Legislation Bill

on behalf of the Attorney-General: I move, That the Legislation Bill be now read a second time. The bill was introduced into Parliament in June 2010, and had its first reading on 3 August that year. The Regulations Review Committee reported the bill back to the House—

Hon Members: 2010?

Hon PHIL HEATLEY: —on 1 December 2010. I thank all parties for agreeing to this debate being held in extended hours this morning. I will just correct my first or second sentence—it should have been 2010—and I thank Lianne Dalziel for correcting me on that.

Hon Lianne Dalziel: It was actually Ruth Dyson.

Hon PHIL HEATLEY: Oh, and Ruth Dyson. I thank her as well. The Legislation Bill implements the recommendations of the Law Commission following its report on the presentation of New Zealand statute law and its review of the Parliamentary Counsel Office. The bill makes important changes to the law relating to the publication and disallowance of legislation, it updates the law underpinning the Parliamentary Counsel Office, and it contains new provisions for a 3-yearly programme of statute law revision or consolidation. These latter provisions in particular have the potential to make significant improvements to the presentation and accessibility of our statute law.

The last major consolidation of New Zealand’s statute law took place in 1908—I will just check that with Lianne Dalziel, 1908—when virtually all of New Zealand’s Acts were revised and re-enacted, obsolete material was removed, and 47 volumes of enactments were reduced down to five. Such a one-off, comprehensive revision might not now be possible, or even desirable, because new Acts are passed so much more frequently these days. Instead, the new Legislation Bill envisages a rolling 3-yearly programme of statute law revision. This approach will bring with it some significant advantages. It will enable us, for example, to rationalise and consolidate heavily amended statutes, or to bring together provisions on one topic that are currently spread across different enactments. We will be able to repeal obsolete Acts, and to update the language in current enactments to make it consistent with modern drafting style. Over time, this will provide for a comprehensive overhaul of the New Zealand statute book, making it quicker and easier for New Zealanders to find, understand, and apply the law that this House has passed.

The second matter I would like to draw to the House’s attention is Subpart 1 of Part 3 of the bill, which replaces the Regulations (Disallowance) Act 1989—that is 1989. Previous Regulations Review Committee reports have identified problems with the way that the term “regulations” is defined in legislation. The bill addresses those problems by separating the law regulating the publication and disallowance of delegated legislation. There is a new definition of “disallowable instrument”. In effect, the bill reverses the current default position. At present, when it comes to disallowance, what delegated legislation is called matters more than what it does. Because the new definition concentrates on substance over form, the bill broadens the scope of disallowance. The bill will increase parliamentary oversight of the use of delegated powers by the executive, and make it more difficult to avoid disallowance.

The Regulations Review Committee notes that if the bill is enacted, amendments to Standing Orders will be required to reflect the new definition of “disallowable instruments” and to confirm the committee’s jurisdiction. I support the committee’s recommendation, and I invite the Standing Orders Committee to consider it in due course.

As I have said, the Legislation Bill was referred to the Regulations Review Committee in August 2010—2010. The committee’s report on the bill addresses the issue of revision, and, in particular, the important matter of how revision bills should be handled by this House. These bills will not change the substance of the law, but rather how it is presented, so it is right that they should be capable of being passed by a more streamlined procedure than other bills. The Legislation Bill does not make this provision properly, leaving parliamentary procedure to the Standing Orders. The committee supports this approach, but in its report it encourages the Standing Orders Committee to consider making provision for a separate, streamlined process for passing revision bills into law. Such a process should ensure that these bills will be subjected to the appropriate level of scrutiny by the House, but without taking up more parliamentary time than is truly necessary. I agree with and support the committee’s recommendation in this regard.

Aside from a revision, the main focus of the committee’s amendments is in Part 4, which is the part of the bill dealing with the Parliamentary Counsel Office. Several of the recommendations are for amendments to make the bill more accessible to the reader. An example is the recommendation for the clause that sets out the Parliamentary Counsel Office’s functions to be broken up into three separate, shorter clauses. The committee proposes certain clarifying amendments, such as in relation to clauses 60 and 61. These clauses contain the power of the Chief Parliamentary Counsel to delegate powers and functions to an employee of the Parliamentary Counsel Office if the office holder is absent or incapacitated. The committee recommends that the power should be expanded to cover a period where the office of Chief Parliamentary Counsel is vacant. The bill contains an important provision that protects the confidentiality of communications between the Parliamentary Counsel Office and its clients. The committee recommends a definition be inserted into the provision to make it easier to identify whether a person is or is not a client of the Parliamentary Counsel Office.

