administration Committee, we had gone through all of these details, giving so much attention, making sure we had investigated all of the issues he just talked about, but he chose to not show up and not participate in any of those conversations.

Can I put it on record here that this bill will not necessarily create more positions in the public sector, but it is just putting the responsibility of making sure that we communicate correctly and clearly to the public that we actually serve, as a Government, and to make sure, in terms of the communication coming from each department, that there is someone—who is probably already in a comms position at this moment—who will actually use their time officially to make sure that there is a standardised approach to all of the public when each Government department or agency communicates.

Also, there has been research from the United States that shows actually communicating in plain language will reduce the cost of human resource in terms of communicating with the public, as well. If you’ve done it correctly the first time, you won’t need to actually have to pick up the phone and then call the Government agency or department for clarification again. That is really, really simple math.

Can I just take it back to my own personal experience. I have spent four years in the District Courts of Auckland, being a court-appointed interpreter. In my daily job back at university, I could see how unclearly written English language was affecting our migrant community. Every day in my electorate office, I’m having to translate—reinterpret—all of the documents on our Government websites that we have to actually do. There is so much more barrier that we have created without communicating clearly and efficiently to everyone. That’s probably one of the parts of the select committee process that I really enjoyed having conversations with the submitters on.

Not only is it our migrant community, those with English as their second language, those perhaps that we need translation services to do—and, on that note, can I just also put on record as well that we heard submissions, and through my own experience as well, that if the original language was clear, succinct, and written in plain English and plain language, then actually the quality of translation improves as well.

We also were in conversation with those who were from the disability sector, as well—those who needed, for instance, a screen reader. So being able to have websites with information clearly written that is not in convoluted ways of actually expressing ideas or giving instructions or explaining a process, accessibility to that information increases, as well.

Also, I just remember from my days in the court, where if you actually gave statements in short, succinct sentences, more of the meaning gets conveyed through the interpreter. A lot of the time, we have agencies, for instance, like the Citizens Advice Bureau, who actually help a lot of our migrant communities, a lot of people within our communities that have learning disabilities and that have other disabilities that hinder them from being able to access that information themselves. But even if we have this bill in place, then the original context of which it is communicated in will actually help those who are the most vulnerable and most prevented from accessing that information in our community as well. It also cuts down the time of these services that are trying to help our communities who need translation services, so they can spend that time helping people who need other types of assistance in their lives, as well.

Can I also just thank the officials, as well, who have worked with us on this bill, that have gone through all of those details we were talking about, making sure that, for instance, the Public Service Commission had the capability but also knew that they had the right legislative imperatives in place in this bill to make sure that they could do their jobs properly. We tested many different scenarios in terms of whether there would be a legal obligation, and we landed that there shouldn’t but there should be a reporting within the public sector so that we could monitor the standard in which all public sector agencies communicate.

We talked, for instance—and I know Mr Woodhouse contributed to this—in terms of personal or technical communication. Firstly, on the personal side, a letter to an individual, we decided not to put into this legislation, because we know that sometimes communication to an individual needed to be very, very specific, needed to lay out all of the details of their personal circumstances, and we needed our Public Service to be able to give them the right and the most accurate information possible.

The other one we had discussed in a lot of detail was actually the issuing of standard guidance. One particular industry sector that we had particularly used as an example was the immigration industry, where the office of Immigration New Zealand would be issuing standardised advice and directions for immigration consultants. We wondered whether communication to a class of immigration consultants would count as public communication. Through rigorous conversation and debate, I think, in the end, we landed that we would not include that in the bill, because we realised that we needed to issue very technical guidance, even though this advice was public, is published on the internet, that anyone else who might be clients of these advisers, who might be someone who was going through an immigration process themselves, had access to these documents, but we still decided that that needed to be of a level of technicality that we wouldn’t include it in the bill.

I think we had a discussion about the tax guidance, as well, that, yes, if it’s on the website and it’s intended for just the public, for normal laypeople, to read, then, yes, that would come under the bill and that would have to be written in plain language. However, if it was a specific piece of direction that was aimed at tax consultants, at accountants, at tax lawyers as well, that wouldn’t be counted. So there would be a level of technicality that could still be communicated. Then, at the same time, if there was a criteria to judge that if this was open to communication to everyone else, that would be written in plain language.

I also particularly enjoyed, in select committee, the conversation around whether te reo would be included in this bill. Te reo, obviously, as we all know, is an official New Zealand language, and so is sign language, but we did decide that we would not touch on te reo in this bill either, just to make sure that the English communication that the Government or the public sector provides to the public would be something that would be written in just plain English and that any other te reo words or te reo phrases that happens in Government communications would not fall under this bill.

Can I also touch on the last point, which is that I think, throughout this whole entire conversation—indeed, so far in the debate—one phrase that has resonated in my mind is that communication is an art. We as politicians should know that better than anyone else—that clear, concise communication is good for everyone in terms of whether we are conveying information or we’re conveying a message. In our communities, there are lots and lots of people who need us to communicate clearly for them. Just as my colleague Rachel Boyack has said, as well, it’s sometimes a matter of life and death that we actually need the website; we need our public servants to be communicating clearly so that not only is it a matter of accessibility and it’s a matter of equity but, at the same time, it’s a matter of efficiency, as well.

So this bill will benefit everyone in terms of cost savings, in terms of efficiency, in terms of that emotional stress of, even though you might be reading it, not understanding. If you have English as a second language, as, I know, in my family, many of my family have, then, in that situation, this bill will be really, really helpful. So I would invite all members of this House to come into the shoes of our community and to understand how important this bill is for us. So, on that note, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Let me speak with extremely plain language. This bill is the stupidest bill to come before Parliament in this term. National will repeal it. And I can’t believe we are down here on Thursday morning debating this waste of time bill. I actually feel sorry for Rachel Boyack, because she is a conscientious and diligent member of Parliament and she has had this ridiculous, jobsworthy, stupid bill landed on her and she’s had to shepherd it through. I actually assumed—I think most of us assumed—at its first reading, whatever it was, that it would go off to the Governance and Administration Committee and would never see the light of day ever again. It would just be quietly discharged from the Order Paper, quietly done away with, and we’d just forget that Parliament had wasted all of its time debating the first reading.

But, no, here we are again. I can’t believe it. I just can’t fathom it. Here we are again. And poor old Rachel Boyack. And the Labour backbenchers are sitting there going, “There but for the grace of God go we, because what if I end up with a similarly stupid bill?” They’re all sitting there—Anna Lorck and Helen White and Sarah Pallett—and they’re all going to lose their seats at the next election. They’re all sitting there going, “I’m toast. I’m ‘gone-burger’.” Because Tukituki is finished. Jamie Strange is sitting there at Hamilton East. He’s gone. Sarah Pallett’s not going to win Ilam again. Helen White couldn’t even win Auckland Central last time around. [Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): Order! Order!

