Plain Language Act Repeal Bill

on behalf of the Minister for the Public Service: I present a legislative statement on the Plain Language Act Repeal Bill.

SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon PENNY SIMMONDS: I move, That the Plain Language Act Repeal Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Governance and Administration Committee to consider the bill.

This bill repeals the Plain Language Act 2022. The purpose of the bill is threefold. It repeals an ineffective Act, it removes an unnecessary compliance burden on Public Service agencies, and it ensures Government resources can be used more efficiently.

Clear communication with the public is important, so let me be very clear—put it in plain language, if you will. We are calling on an Act implemented by the Labour Government in 2022 that created a problem where there wasn’t one. It is yet another example of wasteful spending on bureaucracy that Labour is so fond of but that this Government has no time for. Time is money, and at a time when many people are doing it tough, we want to make sure that taxpayer money is spent on the things that actually matter, things that grow our economy. Appointing plain language officers, as this Act requires, grows nothing but bureaucracy.

It is an example of Government overreach. You cannot legislate for or against something that is subjective in nature and open to interpretation. That’s why we would never know whether the Plain Language Act 2022 resulted in a meaningful improvement in communication. The only clear outcome is that it placed an unnecessary administrative constraint on Public Service, and it created a box-ticking exercise for agencies. Government agencies should always communicate in an easy-to-understand language, and it is the Government’s expectation that agencies always strive for and uphold the highest standards of communication.

But it is a mistake to think that laws can fix every problem. As much as we would like people to make good choices, it is not something you can achieve with legislation. Plain language is achieved through clear thinking, commitment, and common sense. It is the responsibility of every public servant to communicate using clear, easy-to-comprehend language. It doesn’t take a plain language officer to know that gobbledygook and word salads mean nothing to anyone. Words are just words if no one understands them. This bill is not about abandoning high standards in clear communication; it is about freeing up our Public Service from an ineffective law. The Government is 100 percent committed to communicating clearly with New Zealanders. We want Government agencies to write and speak in a manner people can understand and appreciate. Public information written in plain language makes life easier for people relying on Government services, it makes it easier for people to make informed decisions, and it makes it easier for people to understand their rights and responsibilities.

The Plain Language Act 2022 cannot make these things happen. The Act has not fixed a problem; it has created a problem. The Public Service has better things to do than appointing plain language officers, producing guidance documents, and reporting to someone on something that is unclear. The Government is determined to spend taxpayer money more efficiently. The Plain Language Act 2022 has created unnecessary activity, unnecessary compliance, and an unnecessary use of resources. Repealing this Act cuts red tape and will allow the Public Service to get on with what really matters: delivering services for the people of New Zealand.

I could speak for another five minutes, but I believe that I have put the Government’s position clearly and concisely, and—dare I say it!—in plain language. I commend the bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, well, well—look where we are. A Government which was elected on the promise of reducing the cost of living has set out its priorities very clearly. They put us into urgency last week and we went through more legislation as a result, and, unfortunately, it appears that their legislation has dried up. So Chris Bishop, as Leader of the House, has thought, “Don’t worry. I’ll just open my drawer entitled ‘Pet Peeves’.”, and this petty Government has pulled out a repeal of a sensible Act and is wasting New Zealand’s time and this House’s time by repealing what is, essentially, a sensible Act that everyone agrees with. How interesting.

How interesting that a Government that says it is focused on the things that New Zealanders care about decides to bring up a grudge from the last Parliament that was particularly irksome to the Leader of the House and decides to waste Parliament’s time on something that we all, essentially, agree with, and that is—

Tim Costley: Sit down, and we’ll move on.

CAMILLA BELICH: It’s not my job not to waste Parliament’s time, Mr Costley. It’s my job to hold the Government to account, and I say, on behalf of New Zealanders, that this is a waste of our time, and we wish that we had a Government that would focus on the things that New Zealanders really care about: jobs, health, homes, and the cost of living. Instead, our petty, small-minded Government is repealing an Act that does this.

Joseph Mooney: Who passed it into law?

CAMILLA BELICH: This is a good law, and I will tell the member opposite why it’s a good law. It is clear that it is an important part of our democracy that Government organisations and agencies communicate in a way that people can understand. This is an important democratic right.