Others of the committee’s recommendations are more substantive. By way of an example, clause 63 of the bill requires the Chief Parliamentary Counsel to have a legal qualification granted in a common law jurisdiction. The committee has recommended amendments to this provision. The effect of these changes is to require the Chief Parliamentary Counsel to be a New Zealand - qualified lawyer, or eligible to practise as a lawyer in a specified country. This will ensure that candidates for the position of Chief Parliamentary Counsel continue to be drawn from New Zealand or similar jurisdictions. However, in those cases, which I believe will be extremely rare, where no suitable candidate can be otherwise found, the Attorney-General will retain the discretion to waive the qualification requirement in a particular case. The committee makes similar recommendations in relation to parliamentary counsel, and I agree with and support these proposals.

Should the bill progress to its Committee stage, I anticipate publishing a Supplementary Order Paper to improve the clarity of the bill and to bring the amendments of other Acts in the schedule of the bill up to date. I thank the committee for carrying out its work so thoroughly and for making such positive and constructive recommendations to amend the bill. I commend the Legislation Bill to the House.

As we have heard, the Legislation Bill arises out of two Law Commission reports, one dating from October 2008 and the other dating from May 2009. It is clear, I think, that those reports set out a compelling case to update the law relating to the publication of New Zealand legislation. The original Act that is on the books at the moment, the Statutes Drafting and Compilation Act, dates back to 1920, so given the changes that have occurred in our society and in this institution since then, it is, I think, timely to be having a look at those Law Commission reports and implementing their recommendations. The Regulations Review Committee was very happy to be part of that process, to hear submissions on the Legislation Bill, and to make some recommendations around how that bill could be improved.

I want to make a particular reference to some of the evidence that the Regulations Review Committee heard in respect of this bill. I want to note that we were privileged to be addressed in the committee by two former Chief Parliamentary Counsel. I want to pay tribute to each of them because they gave very careful and helpful evidence. The first person whom I want to acknowledge in this regard is Walter Iles QC. Mr Iles reminded the committee that I as chair of the committee would probably believe everything that he had to say to the committee, given that his father founded the law firm in Gisborne that my father became a partner in, in 1959. He is absolutely right. I did believe everything he had to say, but not for that reason. The other former Chief Parliamentary Counsel from whom we heard was the late George Tanner QC. Again, I want to place on record in the House my gratitude and the indebtedness of the committee for the evidence of Mr Tanner. Members will know that Mr Tanner passed away from an illness some short time ago, and it seems to me that this is an appropriate juncture for me at least, and I hope other members, to place on record our gratitude for the tremendous service that Mr Tanner gave the House, which he repeated in the evidence that he gave to the select committee, which directly led to the clarifications and improvements in the bill that we are considering and that the Minister of Energy and Resources has indicated the Government will adopt.

What are those changes? Well, I think it probably is worth mentioning a couple of them. Members will be familiar with the concept of legal privilege. That is the ability to communicate in absolute confidence with one’s client. It is a necessary adjunct to the practice of law because if, as a legal adviser, it is not possible to know that your communications with your client are utterly secure, then you cannot possibly give free and frank advice. One of the problems that we found with the original draft of the bill was that, oddly, parliamentary counsel did not have any automatic legal professional privilege when they were advising Ministers or members of Parliament in respect of select committee work or members’ bills. So we thought it was important to rectify that and to give parliamentary counsel the sort of protection that every other lawyer and legal adviser has in practice—the ability to ensure that their communications and advice to Ministers, members of Parliament, and others were utterly confidential and able never to be questioned in legal proceedings or otherwise. That will be accomplished by new clause 58B(3).

One of the other changes was touched on by the Minister, and that relates to the qualifications of parliamentary counsel. Members might be surprised to know that there is no provision in the statute book at the moment around the minimum qualifications that we would expect from those who serve in the Parliamentary Counsel Office. We have tried to rectify that by specifying that, ordinarily, parliamentary counsel will be New Zealand - qualified practitioners, but, again, members will know that we have expanded quite radically in recent times the categories of person who can so practise. We have passed, and the Commonwealth of Australia has passed, mutual recognition legislation, meaning that any person admitted in one of the states or territories of Australia may apply to become a legal practitioner in New Zealand. They have the right to so apply, and it is automatic that it will be granted, and vice versa. I know that there are legally qualified members of the House who have been accredited to practise in Australian states, and I am one of them—I am accredited in New South Wales. That shows that the reality of our deepening trans-Tasman relationship means that we can call on a wider pool of lawyers than we otherwise could have.

