Whaitiri MekaHon MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Te Māngai o Te Whare tēnā koe. Thank you Mr Speaker. I'm pleased to take a call on the Legislation Bill following that exceptional delivery by David Bennett that former Minister that just resumed his seat. The Legislation Bill is in its second reading and as previous contributors to the debate on this bill have said it is attempting to simplify being able to locate our secondary legislation. I hope it makes it a lot easier to read and this bill is attempting to do this. As previous members have said it was introduced under the former Minister Chris Finlayson. I want to acknowledge that. It was introduced in the House on 20 June 2017 and had its first reading on 5 December 2017 and there has been mention of the new members on this Justice Committee. What I wanted to do was not just reiterate what others have contributed but I actually wanted to talk about those that submitted on this bill and if you would indulge me—some of it's quite technical so I just want to highlight it—I'll go off cue.I want to acknowledge the nine—according to the departmental report—submitters to the Regulations Review Committee: the Clerk of the House of Representatives the New Zealand Law Society Local Government New Zealand the Chief Ombudsman Gregor Alexander Macaulay Stephen Turkington Greg Scobie and Glen Robins. Those individuals and organisations obviously have a passion for legislation in this House so I want to commend them for taking an interest and submitting.It's the amendments that the select committee—or the officials sorry having heard all the submitters that I want to acknowledge. I want to acknowledge the first submission that was under the title Access Reforms" and this came from the Clerk of the House when talking about clause 4(1)(e). What they suggested was amending references in clause 4(1)(e). You might rightly ask: so what does that mean—what's clause 4(1)(e)? Of course I wanted to know what 4(1)(e) was too. Clause 4(1)(e) as recommended by the Clerk of the House is to enable Parliament to maintain oversight to support parliamentary oversight and to enable the House of Representatives to support the House of Representatives—a simple clause but all adding to that commitment to making our laws simpler and easier but more importantly to access them. I want to acknowledge the Clerk of the House of Representatives.I then want to acknowledge the New Zealand Law Society who had an amendment around clause 76(1)(a). Of course we want to know what 76(1)(a) is. The New Zealand Law Society proposed removing the power for regulations made under clause 145 to exempt instruments from the publication requirement provided that the Chief Parliamentary Counsel can only exempt secondary legislation from the lodgement and publication obligations where the secondary legislation is already made available in some other way and only to the extent that this is consistent with the principle that the public should be able to access legislation at no or low cost. Again the New Zealand Law Society adds that all our laws should be publicly accessible and they go a bit further to say this should be at low to no cost. I want to thank the New Zealand Law Society for their suggested amendment.Finally in my short contribution again from the Clerk of the House in relation to clauses 114(a) and 118(1)—again what does this part of the bill do and what is the amendment they suggest? They suggested that we amend the bill to make it clear that any secondary legislation amended or replaced by the House under clause 118(1) is subjected to disallowance despite clauses 114(a).I want to acknowledge the submitters—these three that I've indicated. There was a whole lot of amendments made at the officials' end but of course these particular submitters—the Law Society the House of Representatives—have contributed to help shape the bill into what it is presented to the House today. I do want to thank them sincerely for their time and their effort to make our laws more publicly available—the low-cost principle that was introduced there—but also that it was accessible on a website that then everybody can access and so I commend this bill to the House."