I think we can all agree that we are in an important time in our politics, both domestically and internationally, where we should be focusing on the things that keep our democracy strong, and communicating in a way that is clear is essential to participation in our democracy. I agree with that; those members opposite agree with that—we all agree with that. The one thing that I would take issue with is not the content of the original Act, and not the intention of the original Act, but the fact that those opposite decide that it is of such importance that only part-way through the first term—not even towards the end—they have run out of legislation and they have decided only to bring a petty repeal of what was a member’s bill to the House, a member’s bill which actually strengthened our democracy and actually made it easier for people to communicate with their Government and understand the things that are essential to them. It is such a waste of time to even have this before the House.

I want to pay tribute to Rachel Boyack. She was the member who brought this member’s bill to the House originally, and it turned into an Act. Let me tell you, the hypocrisy of this is just extreme, because what the Government says is the reason that they’re repealing this is that it’s not strong enough. They say that it has no legislative teeth and that the reason that they want to repeal it is because it’s going to cut red tape. Well, this is work that public agencies should already be doing. They should already be focused on making sure they communicate clearly to the public. They should already be focused on making sure that the things that they do are easily understood by people in our democracy.

If I may reflect quickly on Rachel Boyack and the reason she brought this to the House, it was because as an electorate MP, she saw again and again and again the issues that people had. They were maybe people who had recently moved to New Zealand who had English as a second language, or maybe people who were just confused by the writing by Government agencies that was so difficult to understand and who wanted to see something clearer. She was having to deal with that. She brought a bill to the House to make it clearer for New Zealanders so that they knew what the Government was doing with their taxpayer money, so that they knew what the Government’s agenda was and so that they knew what their obligations were.

No matter what the other side says, it does not impose a lot of red tape. One of the criticisms is that there’s no legislative enforcement in a court of law, but still this petty, small-minded Government chooses to repeal it, when they could easily be focused on the things that matter.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m proud today to rise on behalf of the Green Party to oppose this out-of-touch bill that fundamentally shows the Government’s lack of understanding of what’s actually happening in the real world.

When we talk to everyday New Zealanders, there’s a sense that they’re conveying to me—and that’s a sense that I’m sharing—that New Zealand seems to be unravelling at the seams. Unemployment is at record high. The cost of living is spiralling out of control, with a recent report, actually, that a quarter of New Zealanders sometimes or often go without meals. That’s a scandal, in a country as prosperous as New Zealand, that a quarter of New Zealanders sometimes or often go without meals.

We know that the public services that everyday New Zealanders are relying on are getting worse thanks to the Government cuts. We’ve all heard of doctors having to do admin work or janitorial work just to keep the lights running. This bill is a manifestation of how this Government seems to be doubling down on their agenda of prioritising private profit over public good. We can see it in the wider Government actions, but we can also say, in this bill, why is the Government prioritising repealing an Act that enabled a wider variety of New Zealanders to participate in interacting with Government and that made legislation and the things that the Public Service did more accessible?

Now, when the original bill was brought before the House—and I acknowledge the member Rachel Boyack; this was her member’s bill—the original bill was supported by a wide variety of organisations. It was supported by disabled and disability advocacy groups such as Blind Low Vision New Zealand, it was supported by Deaf Action New Zealand—and I actually acknowledge their submission, which was a really short submission; it was a very plain language submission, and I think it said something along the lines of “We support this bill.”, so very in theme—and the National Disabled Students’ Association. Even the Free Speech Union, which is not really an ideological bedfellow of members on this side of the House, supported it to select committee.

We know that the benefit of plain language benefits all New Zealanders. Accessible language benefits New Zealanders with disabilities. Plain language benefits new New Zealanders—and, look, we shouldn’t get into generalisations about the English language skills of new New Zealanders. My colleague to my left here, Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan, is demonstrating in his skills in the committee of the whole House stage that new New Zealanders can actually have a mastery of techniques of English language and rhetoric and oratory. So we shouldn’t generalise and say that new New Zealanders necessarily have poor language skills, but this does help the new New Zealanders who actually do struggle with English. There’s going to be more of them because one of the things that this Government has done is repealed the English language requirement for overseas investors. So this will actually help all those new New Zealanders who are able to come here because they’re on investment visas, and it will enable them to access the legislation, which is actually pretty important.

