Legislation Bill

When I was interrupted on the last day by the adjournment, I was talking about the need to take care with this Legislation Bill, and the need for the MPs on the Regulations Review Committee who will study it, whom I do not imagine will be swamped with submitters, to pay careful attention to Part 3, which addresses subordinate legislation, disallowable instruments, and incorporation of material by reference. Those are things that do not normally come in the direction of MPs on a day-to-day basis, except those MPs who have had the privilege of working on that committee.

The Regulations Review Committee scrutinises regulations that are made by the executive of the Government—that is, Cabinet—and it is the only forum by which executive regulations are scrutinised. Normally, of course, legislation, which might be a Government measure, would be introduced to the House; we would have a debate on it, it would be sent to a select committee, and then the public would be invited to contribute submissions on it. Those views would be taken into account by members of Parliament, and the legislation would very often be amended accordingly.

But regulations are passed by Cabinet. They are given to the Governor-General for, in this case, his assent; an Order in Council is made, a council of Cabinet Ministers meets with the Governor-General, and the regulations are signed off. Those regulations can appear to be trivial, but can have an enormous impact.

The thing that is important is the level of scrutiny, because something can be done that affects the lives of New Zealanders but is not exposed to the scrutiny of Parliament. The Regulations Review Committee and the ability to disallow regulations, which is to contravene, to—there is only one word for it—disallow, or to stop those regulations from taking effect, is the only mechanism that is available to the House in order to address what some MP might consider to be an unfairness or some kind of wrong against the citizens of this country.

This legislation is a fundamental part of our democratic structure and make-up. In that respect, it should be attended to with great care and great caution by the members of the select committee considering it. Thank you.

The stated purpose of the Legislation Bill, as I understand it, is to modernise and improve the law relating to legislation. It provides greater powers to make available, reprint, and correct legislation. It will also modernise the legal framework for subordinate legislation and the Parliamentary Counsel Office. It will create a system for revising and updating old legislation to make it easier to change archaic language, and to make it more accessible.

The revision system will come under the direction of the Attorney-General. Specifically, it will allow revision to clarify the purpose of legislation. It will allow new overviews, purpose sanctions, and new titles to be added; Acts to be divided and combined; updates to monetary amounts; and amendments to be made to other legislation affected by revision. The revised legislation has to be in the form of a bill and contain explanation of why it is being revised. The revision needs to be certified by the president of the Law Commission, the Solicitor-General, a retired High Court judge nominated by the Attorney-General, and the Chief Parliamentary Counsel. Changes to how the law is implemented are allowed only where it is expressly provided for in the revision bill.

The Legislation Bill implements the majority of the legislative recommendations made by the Law Commission in its review in this area. A key recommendation that it does not implement is a streamlined parliamentary process to approve technical changes to legislation.

The aim of the bill, which is to modernise and improve legislation, is a laudable one. Ensuring that legislation is accessible to the public is a fundamental aspect of democracy. The majority of these changes are technical and should be supported. The problematic part of the bill is perhaps the revision programme that will allow significant changes to the law and how it is to be applied without parliamentary oversight. This programme will be under the direction of the Attorney-General, and although the bills will need to be signed off by a semi-independent panel, that is not the same as having parliamentary democratic oversight.

The Greens support the bill’s referral to the Regulations Review Committee, but we may support it no further unless there is a process set up that will allow parliamentary oversight of the revisions bills. We could think, for example, potentially of the Regulations Review Committee or some other dedicated body to undertake the task. But parliamentary oversight of some kind, we believe, is still needed, and we look forward to a committee discussion on the subject.

John Armstrong, one top political columnist and journalist in this country, if not the foremost, said of the Legislation Bill in the Weekend Herald that it was one for “parliamentary geeks” and “possibly the most boring piece of legislation to come before the House in a long while”. Sadly, that is probably true. Nevertheless, this is, even if dull, a very worthy and significant bill, in the sense that it does go fundamentally to the rule of law—that is, law that rules us rather than others. I say that, because if we go behind that I mean that we are presumed to know what the law is. It is a fundamental precept of criminal law that we should know what the law is—that is, we should be able to find it, get hold of it, read it, and understand it.

That is not always the case, and in fact quite often it has not been the case. Laws are in dusty old tomes in the libraries of the Auckland District Law Society, the Wellington District Law Society, but perhaps not in the Tauranga District Law Society—

💬 Amy Adams: Do you have a district law society?