If we have a look at the way in which the Regulations Review Committee has recommended that the statute be amended, we have also looked to other common law jurisdictions. Why should we deprive ourselves of the ability to call on a Canadian lawyer, a lawyer qualified in the United States, a lawyer from Hong Kong, or a lawyer from any of the other common law jurisdictions? They might have deep administrative experience or deep law-drafting experience and might well be able to lend that expertise to the New Zealand Parliamentary Counsel Office. Under this legislation it will be made clear that that is absolutely welcome in New Zealand.

Another important change is made by clause 71A. In the State Sector Act, section 77 of the legislation makes it very clear that provided a public servant is acting within powers and in good faith, then the public servant has no liability. The Crown incurs no liability for the acts taken by the public servant. It is a very important constitutional provision. It means that our Public Service can function more effectively, without having to worry all the time about whether any piece of advice or policy implementation might give rise to litigation. There was no such provision in the statute book relating to parliamentary counsel, and so, because parliamentary counsel are not part of the core Public Service, we have had to provide for that, and that amendment has been added in, in clause 71A.

Finally, there are some amendments to the definition of what sorts of instruments can be considered by the Regulations Review Committee and scrutinised on behalf of the House. We have changed the terminology in the original bill from “legislative order” to “legislative instrument”, recognising that it is not just Orders in Council that will now come to the Regulations Review Committee but other types of delegated legislation will come for scrutiny as well.

There are two other quick points before I finish. The Minister noted that the Law Commission recommended that provision be made for a select committee to be created to hear and deal with revision bills. These are bills that are technical in nature that do not need to take up the time of this House through three readings and a Committee stage, but can be dealt with through an expedited procedure. I think that would make an enormous difference to the efficiency with which we do our work. I am pleased to hear that the Government intends to progress that through the Standing Orders. I urge that it happen sooner rather than later, just from the point of view of being able to do our jobs better.

Finally, listeners and other members might be wondering about the reason for the delay in progressing this legislation. I said that the Law Commission reports came from 2008 and 2009. The Legislation Bill was introduced in 2010. It is only now being read a second time, despite the fact that it was reported back from the Regulations Review Committee last year. We were told in the estimates process by the Parliamentary Counsel Office that this was because the Government intended to combine the Legislation Bill with the Regulatory Standards Bill. I made it very clear on behalf of the Opposition that that would not be acceptable if a bipartisan approach to this Legislation Bill was being sought. The Attorney-General abandoned that course of action. I am very pleased to say that, having done that, I can now commend this bill to the House.

It is my pleasure to take a call on the second reading of the Legislation Bill today. I also would like to acknowledge the recent passing of Mr Tanner and the work that he did in the Regulations Review Committee and in this Parliament, and also on this piece of legislation to get it before Parliament today. This Legislation Bill is about modernising and improving the law relating to the publication, availability, reprinting, revision, and official versions of legislation in one single piece of legislation. This contributes towards our regulatory reform in terms of reducing the need for technical remedial legislation, as a consequence of the enhanced reprinting powers. This will also improve our access to law through a programme of revision of old statutes.

So, as this bill has come from the select committee and has taken a little while to get here to have its second reading, it is good to see that the Attorney-General has been working closely with Charles Chauvel in the Opposition to ensure that we do get agreement on this piece of legislation moving forward. It has had two reports by the Law Commission and recommendations on how to improve this bit of legislation, and I know that the select committee worked very hard on it. I would like to acknowledge the role that it, as well, has played in getting it here today.

It does replace the Statutes Drafting and Compilation Act 1920, the Acts and Regulations Publication Act 1989, and also the Regulations (Disallowance) Act 1989. It allows for some key changes within this legislation. There will be a 3-yearly programme of systematic revision of these Acts. It will modernise the legislation by providing for the disallowance of subordinate legislation. It allows for the provision of enabling powers and related processes to certain types of subordinate legislation to incorporate material by reference. It also updates aspects of the Statutes Drafting and Compliance Act 1920. These are all quite—

Charles Chauvel: Compilation.