Plain language enables a variety of perspectives that otherwise wouldn’t be heard. I mean, you know, for my sins, I’m one of those overly educated New Zealanders. I’ve got an honours degree, and a master’s degree, and I’m working on the second one. But I don’t think government should just be for people with too many university degrees. I think using plain language enables more New Zealanders to access that. But who does this repeal actually benefit? It benefits lobbyists and private interests because this reduces the ability of New Zealanders to engage and debate every day the stuff that the wider Public Service and the Government are doing.

Now, one of the interesting things that I’ve read over the past month was an article on Newsroom, and it went into detail about how this Government had slowed the lobbying reform that the previous Government was working on. I’ll just read here a quote: “It seems like a way of killing off a reform work stream without actually getting the bad publicity for having done so—just by kind of freezing it and going to ground and ghosting everyone on it.” That was said by Dr Bryce Edwards, who was the supervisor for my dissertation. Look, I agree with what he said. It just seems like by slowing down the lobbying reform and repealing this bill, which had plain language, we’re just helping them out. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a privilege to stand, today, on behalf of ACT and support the Plain Language Act Repeal Bill. I actually remember when this bill was put up as a bill, and I actually thought it was satire when I first saw what the bill was trying to achieve. I thought, “This can’t be for real, here.” We’re creating a whole new layer of public-servant bureaucracy to achieve asking officials and asking our people working for us to write in language that everybody can understand and to appoint officers—plain language officers—to oversee that people are writing in plain language.

Camilla Belich is right. We are a Government that wants to focus on things that matter, and we are a Government that is looking at how our Public Service works and making sure that it is efficient, making sure that we are getting value for money, and making sure that we are focusing on the people that we’re trying to serve. Having plain language officers sitting around, making sure that someone is writing in plain language, is not an efficient way to be using taxpayers’ money, in my opinion.

So I am really glad to see the repeal of this bill so that we can get back to focusing on what is important to New Zealanders and so that our Public Service is actually there working for them. When I first became a Minister—I do understand—sometimes you get documents across your desk and you’re looking at all these acronyms and words you may not understand and you do have to have a word with them and say, “Hey, could you please bring this back to me in a language I can understand?” And that’s pretty simple. “Please bring it back to me in a language I can understand.” And guess what? The next time it came across my desk, it was in a language I could understand. I didn’t need an officer to stand over those public servants and make sure that they wrote it in plain language for myself. It’s not that difficult.

I think the objective of making sure that people do understand what is in front of them is important, but I don’t believe adding another layer to our Public Service is a way to do that. No wonder our Public Service bloated and grew under the previous Government, with ideas like this to grow the sector and with no actual objectives apart from creating a job that’s pointless, quite frankly.

So we’re making sure that we’re not going to do that any more, and we’re going to save that money and we’re going to reinvest it back into the people that we serve, which is the public, who wanted us to make sure that our Public Service is efficient and that we are spending their money well, and that’s what we’re doing. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support the Plain Language Act Repeal Bill. Firstly, New Zealand First, unfortunately, was not in Government when this bill was passed. So, interestingly, as this goes through select committee will be a time, I guess, we will hear the pros and cons of what was actually achieved from this bill. But New Zealand First is committed to streamlining bureaucracy where necessary and ensuring accountability alongside efficient use of Government funds and resource.

The Plain Language Act 2022 is repealed by this bill, and repealing this is a display of what New Zealand First believes will be common sense. The Act added unnecessary administrative requirements, as the Labour Party loved to do, and they did not deliver tangible outcomes, as the Labour Party also loves to do. We have long been a proponent of reducing bureaucracy and in our 2020 manifesto committed to cutting excess regulation and red tape, and we maintain this position today.

This bill will tangibly lessen time wasted in Government agencies. It reduces reporting requirements and will ensure public servants focus on the basic responsibilities and are not burdened by reporting standards. Individual autonomy is maintained in this bill and it still allows Government agencies to use plain language voluntarily. That’s something I think everyone in this House understands across the sector, where things are put into terms by officials where many of us need that opportunity for the language to be used in a way that we all understand. And it is our thinking that we don’t need that to be legislated through a mandate.