She’s toast and she’s sitting there thinking, “What am I going to do?” I can tell you something for free. The way to advance—the way to advance and win a seat—is not with bills like this.

National opposes this bill for five reasons. The first is—look at the bill. It is in a shocking state. As Simeon Brown noted, no departmental disclosure statement, no regulatory impact statement, no cost-benefit analysis. You only need to look at it. Look at what the committee’s done to the bill. There’s more black lines here and more insertions than there is actual text that it started with; we’ve completely rewritten the bill. So the bill is in a shocking state. It’s been completely retrofitted, and we should get rid of it.

The second reason we oppose this bill is what it says about the priorities of this Government. A hundred thousand New Zealand kids are chronically truant from school, we have child poverty going up, we have kids living in cars—after Labour said they would fix these problems. We have thousands of New Zealand children living in motels. And what’s Labour got the Parliament doing? Plain-language officers for every Government department—not just Government departments; every reporting agency that is a Crown entity. That’s the priority. Not child poverty. Not kids in cars. Not kids who are truant. Not economic growth. Not productivity. Not all of the manifold problems bedevilling this country but plain-language officers. I mean, it just actually beggars belief. I say to the Government—I mean, I wish you would drop it but on the one level; I also think, “Carry on, charge on.”, because every time you put this bill before the House, you just illustrate to New Zealanders why they deserve to be thrown out of office at the next election.

The third point is about bureaucracy. It’s just actually unfathomable what we are doing here. Every single reporting agency—not “may” but “must”; it’s an imperative, it’s a didactic imperative—must appoint a plain-language officer. As Simeon Brown quite rightly said, it’s the plain-language police. Every single Government department, every single Public Service agency, the Department of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education, every single Crown agency, the New Zealand Transport Agency, Health New Zealand—every single one. You read it, it’s in Schedule 1 of the Crown Entities Act 2004—every single one.

And yep, is it true that these plain-language officers could be existing bureaucrats, existing people who work in Public Service departments? Yeah, in theory. Is that likely to be the reality? Bear in mind, this Government has hired 14,000 more bureaucrats since they came to office. So what are the odds that they’ll just appoint one of them? I mean, the sensible thing to do would be to put some poor communications officer at the Transport Agency and say, “In addition to all of the graphics and the comms work and all of the PRs you do to fluff up the Government, you should also be the plain-language officer.” But no, no, no, that’s not what will happen. I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. Here’s what’s going to happen after this bill gets passed. If you go on to seek.co.nz and trademe.co.nz and all the other job agencies, what will happen as you’ll see an ad for a plain-language officer for—pick an agency. There’s literally hundreds of them. Those will be the job ads and people will end up having to apply for these jobs. I mean, what sort of ridiculous job is it? People are going to see these job ads from the New Zealand Government, these well-paid bureaucratic jobs, to be a plain-language police officer inside a Government agency.

There’ll be hundreds of advertisements on SEEK and TradeMe. It’s going to be absolutely ridiculous. And their job will be to issue guidance, issue instructions, issue consultation documents. And it’s not a “may”. It’s not an optional extra here. This is not an option. This is a “must”. It’s an imperative. The Government is making these people do things and there’ll have to be the annual report to the Public Service Commission. I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. Again, I’ll make a prediction. We’ll also see advertisements for the Public Service Commission to hire people to analyse all of the reports going into the Public Service Commission about the compliance of the Ministry of Health and the Department of Internal Affairs and every other Government agency. The artificial limb board is probably on the list. I think they’re a Crown entity and they’ll all have to submit a report and then the Public Service Commission will have to analyse them and file them away and that will involve hiring more bureaucrats.

💬 Hon Member: The Auditor-General—

The Auditor-General—

💬 Hon Paul Goldsmith: They’ll have to check.

They’ll have to check. Yeah, that’s right. The Auditor-General will have to go and check and there’ll be compliance checks and so that will be more bureaucrats.

This Government has never seen a bureaucracy that they can’t just add another layer to. It’s just ridiculous. And of course, all of that is wealth-destructive of New Zealand. All of that is sapping away the lifeblood of the actual productive economy, and the Labour Government just does not understand that.

The fourth point as to why National opposes this bill strongly and will repeal it is there are alternatives to legislation. And this was well canvassed in the excellent minority report from National members from the Governance and Administration Committee. Now the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee, a very august body, turned up and they said, “Look, there is no need to legislate. You are putting this bill through the House for no reason. There no need to legislate.” They submitted the policy objective was best achieved through non-legislative means, noting legislation guideline 2.3 “Legislation should only be made when … necessary and is the most appropriate means of achieving the policy objective.” Just issue a bloody report. Just send out a file note. Send out an email from Peter Hughes to the Government agencies saying, “Look, we expect you to write concisely and clearly and plainly, and it’s really important that people can read documents.” That’s literally all that’s required. And then maybe, you know, send someone around every couple of years just to have a look or maybe we can ask about it in select committee or things like that. We don’t need the plain-language police in every single Government agency. It’s just absurd. So it breaches the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee guidelines and it also flies in the face of what the Office of the Clerk said, which is the same thing as well.

The Office of the Clerk said the requirements in the bill are uncertain and without consequence—and that’s the fifth point: there’s no enforcement here. The giveaway is clause 10A of the bill, which has been inserted in it. Basically, it says, “This Act does not confer a legal right or impose a legal obligation on any person that is enforceable in a court of law.” This bill is literally pointless. It imposes no legal rights, it imposes no legal obligations, and none of it is enforceable. So Parliament is passing something that is basically nugatory. It’s a complete waste of time. None of it is enforceable. None of it imposes any legal rights, no legal duties that are obliged to be performed by anybody or enforceable by anybody.

So Parliament is going to spend hours and hours of its time through the committee process, the first reading, the second reading—unless the Government comes to its senses and drops this bill—passing a bill that is unenforceable, that would more easily be achieved through other means, will add hundreds of bureaucrats to the system, and is in such a shocking state that it doesn’t have a regulatory impact statement, it doesn’t have a cost-benefit analysis, and it’s not actually clear what requirements it imposes. But the more important point is the signal it sends about priorities: enforcing plain-language police on Public Service departments as opposed to real issues facing New Zealand. We will repeal this stupid bill.

I’m not sure about other people in this House, but I thought that the previous speaker, Chris Bishop, was a reasonably intelligent guy—up until the last 10 minutes, where he spoke a whole lot of rubbish about this piece of legislation. He wasn’t on the Governance and Administration Committee. We’ve heard from two National Party MPs in this debate, neither of which were on the select committee—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): Order! Order! Order! It is not appropriate to refer to a member’s presence or otherwise on a select committee unless you’re referring directly to what they’ve talked about.