KATRINA SHANKS: Compilation, sorry. These matters are all quite technical if you are not within the law. So I think this is a really good piece of legislation, which has been worked on hard to bring it to this House. Obviously, it is about clear and accessible law being a fundamental part of the rule of law. People need to be able to understand legislation and courts need to be able to interpret legislation quite easily.

So this is also about a plain English approach. It has not always been the approach taken in Parliament before, and our legislation has been quite complex, especially some of our old legislation, which is quite hard to read. One real shocker comes from the United Kingdom. It is contained in the Banking Act 1979 Appeals Procedure (England and Wales) Regulations 1979. This is what it says, which is an example of how complex legislation can get, and it is not plain English at all: “Any reference in these regulations to a regulation is a reference to a regulation contained in these regulations.” I do not know what that means. I have read it about 10 times and I am still not quite sure what it means. But it just shows you how complex we can be when we write as legislators. Really, we have got to think about who is reading this legislation, and make it as easy as we can for people to pick up a bit of legislation and understand it.

So this represents a significant step in the process of improving and modernising the New Zealand statute book. I commend this legislation to the House.

I too rise to support the passage of the Legislation Bill. But I do want to comment on the sequence of events, because it does seem to me that we have ended up delaying unnecessarily the passage of this particular measure. So we have got two Law Commission reports, despite what my colleague Charles Chauvel said before: Presentation of New Zealand Statute Law in 2008 and Review of the Statutes Drafting and Compilation Act 1920 in 2009. Actually, that is a good track record to have Law Commission reports that are so recent in front of the House. When you compare how long other Law Commission reports take to get to the House, that actually is quite good progress.

However, this legislation was introduced in mid-2010, and it was reported back from the Regulations Review Committee at the end of 2010, so we actually had 2011 to deal with this particular measure and pass it through all of its stages. It could have been well implemented by now, but that did not happen. In fact, it has been sitting on the Order Paper now for so long, having been reported back from the Regulations Review Committee, that I was not on the Regulations Review Committee at the time that this particular bill was considered. I think it is worth mentioning that it is unusual for the Regulations Review Committee to consider legislation. Normally, we are considering regulations or we are considering regulation-making powers within statutes, but to have a bill referred to us as a committee is actually an unusual step. I think it is worthy of merit, and I think that is because of the content. The content of it does not sit very easily with any other subject committees, because it is more of a general focus on the nature of the legislation itself. So it is not the content but the parameters of the law, which is something that the Regulations Review Committee is very mindful of.

I too want to place on record my personal regret at the passing of George Tanner. In the time he was Chief Parliamentary Counsel at Parliament he gave tremendous service. When he moved to the Law Commission, I felt that the Law Commission had gained something that the Law Commission really needed, which was that quality perception around drafting. That needed to be strengthened within the Law Commission now that it has the responsibility of looking at drafting measures to sit with its reports to Parliament. I really think he was a great loss to New Zealand, and certainly a great loss to the whole issue of statutory drafting. The reason I wanted to mention that is that when somebody of that calibre comes and makes submissions to a select committee, it does make a real difference. I think it is worthwhile mentioning that our select committee process has enabled people of that calibre to come forward and to submit on legislation that might seem so dry but is actually quite fundamentally important to how accessible the law is going to be.

I am not going to spend a lot of time on the bill, because, of course, I was not on the Regulations Review Committee when it considered it, but I want to just make the point that not only did it pick up on those two Law Commission reports but also it responded to recommendations made by a previous Regulations Review Committee on inquiries relating to incorporating material by reference. I was on the Regulations Review Committee when that particular report was undertaken, so I am really pleased to see in the statute a provision that specifically deals with how material incorporated by reference is going to be dealt with in the future. For those who are not familiar with the work of the previous Regulations Review Committee, an example of material incorporated by reference would be a standard that is made by a joint standards body—say, Food Standards Australia New Zealand. If a joint standards body makes a standard that is then incorporated by reference into legislation, you do not need to write in the entire standard and then amend it every time the standard is amended. In fact, by making it publicly available, it is automatically incorporated by reference, with the use of appropriate clauses in the legislation and then with appropriate checks and balances, so that people can access the material that is incorporated by reference. It is all about accessibility but also ensuring that our legislation can stay up to date with regulations, without necessarily changing the law in order to meet an outside body’s standard-setting process.