We are very pleased to prevent wastage of expenditure on the measures that add no value to the public. I just want to go through section 5 of the original Act. If you actually read section 5 of the Plain Language Act, I think it’s something most of us would all agree with: is to be “appropriate to the intended audience;” that the language being used is “clear, concise, and well organised.” I think that in itself is something that is common sense.

But as we heard from the last speaker, the Hon Karen Chhour, when you get to section 11 of the original Act, “Plain language officers”—and this is where this bill took on its own life, and adding extra bureaucracy for something that should have been simple and common sense has not been achieved. I’ve also heard, talking to a number of people about this bill, they said originally it was very much like a word salad. It was very much off target in that sense.

Through that, New Zealand First is willing to hear the views through the select committee. But for today, we commend the bill to the House and support it through its passage. Thank you.

Tēnā rā koe e te Pika, otirā tēnā rā tātou e te Whare. E tū ana ahau ki te waha i ngā kōrero mō Te Pāti Māori i te rangi nei mō tēnei o ngā Pire arā ko te Plain Language Repeal Bill. Engari i roto i tōku ake reo, in my first language, ka kōrero katoatia au i roto i te reo Māori nā i runga anō i tēnei mea kua tino kite au i ngā tāmitanga o tēnei kāwana ki tōku ake reo. Kua kite ahau i ngā mea e tāmitia i tōku ake reo, nā reira he āhua uaua ki te kite i tēnei momo mea te Plain Language Repeal Bill nā runga anō i te mea ko tēnei momo Pire kua kite i roto i te kotahi rau rā o tēnei Kāwanatanga.

Kua kite i ngā kupu kua whakaparahakotia, kua hāmene, nō reira, āe, he āhua uaua ki a au. Nā runga anō i te mea, ko tōku reo tuatahi ko te reo Māori. Nō reira ko taku whakareanga, ko te nuinga o tō tātou reanga, ko tō mātou reo tuatahi ko te reo Māori. Nō reira, āe, te plain language i roto i tō koutou reo, engari pēwhea mō tōku ake reo. Koirā te tino pātai e pātaitia nei e au. Āe, mō tō koutou reo, engari pēwhea mō tōku reo Mō tōku reo, mō ngā reanga? Tahi miriona o tātou kei te haramai, ko te manako ia ka tae mai ētehi atu o taku reanga ki roto i tēnei Whare.

Engari, me te mea anō hoki, mōhio ana au ehara tēnei kaupapa i te kaupapa tino hohonu. Engari, ko taku whaea, karani, ko Hana Te Hemara tērā, i kawea mai te petihana reo Māori ki tēnei ake Whare i roto i te tau tahi mano, iwa rau, whitu tekau mā rua. Ko tana petihana ko te whakaū i te reo Māori hei reo tūturu mō tēnei whenua. Nō reira, koirā tā māua whakaaro mō tēnei pire. Āe, mōhio pū ana ahau ehara i te mea me tino, kāore au i te mōhio ki te tino kupu, enagri he aha te kupu Māori mō te bureaucrat? Aua. Engari mō ngā kupu, me kī ao mātauranga nei, āe e tautokotia ana i tērā. Me mārama te katoa, mē mārama te katoa, āe, me whakatairanga i te reo, i ngā kupu e mārama ana i tō mātou reanga, i tō mātou ahurea engari me mana ōrite ngā mea e rua. Mēnā ko te reo Māori te reo tūturu o tēnei whenua me mana ōrite. Kāore anō au kua tino kite i tēnei reo e kaha kite ana i roto i tēnei pire. Nō reira koirā taku āwangawanga ki tēnei—

[Greetings to you, Mr Speaker, greetings to all in the House. I stand to voice the position of Te Pāti Māori today about this bill, the Plain Language Act Repeal Bill. But I will do so in my language, in my first language. I will speak only te reo Māori as I have witnessed the oppression by this Government of my language. I have seen the things that oppress my language, so I find it difficult seeing things like the Plain Language Act Repeal Bill, as I have seen this type of bill within the first 100 days of this Government.