I apologise, Mr Speaker. The previous speech—

💬 Simeon Brown: Point of order. Just in relation to that, I didn’t feel the need to go to the select committee because it was a waste of time.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): That is not a point of order, and it’s not appropriate to interrupt the speaker with a frivolous interjection like that.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. So, look, if there was ever an example of the National Party being out of touch with New Zealanders, that speech there was the prime example.

What we’re talking about here is making the Public Service more accessible to New Zealanders. I don’t understand—why is that such a bad thing? Why does that grate so heavily on the National Party? Listening to that previous speech, it sounds like the National Party, they actually want to get rid of the whole Public Service. You know, they’re talking about—well basically, they’re not valuing the Public Service. They’re not valuing the Public Service. And I hope that speakers who come will actually reaffirm our faith in the Public Service, because I haven’t heard anything to reaffirm that.

Now, in terms of the select committee process, as a member of the select committee, I’d like to acknowledge the work the select committee did on this bill. The work was extensive; other speakers have talked about that, and I will go into some of those details. I would like to acknowledge the chair of the committee, Ian McKelvie—a very fair and experienced chair who does an excellent job on that committee—and also all the members.

The Labour member who brought this bill to the House, Rachel Boyack—this is an issue she is very passionate about. We heard that in her speech, and I saw that in the select committee. What I saw was her engaging with officials at an extensive level to ensure that we have the best piece of legislation. This was a select committee process which provides faith to the process of select committees, in terms of amending legislation.

I just want to start by talking about the importance of accessibility in New Zealand as it relates to this bill. Then I’ll go into some of the aspects in the bill and also some of the submissions that we heard.

It is vital that every New Zealander has access to our democratic systems. We see examples of people not being able to access systems all the time. We see it in areas like transport, we see it at times in education, but we also see it in terms of the language that some Government agencies use in order for people to engage with those agencies and, at times, some of the processes that they use.

I’m sure that many of us MPs in the House would agree with me that we have constituents come into our offices who are unable to access the support that they need—you know, the democratic support that the deserve as New Zealanders—from Government agencies. At times, constituents—they tend to get stuck, and they then end up coming to us, and one of the key roles that we play would be to support constituents with that Government agency. Now, a lot of that work can be averted if those Government agencies engage in plain language with the constituents.

So look, it’s an important piece of legislation. The Opposition talk about the cost-benefit analysis; well, I want to say to the Opposition: what’s the cost-benefit analysis of not doing this? You know, what is the cost of not having plain language—of not having plain language? What we’re going to have is we’re going to have constituents in all of our electorates attempting to engage with Government agencies not being able to engage, and the time cost and all of that. So I’m not sure the Opposition have thought that through. And I hear a few comments coming, and I look forward to the speech of the member who was on the select committee coming soon. He might shed some light on that. But the reality is that there is a huge cost to our Public Service of people not being able to engage in an accessible manner. That’s one of the key things that this bill seeks to do.

This bill promotes the use of plain language in official documents and websites. Comprehensive information from Government organisations is a basic democratic right. If people are not able to access our democratic institutions, then our democracy starts to fall down. It is absolutely important that we maintain our strong sense of democracy.

If we look at the geopolitics around the world, there does tend to be a little bit of an attack on liberal democracies. It’s important that we maintain our strong liberal democracy—absolutely passionate about that. This bill, some would say, is only a small little bill; it’s not important; you know, wasting the House’s time. Well I would argue that New Zealanders being able to access Government agencies enforces our democracy, enforces peoples’ trust in the institutions, and enforces the services that we have and strengthens the democracy that we have in New Zealand, which is absolutely vital. As I mentioned before, there are some turbulent times around the world, at the moment.

I just want to touch on a couple of the submissions. I want to start with Blind Low Vision New Zealand. So Blind Low Vision New Zealand, they submitted to our committee, and I just want to highlight a couple of points that they made because I think that would be for the benefit of the House. They said that “We believe that plain language writing is an essential part of prioritising accessibility across the public service.” They were obviously in support of this bill, quite clearly. They highlight that, “Plain language makes communications more accessible rather than fully accessible.” They say, “It’s not easy for Government agencies and Crown departments to write all new publications, forms, and publicly distributed documents in a ‘clear, concise, well-organised manner’ ”, but they need that support to do that. And so, as well as bringing this into legislation, the Government are providing support for those agencies to do that.

Another submission, from the National Disabled Students’ Association, and just a point that they highlight there, where they say—where they highlight—that “The Plain Language bill will support equity for accessing essential information.” And I have talked about accessibility in this bill, and there’s another key topic, and that’s equity—that is, equity for all New Zealanders.

Any person in New Zealand is only just a split second away from potentially moving into a position where they need extra support. You know, someone could have a major health issue, someone could, unfortunately, be in a car accident—any one of us in this House is just a split second away from struggling either physically or mentally or emotionally to be able to access Government services. I think it’s important that we all put ourselves in the shoes of New Zealanders who do struggle to access these services for whatever reason.

A second point they raise is that this bill “will ease the burden of disabled person’s advocacy.” And finally, they say it will “create more transparent and accountable agencies, strengthening Government relations with the disabled community.” Now, the Public Service have done a lot of work, in terms of, you know, already strengthening their relations with the disabled community. This is another step on their journey. It’s an important piece of legislation.

Another submission here—the Public Health Association of New Zealand. So we heard from them in the committee. They said that “If implemented effectively [this bill] will allow better access to information and services for all New Zealanders.”, which is obviously what I’ve been highlighting in my speech. “Māori and Pacific adults are less privileged within the system of English language than non-Māori, non-Pacific adults, and for many New Zealanders, English is not their only language.”

Now, we heard from a previous speaker Naisi Chen; she highlighted this point really well, and I’d also like to touch on it: the fact that for a lot New Zealanders, English is not their first language. It’s absolutely vital that they have the ability to access Government agencies, to access information, in their language. We are a diverse, multicultural society, and that’s one of our strengths. It’s important that we continue to work in this area to enable people for whom English is not their first language to be able to access Government agencies.

I will just touch on a final submission, the Parents of Vision Impaired NZ. They highlight the fact that “The bill would improve the effectiveness and accountability of the public service by requiring communications to be clear and accessible to the public.” In terms of the work that they do, they link in with a number of submissions—we had many submitters who highlighted the importance of accessible information.

I am confused that the Opposition are not supporting this; I’m disappointed that they’re not supporting this. But this is the party that stand up for all New Zealanders, in terms of public service.

The member’s time has expired.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise and take a short call, at this stage of the debate, on the Plain Language Bill in the member Rachel Boyack’s name. Again, I want to acknowledge her for the introduction and progress of this bill.