With those few comments in mind, as others have said, I too am very pleased to see that this bill is progressing. I would have very strongly objected to this legislation going into the Regulatory Standards Bill, so I am glad my colleague Charles Chauvel was able to indicate to the Government that that would cause the bill to lose the bipartisan support that it now enjoys because it is kept separate from legislation that does not fit with this particular framework. I am very pleased to support its passage through the House.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I am very pleased to take a very short call on the second reading of the Legislation Bill, which the Green Party will be supporting. We supported it at the first reading to the Regulations Review Committee, but, unfortunately, I did not have the honour or pleasure to be on the committee. In fact, I do not believe there was a single Green member on the committee, so we were not able to watch its progression through the select committee as closely as we would have liked to.

What the bill is, effectively, seeking to do is very reasonable, and I think it is very important to be able to have regular revision of legislation and to make sure it is able to be made available to be reprinted, to be corrected, and, above all, to be accessible, because, really, one tenet, I think, of a functioning democracy is that what happens at the level of the elected representatives needs to be transparent, clear, and accessible to the people of New Zealand. One of the four key charter principles of the Green Party is appropriate decision-making, and we really cannot have appropriate decision-making if we do not have transparency and the ability of the general public to understand what legislation means for them and to interpret it quite easily.

The changes that take effect in the form of the revision bills, I think, will clearly lay out the purpose of revision. They need to be certified by several experts, including the president of the Law Commission and the Chief Parliamentary Counsel. Though it remains for the Standing Orders Committee to decide the specific process, we are satisfied that it would be impossible for a revision bill to pass without parliamentary scrutiny. That is really important and is, I am happy to say, not at all in line with other bills that we have seen pass way too quickly through this House that have given far too much power to the executive in the ability to make regulations and make changes to the law through Orders in Council without parliamentary scrutiny, and that is very, very problematic. It is a real pattern, I think, of this Government to try to bypass parliamentary scrutiny and bypass the wider debate that leads to better legislation. I am happy to say that this bill does not do that, and that it does not continue in that pattern of taking away power from Parliament, from the people, and giving it to the executive.

Keeping legislation modern and accessible is fundamentally important, as I have said, to our democracy. The law should be something that everyone can engage with. The ability to revise old legislation to make it clear and understandable fulfils the duty that we have to make laws that everyone can comprehend. We also support the bill’s provision that official versions of legislation are able to be made available electronically, online. That is extremely useful, and I think it encourages us to make better laws, having them available to be perused, criticised, and open to public scrutiny online. This bill is a very small step, but the Green Party is very, very happy to support it, as we do believe that it will shed more light on the activity of Parliament and is a way to make New Zealand more democratic. Thank you.

I must admit that I did not anticipate, as a member of the Regulations Review Committee, ever standing here speaking on a bill.

Hon Trevor Mallard: What? Oh, come on!

MIKE SABIN: Can I firstly commend the chair of the Regulations Review Committee—it is all quite a mystery to me, I must say, Mr Mallard. Can I firstly commend the chair of the Regulations Review Committee, Charles Chauvel, for the way in which he does shed light on what does appear to be something of a mystery to me at times, and for his leadership of that committee.

This bill, the Legislation Bill, is really about clear and accessible law being a fundamental part of the rule of law. People need to be able to understand what it is about, and the courts need to be able to interpret legislation. Certainly in my former life as a police officer I saw, I guess, the other end of that particular spectrum and the importance of it. As has already been mentioned, the Law Commission has rightly said that our statute law as a whole currently lacks coherence, it is untidy, and it can be difficult to understand and use. This bill obviously goes to the heart of that. This Legislation Bill supports the efforts of the Parliamentary Counsel Office and the Law Commission to address this problem by tidying the statute book and making it easier to understand, and I think we have all found consensus on that point. This bill aims to modernise and improve the law relating to the publication, availability, reprinting, revision, and official versions of legislation, and in fact brings together for the first time the law on drafting, publication, and disallowance of legislation. It ensures that legislation is made available to the public appropriately and conveniently, and preserves and enhances the powers of the House to scrutinise and challenge delegated legislation.