I have seen the words that are offensive and penalising, so therefore, yes this is difficult for me, due to the fact that my first language is the Māori language. My generation, for most of us the Māori language is our first language. So, plain language, in your language, but how about in my language? This is the genuine question I am asking. Yes, in your language it is fine, but what about my language? My language for my generation? There will be 1 million of my generation soon, and the hope is that some will enter this House.

I know that this issue may seem mundane and not too profound, but it was my grand-aunt Hana Te Hemara who carried the Māori language petition to this House in 1972. Her petition’s aim was to affirm the Māori language as an authentic language of this land. Therefore, that is our opinion with respect to this bill. I am conscious that there may not be a pressing—what is the correct word, in the language for bureaucrat? I am unsure, but in terms of the words, of the academic world, I support that. Everyone should understand what is being said and that the language should be promoted, and the use of words that my generation understands, our culture, but that it should be equitable with respect to both languages. The Māori language is the authentic language and should be treated equally. I am still not seeing this language in this bill. That is my concern—]

Tākuta Ferris: Kei hea te pire mana ōrite mō te reo Māori? [Where is the equity bill for the Māori language?]

HANA-RAWHITI MAIPI-CLARKE: Āe, kei whea te pire mana ōrite mō te reo Māori. Koirā tā mātou whakatau me tā mātou whakaaro ki tēnei pire. Āe, Plain Language Repeal Bill he mea e mārama ai te katoa, engari mōku ake, mō tā mātou reanga.

[Where is the bill about equality for the Māori language? This is our stance and our position with respect to this bill. Yes, everyone but my generation understands the Plain Language Repeal Bill.]

Cameron Luxton: Is it the Māori Language Act?

HANA-RAWHITI MAIPI-CLARKE: Āe, it is about that, actually—the Māori Language Act—because it’s about the experiences that I have as a first-language speaker. And my constituents, who, roughly, are—

Tākuta Ferris: Kua whatia te reo e te hunga rā. [The language has been broken by those people.]

HANA-RAWHITI MAIPI-CLARKE: Yeah. For those who want to know on the other side—yes, it is about that, because—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Please don’t conduct a dialogue across the House.

HANA-RAWHITI MAIPI-CLARKE: Sorry, Madam Speaker, I’m speaking through the whole House. This is who I represent; these are my constituents. My constituents are mainly first-language speakers in te reo Māori, so this is what this—we were not brought up at all on this. Yeah, it’s not really a big deal of a bill, but for us it is, and we want to be represented in bills across the board, across all legislation. Kia ora.

Hello, Madam Speaker. This is a great Act to repeal—a terrible Act. That’s what’s happening here. If you’re following along at home, the Act did two things. The first one should have just been common sense. Someone rings up and says, “Hey, I don’t understand how to fill in this passport form”, “Oh, well, I can help you with that”—problem solved. But instead, what they did is said let’s create some more of the extra 18,400 bureaucrats that they created—I appreciate it’s hard to find the word in te reo Māori because it’s actually an invention of the Labour Party. That’s what bureaucrats are. But what they did is create these plain language officers in section 11 of the Act, plain language officers that would have to deal with these problems. And then they would report up through layers of the agency to the chief executive. And the chief executives would report to the commissioner, and the commissioner would report to the Minister. All these layers of bureaucracy created to solve a problem that wasn’t really there.

And it wasn’t just that, because this is what Rachel Boyack in her first reading speech wanted the Act to do: she wanted these new plain language officers that would be created both inside and outside agencies—in other words, new people; “Hire some new people, please. We’ve only got an extra 18,000 so far. We can do better.”—to do things like training agency employees, to deal with complaints, and to manage requests from the public. And on and on it goes. In fact, the Greens called it a really cute fluffy bill. It was all fluff. That’s all it was. It was nothing but fluff. It’s probably more like a furball, to be honest, because that’s what it looks like it came from. I love it!

I read some of the speeches that people wrote. This is what Rachel Boyack said: “That’s part of the role of plain language is actually, like that sentence I read before, any sentence that’s longer than 20 words is actually considered under plain language rules as being too long.” What she’s saying is you can’t have a sentence in any document that’s longer than 20 words. The problem is her sentence to explain it took 34 words. You think that’s bad, wait till you get to Naisi Chen’s speech—102 words. I don’t have time to read out—two of her sentences alone hit 200 words.