Well, there are not many books there, so it is not a particularly good library.

This bill modernises and improves the law relating to the publication, availability, reprinting, revision, and official versions of legislation, so whilst the bill may be, as John Armstrong says, one of the most boring pieces of legislation before the House, it nevertheless is a significant one that furthers the rule of law in our country.

Whenever we open a newspaper—the New Zealand Herald, the Dominion Post, or any other daily or weekly newspaper—to seek information from its classified advertisements, the first thing we do is go to its index page or pages. Online media such as TradeMe publish such indexes on their home pages. Surprisingly, there is no such official index to our laws, despite there being over 1,100 Acts. Without looking at those index pages we would be looking for a needle in a haystack.

There are over 1,100 Acts and some of them are 100 years old, written in old-fashioned English, and full of legal jargon. That is the first aspect the Legislation Bill is seeking to address. The second aspect is that many Acts have been amended and patched up over many years. To borrow Sir Geoffrey Palmer’s language, they contain some “dead wood” that “should be removed.”

This bill attempts to modernise and improve the law relating to the publication, availability, reprinting, revision, and official versions of legislation, and to bring the law together in a single piece of legislation. The bill implements aspects of the Government’s response to recommendations made in the reports of the Law Commission entitled Presentation of New Zealand Statute Law and Review of the Statutes Drafting and Compilation Act 1920. I take this opportunity to thank Sir Geoffrey Palmer and the Law Commission for presenting such comprehensive reports, which contain recommendations to make statute law easier to access and to make measurable progress in updating the statute book. The reports were written in conjunction with the Parliamentary Counsel Office, and I congratulate the office on such a great initiative.

There are at least four issues with the statute books. The first one is that there are Acts on the statute books that are totally obsolete. Sir Geoffrey cited two examples: the District Railways Purchasing Act 1885 and the New Zealand Institute of Journalists Act 1895. As a lawyer turned MP I do not think it is shameful for me to admit that I have never heard of those two Acts.

The second issue is, to borrow Sir Geoffrey Palmer’s language again, that New Zealand’s statute law is in a “chaotic state”. There is no obvious order or logic in our statute books. The law on one topic can be scattered over several Acts. There is a rule, for instance, that contracts to sell books for delivery in the future must be put in writing and must contain the total price in red print. That provision is hidden in the Mercantile Law Act 1908, which is the last place anyone would think to look for it.

The third issue is that there have been changes in drafting styles over the years, and therefore it is sometimes very difficult to understand legislation purely from a linguistic perspective. The old and the new style together can make matters even more untidy and inconsistent. The fourth issue is that with redundant and obsolete provisions remaining in force there are inconsistencies between Acts, which may give rise to difficult questions of interpretation.

The Parliamentary Counsel Office identified two options in its regulatory impact statement. Option one is to make legislative changes, so the Parliamentary Counsel Office would be required to have a revision programme and statutory fast-tracking procedure for enacting revision bills. Under this option the Parliamentary Counsel Office would be duty-bound to undertake a triennial programme of statutes law revision, the contents of which would be settled by Cabinet. The Parliamentary Counsel Office would thus have statutory powers to alter the wording, order, and placement of the provisions that are subject to revision.

As the regulatory impact statement explains, when the revision bill is drafted it is submitted to a committee comprising the Chief Parliamentary Counsel, the Solicitor-General, the President of the Law Commission, and a retired judge. The committee’s job would be to certify the bill and question whether the committee was satisfied that it had changed only the presentation of the law, not its effect. I look forward to submissions and deliberation on this particular point. In particular, I will be interested to know more details about how the committee is meant to function and how its members will be appointed. There are risks associated with this option, as correctly identified by the Parliamentary Counsel Office. However, as proposed by the Law Commission, it would be more consistent with current constitutional understandings to achieve the changes to parliamentary procedure by making amendments to the Standing Orders rather than by making legislative changes. This would ensure that the changes have unanimous, or near unanimous, support from all, or most, parliamentary parties.

Under option two a general reference to undertaking revision could be included in the Parliamentary Counsel Office’s statutory functions. The risk of this option is that without any statutory obligation to carry out revision, the role for the Parliamentary Counsel Office to play may be too passive. The preferred option is to have statutory provision for a revision programme, and a duty for the Parliamentary Counsel Office to draft a revision and to submit it to a certifying committee. The parliamentary procedures for the passage of revision bills are to be set out in the Standing Orders, instead.