It’s been a rather feisty debate so far. I do have to admit to some confusion with the position of the National Party on this, after having listened to the contributions across the House on the petition from the Citizens Advice Bureau around digital exclusion, which was not about the digital divide but was about, essentially, how do we create a Public Service that actually works for people with all of their different needs in our communities, and plain language is not going to fix all of that. But it’s absolutely—as we heard from the submissions mentioned from the previous speaker, Jamie Strange, particularly from groups representing disabled people—a component of getting our Public Service to be accessible to all New Zealanders, whether it’s language differences or accessibility needs. There is particular provision that has been added to this through the Governance and Administration Committee explicitly around accessibility, so it feels deeply inconsistent to be very much in support of that petition and that goal and yet come out and oppose this measure that is a specific solution to an aspect of that problem.

I also—

💬 Simon O’Connor: So what’s plain language?

—do just want to mention—

💬 Simon O’Connor: I don’t understand a word that member just said.

I’m just having trouble focusing with that heckling, which is, I guess, the point of the heckling. So well done you, Mr O’Connor. I also just want to say, just the point that’s made by National about this increasing bureaucrats and the fact of this kind of being a policing thing—

💬 Hon Member: It is.

—actually, my point would be that I have a memory in the previous National Government—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! Order! With apologies to the member. Could the members on my left—can I just remind them that interjections are to be rare and reasonable. I think a barrage is a bit unhelpful.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It was the point around policing, and I think the phrase was used by Simeon Brown of police enforcing language of the day, suggesting that this might be a mechanism for political indoctrination of our Public Service. I would argue the exact opposite of that. There are examples in my political memory, which is not the best, of National Ministers having banned words from the vocabulary of the public servants reporting to them and their work. There were particular words; I think I remember “sustainability” being a banned word to a National Minister. And I don’t think that’s good. I’m going to be upfront about that; I do not think that’s good.

What I see is this bill creating transparency around guidelines around plain language. There will be reporting to the Minister and reporting to Parliament around progress that makes this far more transparent and inclusive, and protects, I would argue, a measure against some of the previous practices that have been less than ideal. But there is much more to discuss on this bill and there have been some good changes made.

One last point I wanted to make at this stage was just some of the softening of this in select committee that I’m not quite sure about. The fact that this is not enforceable—and I recognise it would have been problematic to make this enforceable when we have accessibility legislation in front of this House that has no enforceability mechanism, so that would have been a jarring difference. But if we talk about the rights of citizens to understand and access services, as the member who introduced the bill spoke of, then rights should, in my view, be enforceable. It is not a right if you only ever get to provide feedback on the performance and delivery of that right if it’s not working for you. And the problem of the feedback model as opposed to even being able to make complaints is that it’s even a step further away from that enforceability and recognition of it as a right and a core part of our Public Service. Again, it all sits, in the complaints model, on the person who’s being locked out of access to be able to provide and make the difference. But the good thing in this bill is having these officers puts it back on the Public Service in recognising their duty to our citizens to be able to up their game.

So with those points, and more discussion to come—again, to say congratulations to the member; while this is not a Government piece of legislation, this is a good initiative that the Greens believe will help improve access to our public services.

I rise from my normally sedentary non-pedestrian position to perhaps provide an eloquent, suggestive form of conversational conduct—

💬 Dr Duncan Webb: Discourse.

Discourse—thank you, Dr Webb—to provide a contribution for those herein.

I rise in support of this bill, the Plain Language Bill. The reality is that the way in which some members of our community receive information from Government agencies, from public services, is not fit for purpose.

So what is this bill seeking to do? Very simply, it is seeking to ensure that our community is able to receive information in a way that they can easily understand; that is communicated in a way that is easily understood. I do want to just start by acknowledging my colleague, the member for Nelson, Rachel Boyack, whose bill—this is in her name. I know that Ms Boyack has already made a couple of contributions in the House this morning.

Palmy is her second home, she indicated—you’d be familiar with that, Madam Speaker—herself. But for the benefit of those at home that perhaps missed Mr Chris Bishop’s contribution, he described Ms Boyack as a conscientious and diligent member of Parliament—and that she certainly is.

We all know that members’ day is an opportunity for members who have had their bills drawn from the biscuit tin to progress them. So while we hear from members opposite that this is the focus of the Government—wasting time, etc.—far from it. As Jan Logie has indicated, this is a member’s bill; it is in the member’s name. It happens to be that most, if not all, members on this side of the House think that it’s a very good bill to progress through the Parliament. And members on this side of the House are not alone: because of the submissions that were received by the Governance and Administration Committee, they also suggested that it was a worthwhile bill for consideration and to progress through the Parliament.

Can I acknowledge members on the Governance and Administration Committee. That’s the committee to which this bill went, and the committee has returned its report to the House. I started off as a member of that committee, so I know that it is very collegial, but it’s also hard-working. So I acknowledge the work that they’ve done with this particular bill.

This bill, as others have suggested—you know, plain language itself won’t necessarily fix everything, but it certainly will make a difference. When I reflect on members in my community in Palmerston North, that will make a huge difference. Because when I reflect on my experience as a teacher at a secondary school over many years, in terms of the level of engagement with some members of our Pasifika community, the language that’s used, the definitions, the acronyms—all of those sorts of things in the Ministry of Education and school environments do not encourage or support some members of our community to engage, let alone engage with the process.

So anything that’s going to change that and make a difference, I think, is something that should be celebrated. Yes, there can be tweaks along the way and the select committee, in its wisdom, have acknowledged a number of suggested changes that they think that the Parliament should progress—sensible ones when one looks at them.

When we look and delve into the focus of this bill, it is about promotion. It’s about promotion of good practices; the use of plain language in official documents. So we’re not talking about every single document that exists out there; we are talking about particular and specific documents that have a public purpose.

We’re also talking about websites. We all know that most are able to engage with an opportunity to get information through websites—that’s certainly an expectation these days. So not just in written form, but what might be seen online is really, really important, because information from Government organisations and departments, and access to that information, is a basic democratic right. So that’s what this particular bill seeks to achieve: to ensure that the access and the method of communication is a way in which it is easily able to be understood.

All of us, as members of this House, engage with constituents who have more than one or two issues when it comes to communicating with Government agencies. When I reflect upon the submission from the CAB, the Citizens Advice Bureau, a longstanding organisation who fronted up to the select committee and identified that this bill will actually make a difference, I like to listen to those individuals, the hard-working volunteers who spend countless hours and days—certainly in my community and many others as well—engaging with people who are wanting help, who are wanting assistance, who are wanting support. If that is just one organisation that is saying to the Parliament, “This is a good thing to do,” then it is, I think, important that the Parliament is able to listen to that and to reflect on it.

What is of interest is, you know, when we look at other agencies—and local government is a good example; the bill that’s just passed through the House earlier today was one focused on local government. If we reflect on our own spheres in terms of local communities, we all know and expect that local governments are agencies or organisations that are able to engage with the community, and they’re doing things in a different way. They’re rethinking how they can engage with their communities to ensure that the information that gets out to their ratepayers, their residents, their communities of interest is information that they understand and information that they value.

If we all think about how our rates demands have changed over the years to be less of a focus on just what the bottom line is and actually more of an understanding of what the services and the provision of services that local government does provide, it’s yet another example of the changing dynamic within which this bill sits and falls.

One of the things that I did observe is that the select committee obviously turned its mind to a number of workable changes: for example, the definition of a document, but also making clear that Māori language and other languages would not, effectively, be part and parcel of what was required to fall within the plain-language definition.

I think that’s really important, because when I reflect on some communities—like Palmerston North, where we are a welcoming community in terms of new migrants; we have more than 165 different ethnic groups that are represented in Palmerston North alone and more than 220 different dialects that are spoken in the city—it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach and certainly when you take their one size and you make sure that it’s in a language that is second or third or fourth generation for some and not for others, it makes the communication opportunity much, much more difficult.

So we hear that through the select committee process, where submitters were talking about, or referring to, the fact that this would make a huge difference, particularly in the space of those organisations and individuals for whom English is an additional language that they have to learn. So this is a bill that would certainly support them in terms of engaging with things that they are entitled, as citizens and residents of this country, to engage with—and even as visitors, actually, to this country to engage with as well.

The interesting thing is that this has actually been done; this approach has been taken elsewhere around the world. What some of the feedback indicates is that, actually, when approaches like this are put in place, there is actually an efficiency gain here; that if there is an investment at the start of the process to ensure that people are able to understand and that things can be communicated in an easily accessible way, then you save the cost, you save the pain, you save the experience of having to, for example, engage with local decision makers, with members of Parliament, to engage with organisations, whether it be Immigration New Zealand, whether it be Kāinga Ora, whether it be the Ministry of Social Development or others, and there is a cost saving and an efficiency gain in doing this.

So when I hear from members opposite that they think this is a complete waste of the Parliament’s time, it flies in the face of what the community’s expecting from public agencies—from Government agencies—to ensure that what is put out into that public domain is accessible, but also that it’s supported by a particular process in place to make sure that things are reviewed.

So one other change that I note is that not everything will suddenly have to be changed to make it easy—unfortunately, because I would think that, actually, the sooner the better; the sooner that people are able to get information in a way that they can easily understand, the better. But this has a kick-in provision of six months after Royal assent to allow for agencies to put arrangements in place and get things under way.

Again, I think this is a sensible bill. It is one that will make a huge difference to many members of our community, particularly those that currently do not engage and do not have the support within that public sector. I’m delighted to again congratulate my colleague Rachel Boyack and to commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise on behalf of ACT to talk about this bill.

At the start of this reading today, Rachel Boyack thanked the Governance and Administration Committee for assisting and making it a better bill, and the previous speaker, Tangi Utikere, thanked the committee for suggesting a number of workable changes. All I’ve got to say to that is “You’ve got to be kidding me! There’s nothing left.” If you go through the bill, it’s all gone. It’s a totally new bill. We’re not actually debating what we did in the first reading; there’s nothing left. It should have been sent back to the drafters and dumped at select committee, but here we are debating it at the second reading. It’s absolutely astonishing. The Government has already done a U-turn this week, a fairly significant one. I think it would be quite productive of the Labour Party to do it again with their support of this bill—turn it around and get rid of this thing.

It’s been fascinating listening to the Labour Party speakers on this, this sudden obsession with Immigration New Zealand (INZ) and all this support for migrants, which is somewhat surprising. You know, the sheer amount of straw man arguments that I’ve heard today has been pretty disappointing, but I will get to that. A few speakers have spoken about how it’s important that people with English as a second language are able to access information, and the context of Immigration New Zealand was brought in there too. And it’s important that they can get the stuff that they need, which is probably why Immigration New Zealand releases so much information in foreign languages, in other languages—right?—to actually support this. So these sorts of things already happen.

But if we get into this a bit more, so the bill comes with a requirement to appoint these plain-language officers. It’s just an absolute absurdity. And I think, though, that being said, with the workforce shortages, normally it’s quite difficult to find people to do these bureaucratic roles at the moment. But most certainly, after the next election, there’ll be a horde of ex - Labour backbenchers who might be able to qualify to do these roles. But in any case, it doesn’t matter, because the ACT Party has a policy to reduce the public sector back to 2017 levels, and there is fierce competition to decide who’s going to go first, what roles are going to go first. But I think it might just be these ones.

So going further into the bill, the commencement—it’s actually quite good to see the six months being added in there after Royal assent, when this all kicks in. My suggestion is: look, to save taxpayer money, make it 12 months so that by the time that we’re in Government, we can just get rid of this and they won’t have wasted all these resources and money getting it under way.

As I alluded to earlier, the supportive comments from—well, the support from Labour for migrants is a bit surprising. I’m trying to kind of hold my tongue here a little bit as to what I think of that. So Rachel Boyack spoke about INZ. Look, the reality is, practically speaking, having had a bit to do with the immigration system—yep, you’re right; the ops manual exists. That has all the complicated instructions for visas and how to process and also all this other stuff, requirements; that is not public comms. If you go to the Immigration website, they’ve actually got a pretty good and easy to use website where they condense a lot of that information down. The job’s already done. Yes, advisers and lawyers usually work through the ops manual, which is the same thing that immigration officials work through as well. So, you know, that’s just addressing this piece of the advice that a document prepared by officials from Immigration New Zealand, intended for immigration advisers, might differ in its wording. Well, obviously; that’s just reality.

But the next thing that I wanted to touch on here was around this English stuff in the context of immigration, because I wonder if those that have spoken about this from the Labour Party have actually ever dealt with the immigration system and dealt with visa categories and their requirements. Obviously, there are English language requirements in a lot of these visas, right? So if they care so much, if this is such a problem that migrants are having such difficulty understanding instructions and perhaps their advisers are having difficulty, whatever, then I’m assuming they’re going to drop the English language requirements from visas, right? If they really care about this, then drop the requirements. But actually, what have they done? They’ve just brought in more and more and more, including in the investor categories as well, or their new investment visa. So I don’t know. I mean, I think just walk the talk with this stuff and, yeah, I’m very careful about my opinion on this because it’s actually extraordinarily frustrating.

I think it was Rachel Boyack who also spoke about vulnerable migrants—yes, that’s a very important issue—and specific visas for that. Typically what happens is the community law centre will assist—that’s all across the country—and lawyers are expected to do pro bono work, and that’s often where they work as well. So there are systems in place, people in place, and organisations in place to assist with this stuff.

Moving on from immigration for a bit, it talks about tax returns. Look, I’d say that the Inland Revenue, despite my apprehension about them, have made huge improvements for filing tax returns, IR3s, in particular, and IR4s. They are much simpler than they used to be. So, again, it’s the whole—you know, what is this? It’s a solution looking for a problem, in so many ways.

The use of te reo Māori in documents—yep, sure. It’s important that they said that they don’t want to discourage that being used in documents and communications and that this Act will not cover that or it won’t actually stop them from using te reo Māori. So, yep, that’s fine. I mean, in practice it means you can just change as much as you like and make a document completely incomprehensible to the majority of the population, and it’s still considered plain language. So, yeah, anyway!

The Official Information Act stuff was actually quite a quite a funny note, and I thought it actually would have been quite funny if they included that, because I’m kind of surprised the Government didn’t, because not only would it mean they could release documents completely redacted; they could also rewrite them in the process—

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: And then redact them.

And then redact them again. So I’m kind of surprised they didn’t push on with that one.

But look, I think, as I said, the straw man arguments around this—frankly, completely fake support of migrants. For a Government that has spent three years, just in terms of Government policy, absolutely coming down on migrants, punishing them, and splitting families up, to sit there speaker after speaker in the Labour Party and say, “Oh, this is why we’re doing this, to support them.” is just absolutely absurd. It’s fake and we’re opposing this stupid bill. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is a genuine pleasure and privilege to rise in support of this Plain Language Bill. I have many reasons for my firm support of it, which I will outline as clearly and concisely as possible. I’d like to commend Rachel Boyack for bringing this bill to the House. I understand that it has been in the tin for quite some time, which might explain the amount of work that the admirable Governance and Administration Committee put into it, and I will outline a few of the changes that they did undertake as I move through this speech.

But it’s important, I think, when we’re looking at bills that come before the House, to look at why we’re doing them. It’s obviously really important to have a clear understanding of why we do what we do and why we’re here. I’m going to share a few quotes that I think really explain fully why this is important, the first being from the former chairman of the National Consumer Council in the UK, where the plain English campaign has been going for quite some time, extremely successfully. Michael Shanks said, “Gobbledygook may indicate a failure to think clearly, a contempt for one’s clients, or, more probably, a mixture of both.” He goes on to say that a system that can’t or won’t communicate is not a safe basis for democracy.

I first became really interested in plain language or plain English as I have a very old friend in the UK from many, many years ago who’s an extremely successful lawyer and absolutely passionate about ensuring that all of his clients—and everybody in the United Kingdom, by extension, from the work that he’s doing to introduce plain language into legal documents—actually understands what it is that they’re agreeing to when they sign a contract. He is passionate about ensuring that legal documents are fully accessible to his clients. He’s deeply committed to removing gobbledegook, jargon, and misleading public information, and that’s what we’re trying to do here. It isn’t about dumbing down; it’s about ensuring that everybody understands what we’re saying. Some of the implications that we’ve heard, as this morning has drawn on, are equating clarity with dumbing down, and that’s pandering and clearly offensive. The bottom line is if you’re unable to explain your ideas clearly and concisely, you probably don’t understand them yourself.

I’ll give you a couple of examples. In my profession as a midwife, we would use acronyms and jargon all the time, and it was something that I absolutely discouraged in my students, because although it does make for shorter notes, it doesn’t make for more easily understandable notes, and it can also lead to confusion. So an example would be “IUD”, which some people might be familiar with as a form of reversible long-term contraception. But, actually, IUD is also an acronym for intrauterine death, which is quite different from intrauterine contraceptive device, so you’d have to be pretty careful about where you use that. “LOA”, commonly used by midwives—“Baby LOA”; left occiput anterior. What it means is, and what I would write is, that your baby is positioned with its head down, with their back to your left-hand side. Their head is fully flexed and they’re in a great position to be born. Now, if you were pregnant—forgive me for making this personal. If anybody here in this room were pregnant, surely they would like to know what LOA meant, and they would really love that reassurance and clear understanding of what was going on with their pregnancy.

I myself got asked the other day by a school principal to explain why I was wearing a mask, because they’d had a little bit of confusion in their school. Now, I would commonly say that I wear masks to prevent the transmission of what is an airborne respiratory infection—that is, a virus. But you can’t say that to primary school pupils—well, you can, but they’re not going to understand a word of what you’re saying. So I just told them that I wore my mask to show them that I cared about them, because I didn’t want any bugs that I might have to be shared with them. And they seemed to understand me quite clearly.

But support for plain language has come from unexpected places, and I imagine the National Party will be quite surprised to hear that Baroness Thatcher was one of the key proponents of the sharing and undertaking of plain language in the United Kingdom. I imagine that many of you across the House are actually fairly good fans of the work of Baroness Thatcher, and I find myself in the unusual position of agreeing with her, which is not something you’re going to see very often—so do make the most of it. She said, “It is no exaggeration to describe plain English as a fundamental tool of good Government.”—a fundamental tool. “Some people”, she said, “think that flowery language and complicated writing is a sign of intellectual strength. They are wrong … Plain English must be the aim of all who work in Government.” Take those words on board, my friends on the Opposition benches. Maybe you’d like—

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: We agree.

—to listen to—you agree? I’m glad you agree. Awesome. David Cameron, another person whose work I imagine you approve of—again, I find myself agreeing with him when he says that bureaucracies that overcomplicate things to boost their own self-importance build barriers between Government and the people.

Submitters to the select committee are probably more important than historic United Kingdom parliamentarians. Their views are the ones that we should be listening to. I’m just going to highlight what the Citizens Advice Bureau had to say: “We regularly assist people to make sense of information that they receive from Government agencies.” My colleague Tangi Utikere, I believe, spoke about the investment in the front-end of communication with our constituents, and for lawyers, with clients. We are not talking about introducing a whole new level of bureaucracy. We’re actually talking about giving people who already undertake that work a role to play in ensuring that we’re communicating more clearly. Citizens Advice have said that they see examples of clients struggling with a range of communications constantly, and really welcome this legislation.

The National Disabled Students’ Association said, specifically, that the Plain Language Bill will support equity for accessing essential information, ease the burden of disabled persons’ advocacy, create more transparent and accountable agencies, and strengthen Government relationships with the disabled community.

I find it absolutely inexplicable. It’s really hard for me to understand why anybody in this House would stand in the way of clear communication between Government and the people that we serve. This concern was shared by a constituent this morning who was interested in what I was doing and really didn’t understand why the National Party was in opposition, and not only in opposition but in strong opposition, to the point where we have had to sit on this side of the House and actually listen to some nasty comments coming from our colleagues on Opposition benches, some of which, it has to be said, would definitely fall into the category of people in glass houses, Mr Bishop. But the submitters who matter here, people with disabilities, people who are advocating for our constituents—Citizens Advice, who are trying to make things more accessible; People First New Zealand, who are a disabled persons’ organisation—they are in clear support of this bill.

There is, obviously, a time where flowery language is of use. Flowery language—I love language. It’s a critically important part of my world, and I’ve been an avid reader and writer for my entire life, and I brought to mind the times when it is important to use more words, longer words, make things less accessible. I enjoy Chaucer; I enjoy Shakespeare, but I would not expect anybody to take a document that was as complex as the language of Chaucer or Shakespeare and actually understand what it said when they’re applying it to their legal rights, where it’s really important that we have absolute clarity.

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beautiful. Basically, “I was feeling sad. I went for a walk. I saw a lot of beautiful daffodils, and they cheered me right up.” Good old Wordsworth. But that is the place for flowery, inaccessible language—in poetry and literature, and not in Government legislation. Thank you.

I call Chris Penk—five-minute call.

Thank you. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. This bill is not good. In fact, this bill is bad. We do not see why the bill should be in this House. In fact, we think it should go. Why have a rule made up to fix a thing that ain’t broke? You can say things in more words, and time, now. Or you can say things in less time. Why have rules made to say what type of things can be said, and at what length? My speech will be short, and each word in my speech has been short. Those are all the words I have to say on this bill. It is bad, and it should go.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. That was very The Cat in the Hat, wasn’t it? But, actually, for all of his facetiousness, Mr Penk makes a good point that clear language is a good thing. But to say that nothing’s broke is wholly inaccurate and suggests that Mr Penk should delve into a few more Government documents. We heard about the immigration instructions, and only yesterday I was looking at the animal welfare codes, in respect of dogs, to respond to a couple of school students. Those documents are turgid.

💬 Hon Michael Woodhouse: What does turgid mean?

To suggest that it’s—well, turgid, Mr Woodhouse, is whatever comes out of your mouth when you stand up. To be perfectly honest, to have a responsibility on Government to turn their minds to who the audience is—the animal welfare code for dogs is a great example because, frankly, that’s something we want every dog owner to be able to look at, understand, and comply with so that they can look after dogs appropriately and in accordance with the law. But that’s actually not that easy to do with a 40-page document that uses technical language.

Let’s face it that our advisers and our people who work in ministries do a great job, but they do need to get out more sometimes. They can sometimes get trapped into a circle of thinking and communicating with each other in ways which they understand but are jargonistic and complex and sometimes convoluted. To have a pair of eyes saying, “Don’t say give, devise, and bequeath; just say give because that’s redundant”—just those obvious things. Use active not passive sentences. Let’s break up sentences. Let’s use bullet points. These are all good ideas.

Let’s be honest: there are some Government documents that are very good, very accessible. In fact, could I just say this is actually about a working, functioning democracy because one of the things we need is for law to be accessible. In New Zealand, as in any developed democracy, it isn’t just legislation that’s law; it’s regulation, ordinances, and, of course, policy guidance and documents, which sometimes are where the rubber really hits the road. Those documents can be extremely complicated. Whilst it’s appropriate to have comprehensive rules when the thing that’s being regulated is complicated, we need to push back against the idea that language has to be inaccessible because the subject matter is inaccessible.

So this is a very good bill. I was talking, only moments ago, to Jan Tinetti, who was doing a lot of research on this, noticing that we’re well behind the plate—we’re well behind the plate. The United States has had this in place for decades and has strengthened it over time. Why? Because they take seriously the right of any citizen to know and understand what their obligations are. They should be able to do that—not by going into a Government department and having it explained by an official or bureaucrat, not by going to a lawyer, not by going to a community advice centre, but by picking up a document and using normal reading skills, because citizens, in most cases, are the people who are intended to be the recipients, the audience for any given document. And it’s a basic rule of drafting; it’s not that much to ask. When you write something, think about who you’re writing it to or for, and write it so that they will understand it. It’s not a high threshold. To suggest that in some way it’s wrong-headed to have someone running the rule over a communication and saying, “Oh, look, our intended audience couldn’t possibly understand it”—to suggest that’s wrong-headed is just utterly ill-conceived.

This is a very good piece of legislation that will make our democracy better, will make our citizens better informed, and make our Public Service more effective. That is an excellent piece of legislation. I look forward to the day it is passed.

Well, that speech from Dr Duncan Webb was so incoherent, it’s no surprise to me that Labour actually want to pass the Plain Language Bill, probably to either improve his speech or shut him up.

But I’ve got to say—oh, where to begin? Look, I’ll start with the only positive thing, I think, that came out of Labour’s contributions in the second reading debate, and it came from the soon to be former member for Hamilton East Jamie Strange, when he said he has faith in the Public Service. Well, so do I. I have faith that they’re able to follow guidance without the hand of the State, the spectre of law, hanging over the top of them.

But, worse than that, in the face of 7 percent inflation, a fourfold increase in kids living in cars, 500 percent increase in ram raids, 40 percent of our children not attending school regularly, massive waits in healthcare, and huge staffing shortages across the country, this Government thinks we should set aside select committees and come to the House on a Thursday morning to progress a plain-language bill. That speaks to the priorities of an arrogant and out-of-touch Government.

I must say that Naisi Chen criticising Simeon Brown was a bit rich. She criticised him as a spokesperson for this not attending a select committee once. Well, I was jealous of Simeon Brown. I think that’s a credit to him that he didn’t waste a single minute, because I didn’t have the same luxury. I had to sit through hours and hours and hours of completely wasted time, as a member of the Governance and Administration Committee, sitting, listening to submitters—nearly none of whom are going to be happy.

The people that support the bill, the people that Sarah Pallett talks about, the disabilities community, People First, and the Citizens Advice Bureau—they wanted the Government to go further. So they’re not going to be happy. The people who wanted te reo and Braille and sign language included in the bill—none of them will be happy. And certainly the very smart people who oppose this bill will be aghast that their measured but very plain-language submissions that said don’t waste Parliament’s time, don’t waste the select committee’s time, were completely ignored.

They weren’t just any old submitters; it was the Office of the Clerk, the people who actually run this place and understand why and when and what good law looks like, and they were pretty unambiguous. They said—and I’ll find it—“The requirement in the bill to ensure that documents are in plain language is not a clear legal requirement. That is because plain language is not an easily ascertainable standard.” How ironic is that, that the very definition of “plain language” is not plain? So we’re passing a bill to improve language, and nobody knows what that means. Ironic in the extreme.

The Legislation Design and Advisory Committee recommended that the bill not proceed. They said—and I agree with this—“We consider [the] policy objective is best achieved more effectively”—more effectively—“through non-legislative means.” And further to that, “ ‘Legislation should only be made when it is necessary and is the most appropriate means of achieving the policy objective.’ ”

I could go on. There were a number of them all saying “Good idea”—in fact, Sarah Pallett and I agree on that too; that’s another positive. Plain language is good; passing laws for everything is not. And that’s what the legal experts said. I’m surprised at Dr Duncan Webb, given that he is a lecturer in legal jurisprudence.

So it’s a waste of this House’s time. It was a waste of the select committee’s time. It was a waste of the submitters’ time. It was a waste of the officials’ time. Frankly, this bill is going to be consigned to the group of bills that were passed, frankly, just to make up time on a members’ day: lost luggage, military manoeuvres repeal, laser pointers, and now we have plain language. So let’s just say it in as plain a language as we can: this is unnecessary, it’s inappropriate, it lacks any sort of a priority in the list of even members’ bills, and we should be getting on to better things. But no we won’t; we’ll be here next members’ day, going through a committee of the whole House, trying to improve a bad bill, and we’ll continue to waste this House’s time for no obvious benefit. Let’s put it in the dustbin.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker. CS Lewis said—and I pause as the room is filled with awe and wonder—“Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say ‘infinitely’ when you mean ‘very’. Otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.” I just thought I’d let that sink in as we speak on this very significant piece of legislation. In this House, which doesn’t have infinite power but it has a lot of power, and today I have to remind people that this is a members’ day and this is a member’s bill, and, of course, there is the wonderful biscuit tin that does its magic and has got us to this place. But there is also the work of Rachel Boyack, who has worked on this and has had the luck, the blessing, or whatever it is for us to be able to debate, to take this legislation to the select committee and to bring it back here to the House this morning

I guess that part of what I’ve heard this morning as I’ve listened is the fundamental differences that come from different sides of the House around what’s important. As I’ve listened, I realised that language, as much as we want to ignore it or forget it, is power. With that is education, and being educated is understanding words and language and forming sentences and structures, and for many of us in this place we’ve had the privilege and the opportunity to attend schools, private schools, for example, that offer a certain type of education that’s different from others. Many of us have had the privilege of making it to our universities. But many of us haven’t, and this isn’t about intelligence. This isn’t about who’s better than anyone else. It’s actually just about how language works within our society.

Language has always evolved. It’s always changed; it’s always moved. If you just look at our dictionaries, every year new words are added and changed. As we spread across different generations and different ages, language has been adopted. It has been embedded into laws, into our market places, into our learning institutions, into our religions, into our story telling, into our politics, and, of course, even into our Public Service. Each time, each generation, and each decade it changes and it evolves, to affect those who are here right now to understand it and to move forward. So plain language is something that we need to look at for all people in our society, and as I said earlier, this isn’t about dumbing down; this is about making it accessible to everyone.

Last week, I was blown away and humbled to see a new Speaker elected into that Chair, a bilingual Speaker, a speaker of te reo and speaker of English. Several generations ago that just would not have happened. That would not have been a thing that would have been seen in this place. But to see the progression, the moves, and the changes in our society so that we have a bilingual Speaker, of two of our languages here in Aotearoa, makes me very proud. I’m grateful to the Rt Hon Adrian Rurawhe for accepting that position.

It shows that society moves on and it changes and it morphs and it grows. As I say, language is such a powerful thing, and often that’s why our institutions want to protect language from being made more approachable and accessible—because language is power. In fact, I began with CS Lewis. I will continue with some other great thought leaders. Julia Penelope said, “Language is power, in ways more literal than most people think. When we speak, we exercise the power of language to transform reality. Why don’t more of us realize the connection between language and power?” I think part of the conversation this morning and part of the pushback I’ve heard is the fear that, maybe, “I may lose some power, because I have the command of the English language. I understand it. I can speak words that no one else knows.”

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: No, you can’t.

Well, I can’t; I know. I can’t use those words. I am a simple man, a man of my community, but a man who can actually string a sentence together and can act actually understand our society. But, for example, I could have given a 30-second speech. I know some of you wanted that. I could have given a one-minute speech. A few less of you would want that. But I would like to give a 10-minute speech in support of this bill. The thing with a 10-minute speech is—and I know people are setting in with a cup of tea and enjoying it—that it takes a lot of time and effort to create less words. I know it sounds boring and I know you’re rolling your eyes but it’s true. So in my 10 minutes, I haven’t articulated as clearly and concisely as I could have—I’ll admit that right now.

💬 Hon Member: You could have used plainer language.

I could’ve used plainer language, but if I’d been given a one-minute or two-minute speech I would have had to spend a long time curating and crafting the words to bring them together, and it would’ve taken a lot more effort, but I’ve chosen to let you enjoy the humble drones of my voice for almost 10 minutes.

This bill is important for many communities within our nation and our society, and for me, as the MP for New Plymouth, it’s an important piece of legislation for many of my constituents. I referred in the first reading of this to a particular constituent who had actually ignored Work and Income for many years. There was some funding they weren’t supposed to receive they that were receiving. They actually wanted to do the right thing, but the issue they had was actually having to negotiate the system. When they got given a form of 20 pages to fill out to explain everything, they chose to ignore it because they didn’t have the education, the expertise, to be able to fill that form out. So they continued with something they didn’t want to do because the system had become so oriented around language, around forms, that they chose to step away from something they should have done. That’s sorted now, I’m happy to say.

Another thing in terms of constituents who come into my office is that, again, they drop a document that is thick, full of words, on my desk. It’s full of words, words, words—not Shakespeare but words that come out of this House.

💬 Hon Member: They don’t come easy.

And they don’t come easy. Those words often are complicated and difficult to negotiate and get your head around. I know that many of us in this House are able to pick up that document, and we’re able to decipher it and pull it apart within seconds, but for some of us—and I’m happy to admit it—it takes a little bit more effort.

So the accessibility of plain language is important, not only for all people but for many of our constituents across the board. But language is obviously a key part of communication, and for some of you in this room that communication is excellent, top notch, but for others—let’s be honest—it is clunky. It is wordy, and there have been times in this House when I’ve been frantically on my cell phone, on Google, trying to understand what words mean, when, for example, someone could have said “very” rather than “infinitely” although that’s a really bad example, I know.

I support Rachel Boyack and her legislation. I thank all of those who submitted on this, and I thank our society in the 21st century, as it can actually look at what was and not just assume that is what will be, because language and legislation that come through this House should be accessible to all people. I finish with the words I began with: “Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say ‘infinitely’ when you mean ‘very’. Otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.” On that, I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that—[Interruption] Just when the House is ready. The question is that the amendments recommended by the Governance and Administration Committee by majority be agreed to. Those of that opinion will say Aye, to the contrary No. the Ayes have it.

The question is—

💬 Hon Member: The Noes have it.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Yeah, look, I had already started to put the question. The member—I hadn’t heard any indication from any members that they were going to vote No. [Interruption] Don’t wave at me—I don’t need your help. However, it was on the margins—so am I hearing a No? A party vote has been called for. The Clerk will conduct a party vote.