So let’s go down to Glen Bennett. He’s only at 40 words. He’s only at 40 words, is Glen Bennett—so only double the allowable length. Goes on about “wonderful, wonderful, huge”, “spoons in your mouth”, and “under your tongue” that he’s talking about. Finishes with “Be not afraid because you can still continue with your large and big words.” I mean, this is the grasp of the English language on the other side—maybe we do need to think about this legislation again. I mean, the bitter irony of this must weigh heavier on the Labour Party than a full volume of Roget’s Thesaurus. I mean, honestly, this stuff is terrible. We heard that there were a couple of people that supported it. They left out people like the Law Society that opposed it.

Camilla Belich finished by saying, you know, “What are the other ideas of the Government?”, despite the fact that they were willing to set aside a lot of time in select committees and the House to push this legislation that wasn’t needed through. I’ll give you some better ideas. Here’s one: the Modern Slavery Reporting Bill. That was in the ballot at the time in 2022, and the House could have spent its time on that, but, no, we did plain language officers. It could have been changes to the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act through things like bringing back national health targets or a three-day post-natal stay. But no, no, no—Labour had better ideas: “Let’s bring about plain language officers and create some more people.” What about the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Shared Leave) Amendment Bill under Nicola Willis’s name. That was great. What about life jackets for children and young persons, repealing the regional fuel tax, gang free ports, enabling restricted drivers to get to work—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): What about coming back to this bill?

TIM COSTLEY: —and I could go on. But this is about this bill because that’s what this bill was brought in against: all of those bills that could have been picked up, that could have spent time going through the House, but the House’s time was consumed with a rubbish bill that we don’t need. It was a furball, it was fluff, it was not required. They couldn’t even stick to their own rules in speaking about it at the time. And that’s why we are pleased to pass this bill now, which removes it. I commend our bill to the House.

Thank you for the opportunity to give a contribution on the Plain Language Act Repeal Bill. I would like to begin with our demographics of Aotearoa New Zealand first. So the 2023 census data tells us that there are over a million people in Aotearoa New Zealand now who are people with ethnic community background. When you look at the numbers of Pacific people, there are over 450,000 Pacific people here. You add the number of tangata whenua Māori to that—it’s well over 900,000. That’s close to 50 percent of the overall total population of Aotearoa New Zealand now.

So if you were to ask “Is there a need for plain language for our legislation?”, I would say yes, when close to 50 percent of the total population of our country is made up of people who do not necessarily speak English. When we look at the largest city in this country, Tāmaki-makau-rau Auckland, more than 40 percent of the people who live in the largest city in this country were not born in Aotearoa New Zealand; they were born overseas. So do we need the Plain Language Act? I would say so—yes, absolutely. The Labour Party absolutely opposes this bill, the Plain Language Act Repeal Bill.

One of the contributions that we just heard from across the floor just now said that if you were to ring a Government department, then just take someone else with you. If you don’t really understand the English language, have that person help you. But when you ring a Government agency nowadays, most of the time you talk to a machine; you don’t actually talk to a human being. If I’m to go to my electorate office in South Auckland, in Ōtara, I have so many people that come to see me who don’t speak very good English. They’re Samoans, they’re Tongans, they’re Indians—they’re from all over the world. A lot of the times, when they do come, they actually bring a child with them who can interpret for them and on their behalf because they do not speak good English. So the question again: do we need plain language for our legislation? Absolutely—yes, we do.

So the aims of the bill that is being repealed were to improve effectiveness and accountability of Public Service agencies, to ensure documents are clear, concise, well organised, and appropriate to the intended service. Now, one of the things that this Plain Language Act Repeal Bill says is that in order for better administrative costs, we should repeal this Act. However, when we look at the transitional provisions of the original bill that’s being repealed, it was very clear. They stated that plain language requirements only apply when new documents are brought in—then plain language applies—or older documents when they’re updated, but only when they’re substantially revised.