I do not know whether I would go as far as my friend from the Green Party, the previous speaker, Julie Ann Genter, although I would have to say that we do not find consensus in many of our views, but I will not dwell on that point. Lastly, the bill preserves the independence of the Parliamentary Counsel Office, and the importance and significance of that is not to be understated. I am very happy to commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

New Zealand First is also happy to support the Legislation Bill, particularly because it improves accessibility and understandability of legislation for the New Zealand public. Before going any further, I first want to acknowledge the work of the Regulations Review Committee, which I think has done a really good job with this piece of legislation. It is high time, of course, that there is a modernisation of legislation governing the drafting of legislation and concerning the functions of the Chief Parliamentary Counsel.

As we know, the bill principally would replace the Statutes Drafting and Compilation Act 1920, the Acts and Regulations Publication Act 1989, and the Regulations (Disallowance) Act 1989. Most important, I think, it provides for a 3-year programme of systematic revision of legislation. That is a very welcome move, and something that probably should have been done a long time ago. The bill would also alter the functions of the Chief Parliamentary Counsel. In particular, the Chief Parliamentary Counsel will be required to publish legislation in electronic as well as printed form, and to issue official versions of legislation in electronic and printed form. That will be very welcome to people who these days—and I think it is the majority—find their way through legislation through electronic means. This just brings that situation up to date, and is most appropriate.

I particularly wanted, however, to make some comments about the part of the bill relating to revision bills. The purpose, as we know, is stated in clause 29(2), which says: “The purpose of revision is to re-enact, in an up-to-date and accessible form, the law previously contained in all or part of 1 or more Acts, but (except as authorised by this subpart) revision is not intended to change the effect of a law.” That is a very important issue, which I think has been well addressed by the committee.

However, the revision programme in clause 31(2) is, as I have already said, for me the crux of the whole thing. It includes such important things as revision of the whole or part of one or more Acts, with the ability to combine or divide them as may be appropriate. Clause 31(2)(c) refers to the omission of redundant and spent provisions, which will also be useful. Clause 31(2)(f) refers to the ability to include new or additional purpose provisions, which will be helpful for the public, as well. Most important, I think, clause 31(2)(i) refers to the ability to make minor amendments to clarify Parliament’s intent. Of course, that word “minor” is open to interpretation, but I do believe that it is appropriate to have it there. Clause 31(2)(j) allows the updating of monetary amounts and that kind of thing, which is just common-sense stuff.

It is important, however, that although clause 31(3) states that “A revision Bill must not change the effect” of any statute, that does not mean that there will not be any substantive changes, which would still be possible. Therefore, great care is going to be needed, I believe, to preserve the integrity of the Acts that are dealt with under this legislation—something that I think the House will need to be careful of when it looks at revision bills as they come through in the future. In other words, we are still going to have to be vigilant.

Clause 34(2) repeats the requirements not to change the effect of any statute, but that is qualified by clause 31(3), which states: “A revision Bill must not change the effect of the law, except as authorised by subsection (2)(i) or (j).”, which I have already referred to. So there is a degree of conflict and some confusion between clauses 31(3) and 34(2), which state that there should be no change to the effect of any statute, and clause 34(3), which says that there may be change to the effect of a statute if expressly stated.

I note that the committee has said that for this purpose it has inserted new clause 33A in relation to minor policy changes to revision bills. The committee considered that the bill as introduced might cause confusion about the relationship between the changes properly made using the revision powers and the changes made by members of Parliament during the passage of a revision bill through the House. That is the dilemma, of course.

The committee goes on to say that it considers that the bill should make the distinction clearer, and for that reason it has put in new clause 33A. New clause 33A(1) says: “A revision Bill, as introduced, must not contain any proposed change to the effect of the law unless the amendment is authorised by section 31.” It goes on to say in subclause (2): “nothing in this Act affects the powers of the House of Representatives to amend a revision Bill for any purpose and to pass it with amendment.” To me, that new provision, clause 33A(1), does not improve the problem; it simply restates the dilemma without actually improving anything. So although I appreciate that the committee did want to clarify the situation, I do not think it did it with that particular provision.

I believe that it would actually have been better if clause 34(3) and new clause 33A(1) were deleted altogether, and we were left only with new clause 33A(2), which, I repeat, simply says: “nothing in this Act affects the powers of the House of Representatives to amend a revision Bill for any purpose and to pass it with amendment.” It would be quite sufficient for that to be there, and those other clauses I referred to need not be there at all. However, that is a relatively minor matter. I would have preferred it that way, but it is not something that I think would cause New Zealand First to vote against the bill or, at this late stage, attempt to change it further. I just think that it would have been a better way of going about it.