So Labour supports this bill going to the Regulations Review Committee. At the select committee we will look closely at the regulations disallowance changes proposed in the bill, as explained by the Hon Maryan Street, who spoke earlier. We have some concerns about the impact the changes will have on the work of the committee, given that its mandate is determined by the definition of “regulation” contained in Standing Order 3(1), which will have to be changed as a result of this legislation.

In respect of clause 25, I share the concerns expressed by the Hon David Parker, who spoke on this bill last week. Further, I note that the previous Leader of the House and Attorney-General, the Hon Dr Michael Cullen, strongly believed that the Parliamentary Counsel Office should report to the Leader of the House, not to the Attorney-General. This bill continues the practice of the Parliamentary Counsel Office reporting to the Attorney-General, but we might want to take the chance at the select committee to reconsider this practice.

The Law Commission consulted widely during the preparation of these reports. I thank the stakeholders involved and thank the Parliamentary Counsel Office for its commitment and wonderful work in taking the bill to its current status. This bill contains a lot of sensible provisions, but it will require careful consideration by Parliament because it deals with important constitutional matters. Thank you.

I was going to canvass a wide range of matters regarding the Legislation Bill, but, unfortunately, the speech of the previous speaker, Raymond Huo, crept into my speaking time. I could have showered the House with little anecdotes about how exciting this legislation is. Instead, because my time has now come, I stand only to support this legislation in its first reading. Thank you.

I am very happy to take a call on the Legislation Bill. I guess it is a little ironic that we are debating this bill at a time when the New Zealand public is crying out to hear what the National Government’s plan is for a step change in the New Zealand economy. We are in Parliament debating a bill that will modernise and improve the law relating to the publication, availability, reprinting, revision, and official versions of legislation, and will bring this law together in a single Act. The most important thing that the National Government wants to bring before the House at this particular time is legislation to modernise other legislation. While New Zealanders are signing up for the dole, and when this Government’s plan to build recovery is announced on little more than a blank piece of paper printed from its website, it wants to bring the Legislation Bill before the House.

It is also ironic that this bill is in the name of the Attorney-General, Christopher Finlayson. He was quite critical of the previous Labour Government for bringing forward legislation that he did not think was particularly serious. One example is the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2). He said: “while this useless Government spends an enormous amount of time on minor pieces of legislation contained in the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2), it does absolutely nothing with very important legislation that has languished … on the Order Paper”. That was Chris Finlayson. I looked at the Order Paper. We are debating this bill in his name when there is legislation here on domestic violence, but the Government has done nothing about that. There is foreshore and seabed legislation on the Order Paper, but the Government has not done anything on that. In fact, it has been put on hold, according to the Order Paper. Plenty of other bills on here could be progressed, but the Government thinks that modernising the laws around legislation is more important.

John Key said in 2008 that Labour “is out of ideas, it is out of steam, it is and out of puff. New Zealanders should stop looking to Labour; they should look to National, because only one party has bold ideas.” The Legislation Bill is National’s new, bold idea! The plan on building the recovery is a blank piece of paper, and the most detail we have had out of National today is its Legislation Bill, which it is bringing before Parliament at the moment. That is what John Key regards as bold ideas that will turbocharge the New Zealand economy and result in a step change for New Zealand businesses to get more people into work. Apparently it will all be achieved through the Legislation Bill, which is National’s most important priority in the House at this particular time.

The Labour Party supports this bill in its first reading because we think that it is relatively sensible. I do not intend to go through all the details. I am very privileged to be on the Regulations Review Committee. I thank my colleague the senior Opposition whip for giving me that opportunity—or maybe I do not; I am still reserving judgment. I am looking forward to scrutinising this legislation. I know that the Attorney-General is very keen for me to finish my speech, but I am so excited about this bill because of the huge impact it will have by turbocharging the New Zealand economy and creating that step change that everybody is looking for! We will catch up with Australia because of the measures contained in this bill! I am not surprised that the Attorney-General cannot wait to get this bill voted on and passed through this House, because it is so central to the Government’s agenda. He must be very proud; it is a very proud day for him to see this legislation brought before the House. Thank you very much.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Regulations Review Committee.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.