So the question is: is there going to be a lot of administrative cost for this bill that’s being repealed? I actually don’t think it’s going to be as much as what the Government partners are saying that it would cost. If you were to ask whether it is important that close to 50 percent of our country understand the laws that we write, I would say yes.

I would also refer not to just laws but to Government documents. If I’m to go back to the times of COVID-19, there were so many documents that came through and they weren’t actually written in plain language. But not only that, we had to actually ensure that it was written in plain English, but we also needed to interpret it—to translate it—into the majority languages that people would understand. Why? Because we needed them to understand the importance of why they needed to be vaccinated, the importance of why we all needed to ensure that we save each other’s lives if we’re to get vaccinated. So we absolutely oppose this bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s an absolute pleasure to rise to speak on this Plain Language Act Repeal Bill in its first reading. I’d like to acknowledge the Hon Jenny Salesa, who just sat down. I do agree with her in terms of the struggles that many ethnic communities, who now make up a large population, actually have. But in her argument she was talking about how, during the vaccination campaign in COVID times, the vaccination information needed to be translated in their own language. That is what was needed—not necessarily simple English; it was needed in the language that they understood. The other thing that she actually talked about is how there are many people who come to her electorate office with a child to translate for them. This Act has been in place since 2022. It’s now 2025, and she still has people coming to her office with a child to translate for them, so, obviously, the Plain Language Act has not actually worked.

This is the very reason. This doesn’t need a lot of time to debate. One of the issues that I have with this Plain Language Act is that as a migrant who grew up speaking English as a second language, I could not understand a lot of things. And, yes, I was that child who interpreted for my parents, but how many times do you actually see parents going through pieces of legislation? Often, it is the lawyers, the accountants, or the doctors who actually speak to them who they don’t actually understand in their day-to-day life. It is not legislation or law that requires plain language. As long as it actually makes good law, I don’t have a problem with it.

One of the pieces of advice that I actually got from a mentor many, many years ago, when I first began in Parliament, was that members’ bills should not cost taxpayers any money. This was a member’s bill that is costing taxpayers because they’re having to put in an officer to police plain language in our Government and our bureaucracy. I completely support this new bill to reduce what that former Government actually created. I completely support this bill.

Thank you. I’m actually a little bit shocked at the amount of fluff, on the other side, on this bill. If a Government’s going to repeal an Act, it had better do a good job justifying it. And what I want to do is just go plainly through what this legislation did and what we will miss, because this legislation wasn’t just about Acts of Parliament; it was about documents that interface, in terms of law, between what the Parliament decides and Government departments do and how they actually impact on ordinary New Zealanders.

If you have a look at section 6 of the Act that will be repealed, you’ll see that it applies to a range of documents. That’s your forms. That’s your documents that make people comply. It’s things like filing and registering and lodging information. It’s explaining how the public can comply with the requirement, it’s providing information to the public about that requirement, and it’s providing information as part of a public education initiative.

All of those things are really essential for people to know and to have plain words put around them so that they can be absolutely sure, if we’re going to run a democracy and if we’re going to run a place where people know what’s required of them and have a decent chance of complying.

And, yes, we have to meet people as they are, not as the people that we might be ourselves. We might have been to university or we might be able to go and ask a lawyer, but not everybody can do that. As a lawyer, I have seen the confusion that happens when people don’t know how to access information like this. They are confused by the words. It happens, despite people’s best intentions, because people bury into what they’re doing and they don’t know that, in fact, what they’re doing is not comprehensible to someone else. So this puts a bit of rigour around it. It said that someone in the organisation is going to be responsible for making sure that when we produce a document which is going to mean that the public have to comply or is a form that they’re going to need to use, we are going to have someone in our organisation who looks at that document and, actually, is also responsible for getting the feedback from the public and making sure that they’re correcting it when it needs to be corrected because it’s not plain.

Now, I want to tell you a very funny little story about this. I’ve seen a public document—we had an Act the other day—that was very much this. I urge people to have a look at the customer data information that came through. That is actually a really good example of where plain language is used, and is used well, in an Act.