I want to go on and just briefly mention now the functions of the Parliamentary Counsel Office, and to note with approval that clause 58 of the bill is now being divided into the three new clauses: 58, 58A, and 58B. That is very wise. It does make things much clearer to do that. We also welcome new subclause (1)(h) of clause 58, which refers expressly to the rights of the public. It does say in that clause that one of the functions of the Parliamentary Counsel Office is “to examine all local Bills and private Bills, and to examine the Members’ Bills that the Attorney-General directs be examined, and to report to the Attorney-General on the effect of Bills examined, in particular on whether they affect the rights of the Crown or the public, and on their relationship to other legislation:”. I think that is a very good provision, indeed. Advice on that has often been absent in the past, and I think that is a very good provision, which New Zealand First supports wholeheartedly. With regard to the appointment of the functions of the Chief Parliamentary Counsel, we completely agree with the need for that person to be legally qualified in New Zealand or in a similar jurisdiction, and the same provision for other parliamentary counsel as well.

New Zealand First has no issues with any of the other provisions of the bill or with the select committee amendments that are being proposed, and will therefore be very happy indeed—with the reservations that I have made—to vote in favour of the bill as amended.

Anyone who listened to the last speaker, Denis O’Rourke, would realise what a complicated task Mike Sabin and I have had getting to grips with the work of the Regulations Review Committee, because he totally confused me. But I also want to just thank both of our team leaders in Katrina Shanks and, certainly, Charles Chauvel for enlightening us as to what this bill, the Legislation Bill, is all about, as we clearly were not part of that select committee at the time this bill came into the House.

I want to comment on the time that this bill has taken to come through the House, because I think we have to realise as a House of Representatives that we are here for ever. We come and go as individuals very quickly, but time is here for ever.

Hon Trevor Mallard: Not necessarily.

IAN McKELVIE: No, some of you have been around a fair while, actually. But it is worth remembering that this legislation was last reviewed in 1908, so I do not have great difficulty with the 104 years it has taken to come back to the House.

Denis O’Rourke: I remember it well.

IAN McKELVIE: I am not surprised, given the last speech we just heard. I think the key, really, is to improve the public’s understanding of legislation. I think that one of our great tasks as parliamentarians and as lawmakers is to ensure that people understand the laws we make. I think it is also important that we put laws in plain English—in other words, they are easy for people to get a grasp of. I think this bill, from that perspective, is really important.

I was amused to find mentioned in the commentary on this bill talk about thematically going through things. I had to look up the meaning of “thematically”, because I did not know what it meant. I found out what it meant in the end, and, actually, when you think about going through things thematically, it is probably a better way than going through them in order of clauses. My understanding of a lot of the legislation that we put through this House is that it is very difficult to follow clause by clause, because the clauses are not necessarily done thematically. I think there is some sense in going through things thematically, so I was a bit intrigued with that.

I suspect that there are nearly 1,200 different laws governing our country, and we need to know those laws and we need to understand them. If we do not understand them as people in our communities, we have great difficulty fitting into society. So for this to happen, as I have said already, we need to ensure that they are well written and clearly espoused by our lawmakers. Our lawmakers are, of course, us.

I am going to read one line—or a bit more than one line—from some notes I have got here, because I think they espouse the whole reason for this Regulations Review Committee and the reason for this law. It says that it preserves the independence of the Parliamentary Counsel Office, which is responsible for ensuring, so far as it can, that the primary legislation enacted by Parliament and secondary legislation made by the executive reflect the fundamental concepts inherent in the rule of law, and that legislation passed based on legal principle is effective and clear and can be accessed easily by the public. I think that really captures the basis of what this Legislation Bill is all about. That is really important.

The bill also does away with three of those nearly 1,200 current Acts and merges them into one. I think that is positive as well. So without going any further into the Legislation Bill’s parameters, because they have been well covered this morning, I have great pleasure in supporting the movement of this bill through the House.

It is my intention to take a very short call on this bill, the Legislation Bill, because members have gone into a lot of the detail that is contained in this bill. I would like to commend the Regulations Review Committee for the work it has put into this bill, and to commend the chair of that committee, Charles Chauvel, for his work.

This may seem like a very technical bill, and in many ways it is, but it is an incredibly important piece of legislation. It really cuts to the heart of how it is that people understand the laws that we make in this House—that they are accessible, that they are written in plain English that people can understand, and that we get rid of some of the archaic language. So modernising and making our legislation more accessible is something that Labour is all in favour of.

The ability of people to engage with what we do here and understand the laws we are making that govern their lives is incredibly important. There is plenty of scope for us to reform how it is that we make laws as legislators in this country. This piece of legislation that we have before us is a start. It is certainly not the end of the reform agenda in terms of legislation and where we could go, but there are certainly some very good starts in here. For this reason Labour is happy to commend this legislation to the House.

It is a great pleasure to take a very brief call today on the Legislation Bill. I commend the work of Charles Chauvel and also the work he does on the Justice and Electoral Committee, which I am on with him. As the Hon Chris Finlayson observed in his opening introductory remarks, legislation, not case law, is the major source of law in the land today, and this legislation has assumed increasing importance for Governments, and, thereby, the people ruled by those Governments, over the last 200 years. It is exceptionally important, as many speakers have pointed out, that this legislation is easily understood and is easily accessible.

This Legislation Bill is the Government’s main response to two Law Commission reports. The first Law Commission report focused on these very issues of how to make our Acts of Parliament more up to date, more accessible, and more user-friendly, so people can find the legislation appropriate to them and understand the law appropriate to them. The other report looked at the status and function of the Parliamentary Counsel Office. All members of the House sitting in select committees appreciate the work done by the Parliamentary Counsel Office.

The Legislation Bill will modernise and improve the law relating to the publication of legislation, which is an essential function of the Parliamentary Counsel Office. As we have heard, the bill brings together for the first time the law on drafting, on publication, and on disallowance of legislation. It ensures that legislation is made available to the public appropriately and conveniently. So basically we come back to this major theme of clearer, easier access to appropriate law for the people of this country. I commend the bill to the House.

I call Raymond Huo. I understand it is a 5-minute call. I will ring a bell at 4 minutes.

That is my understanding.

Hon Trevor Mallard: It had better not be that long.

RAYMOND HUO: Indeed, indeed. I would like to follow the good spirit of my parliamentary colleagues this morning and take a short call to support this Legislation Bill.

Hon Member: Not any point speaking if you’re not going to vote. Just abstain.

RAYMOND HUO: Thank you, that honourable member. The purpose of this bill is to modernise and improve the laws relating to publication, availability, reprinting, revision, and official versions of legislation and bring them together in a single piece of legislation. The Law Commission put it very well when it stated in its report that “The state has an obligation to make law accessible to citizens. People have to obey the law; ignorance of it is no excuse. So they need to be able to find it and understand it. They will not respect the law if they cannot. Moreover, law which is not accessible is expensive in terms of both time and money.” So the objects of this legislation are to make sure that the law is accessible to people and that the content of what is printed is reliable in terms of what this House has passed.

At the Regulations Review Committee the bill was carefully considered because it deals with important constitutional matters. The bill reflects the serious work that has gone into modernising the rules around legislation. The bill provides unelected officials greater power to change the words agreed on by Parliament as the law of New Zealand. These provisions are carefully constructed to ensure that the powers are limited to only obvious errors.

One concern shared by a number of parliamentary colleagues, as expressed by the Hon Maryan Street at the bill’s first reading, is about any proposed changes to the disallowance mechanisms. At the select committee we looked closely at the regulations and disallowance changes proposed in this bill. The provisions in the bill that separate the publication and the disallowance of delegated legislation, and the broad definition of “disallowable instrument”, ensure that there will be parliamentary oversight of the use of delegated powers by the executive, and this will make it more difficult to avoid disallowance.

This bill establishes the practice of having revision bills, which will be overseen by the Attorney-General, and the bill will provide for the revision of the wording, numbering, title, etc. of Acts of Parliament. The aim of such bills will be to simplify New Zealand legislation and make it easier to access and understand. The bill establishes a 3-yearly programme of systematic revisions of Acts. One of the other changes being proposed under this bill is to modernise drafting style, or plain English drafting. They are good initiatives, and, as the Law Commission said in its report, the State has an obligation to make law accessible to its citizens. Thank you

I am proud to support the Legislation Bill in the second reading. It has been well canvassed this morning, and I do not intend to say anything further than to commend it.

Bill read a second time.