But, in terms of forms, I went the other day on a website where I was trying to download some Warriors tickets. Now, it was almost impossible. I was tearing my hair out by the end of my interaction with this particular website, because the person designing the website had not thought what it was like for somebody who’d never been on the site before. And it wasn’t self-explanatory. That’s the kind of thing we can tolerate if it’s a Warriors ticket. We can’t tolerate that if it’s something where if you don’t comply, you’re in trouble with the Government or you won’t get the benefit that you need. That’s where we can’t actually tolerate that, because once we start tolerating that, we have an us and them society, don’t we? We have a society where people are frustrated and disempowered. And so that’s why I say this is so important. If the Warriors people would like to fix their website, I’d be thrilled—if they’d look at it through their eyes.

But this officer that’s been demonised in this situation which we’re talking about it—that’s the person who’s already likely employed. That’s why it was a member’s bill that didn’t have the cost associated. That’s a person focused on making sure that the law does what it says and that people know what it does. That is not a terrible thing, and it is not a good use of the time of this Parliament to be repealing it.

But, more to the point, what on earth does the Government do when it has a piece of legislation like this in front of it? Who are the people who do not understand the predicament of the ordinary New Zealander and who come along and sweep this away? As the Hon Melissa Lee says, “They simply could get a lawyer.” That’s what we’re saying—“Get a lawyer.”; that just plays into the hands of the wealthy. That’s not what the Labour Party is about, and that’s why we’re sad that this bill has come into the House today.

I rise to speak in support of the Plain Language Act Appeal Bill because this Government stands for common sense, for efficiency, and for a Public Service that is focused on delivering outcomes for New Zealanders.

New Zealanders are very sick of red tape—things that are in front of them that are stopping them from making progress—and this Government is about cutting red tape. I’m very glad this Government has picked up this bill and made it a Government bill. I had this as a member’s bill in the biscuit tin, and I acknowledge the Hon Chris Bishop and the Hon Judith Collins KC for picking up this work, for their leadership, and for their support on this bill.

Now, let’s be very clear, we are all about supporting common sense, clear, and simple communication—this is not in question. But the Plain Language Act 2022, which is exactly what we’re trying to repeal, did not actually improve or make it easier for people to understand. What it did, though, is add costs to budgets, for officers and for very unnecessary compliance requirements. Creating a solution for a problem but not really identifying what the problem is, is exactly why this bill needs to be repealed.

Now, this Act requires the public agencies to appoint a plain language officer to report on compliance—to have someone on the headcount to simply go around and look for a problem that didn’t really exist. Now, agencies are then forced into ticking the box and make sure that there is something that has spent time and money—trying to tick a box and show that they’ve done something good.

To be clear, plain language is not a principle. Plain language shouldn’t be a policy that forces people to follow it. Plain language is actually a writing standard. Plain language isn’t something that we should be trying to regulate through law. This repeal is not about opposing plain English; it is about respecting also the judgment calls of our public servants. It is about trusting their professionalism and removing the bureaucratic requirements that have actually served no practical purpose but to increase the headcount and the salary cost that we are adding through the officers. And let’s not forget—let’s not forget—many of the agencies were already using plain language all along, before this Act even existed. So this isn’t about abandoning the good practice; it is actually about removing the cost, the extra cost, the extra layer, and the extra level of legislative requirements and letting people get on with doing their jobs.

To those who have said before me that this Act is symbolic, well, actually, it is, because it symbolises the end of wasteful Government spending. It also symbolises the beginning of an approach that prioritises outcomes rather than ticking boxes.

Now, I’ve also heard members before me talking about how—I think Helen White, the last member who spoke, actually talked about getting a lawyer to do the work. I studied law too. I was actually a bit offended by that comment because it sounded like lawyers are there just to make money. That is not true. Lawyers are there to help, to understand—to really help people who are in need—

Andy Foster: That’s not what Labour thinks.

NANCY LU: Well, that’s what Labour thinks—that is what Labour thinks—and I don’t know why she would put that to our audience.

Repealing this Act is a very small step in our legislation, but I think it is a big step for accountability, for cutting out the red tape, for improving efficiency, and for actually having some common sense in Government. Therefore, I commend this bill to the House.

The question is, That the Plain Language Act Repeal Bill be considered by the Governance and Administration Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Governance and Administration Committee.

I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill.