SpeechJAMIE STRANGE (Labour—Hamilton East): I'm not sure about other people in this House but I thought that the previous speaker Chris Bishop was a reasonably intelligent guy—up until the last 10 minutes where he spoke a whole lot of rubbish about this piece of legislation. He wasn't on the Governance and Administration Committee. We've heard from two National Party MPs in this debate neither of which were on the select committee—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): Order! Order! Order! It is not appropriate to refer to a member's presence or otherwise on a select committee unless you're referring directly to what they've talked about.JAMIE STRANGE: I apologise Mr Speaker. The previous speech—Simeon Brown: Point of order. Just in relation to that I didn't feel the need to go to the select committee because it was a waste of time.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): That is not a point of order and it's not appropriate to interrupt the speaker with a frivolous interjection like that.JAMIE STRANGE: Thank you Mr Speaker. So look if there was ever an example of the National Party being out of touch with New Zealanders that speech there was the prime example.What we're talking about here is making the Public Service more accessible to New Zealanders. I don't understand—why is that such a bad thing? Why does that grate so heavily on the National Party? Listening to that previous speech it sounds like the National Party they actually want to get rid of the whole Public Service. You know they're talking about—well basically they're not valuing the Public Service. They're not valuing the Public Service. And I hope that speakers who come will actually reaffirm our faith in the Public Service because I haven't heard anything to reaffirm that.Now in terms of the select committee process as a member of the select committee I'd like to acknowledge the work the select committee did on this bill. The work was extensive; other speakers have talked about that and I will go into some of those details. I would like to acknowledge the chair of the committee Ian McKelvie—a very fair and experienced chair who does an excellent job on that committee—and also all the members.The Labour member who brought this bill to the House Rachel Boyack—this is an issue she is very passionate about. We heard that in her speech and I saw that in the select committee. What I saw was her engaging with officials at an extensive level to ensure that we have the best piece of legislation. This was a select committee process which provides faith to the process of select committees in terms of amending legislation.I just want to start by talking about the importance of accessibility in New Zealand as it relates to this bill. Then I'll go into some of the aspects in the bill and also some of the submissions that we heard.It is vital that every New Zealander has access to our democratic systems. We see examples of people not being able to access systems all the time. We see it in areas like transport we see it at times in education but we also see it in terms of the language that some Government agencies use in order for people to engage with those agencies and at times some of the processes that they use.I'm sure that many of us MPs in the House would agree with me that we have constituents come into our offices who are unable to access the support that they need—you know the democratic support that the deserve as New Zealanders—from Government agencies. At times constituents—they tend to get stuck and they then end up coming to us and one of the key roles that we play would be to support constituents with that Government agency. Now a lot of that work can be averted if those Government agencies engage in plain language with the constituents.So look it's an important piece of legislation. The Opposition talk about the cost-benefit analysis; well I want to say to the Opposition: what's the cost-benefit analysis of not doing this? You know what is the cost of not having plain language—of not having plain language? What we're going to have is we're going to have constituents in all of our electorates attempting to engage with Government agencies not being able to engage and the time cost and all of that. So I'm not sure the Opposition have thought that through. And I hear a few comments coming and I look forward to the speech of the member who was on the select committee coming soon. He might shed some light on that. But the reality is that there is a huge cost to our Public Service of people not being able to engage in an accessible manner. That's one of the key things that this bill seeks to do.This bill promotes the use of plain language in official documents and websites. Comprehensive information from Government organisations is a basic democratic right. If people are not able to access our democratic institutions then our democracy starts to fall down. It is absolutely important that we maintain our strong sense of democracy.If we look at the geopolitics around the world there does tend to be a little bit of an attack on liberal democracies. It's important that we maintain our strong liberal democracy—absolutely passionate about that. This bill some would say is only a small little bill; it's not important; you know wasting the House's time. Well I would argue that New Zealanders being able to access Government agencies enforces our democracy enforces peoples' trust in the institutions and enforces the services that we have and strengthens the democracy that we have in New Zealand which is absolutely vital. As I mentioned before there are some turbulent times around the world at the moment. I just want to touch on a couple of the submissions. I want to start with Blind Low Vision New Zealand. So Blind Low Vision New Zealand they submitted to our committee and I just want to highlight a couple of points that they made because I think that would be for the benefit of the House. They said that We believe that plain language writing is an essential part of prioritising accessibility across the public service." They were obviously in support of this bill quite clearly. They highlight that "Plain language makes communications more accessible rather than fully accessible." They say "It's not easy for Government agencies and Crown departments to write all new publications forms and publicly distributed documents in a 'clear concise well-organised manner' " but they need that support to do that. And so as well as bringing this into legislation the Government are providing support for those agencies to do that.Another submission from the National Disabled Students' Association and just a point that they highlight there where they say—where they highlight—that "The Plain Language bill will support equity for accessing essential information." And I have talked about accessibility in this bill and there's another key topic and that's equity—that is equity for all New Zealanders.Any person in New Zealand is only just a split second away from potentially moving into a position where they need extra support. You know someone could have a major health issue someone could unfortunately be in a car accident—any one of us in this House is just a split second away from struggling either physically or mentally or emotionally to be able to access Government services. I think it's important that we all put ourselves in the shoes of New Zealanders who do struggle to access these services for whatever reason.A second point they raise is that this bill "will ease the burden of disabled person's advocacy." And finally they say it will "create more transparent and accountable agencies strengthening Government relations with the disabled community." Now the Public Service have done a lot of work in terms of you know already strengthening their relations with the disabled community. This is another step on their journey. It's an important piece of legislation.Another submission here—the Public Health Association of New Zealand. So we heard from them in the committee. They said that "If implemented effectively [this bill] will allow better access to information and services for all New Zealanders." which is obviously what I've been highlighting in my speech. "Māori and Pacific adults are less privileged within the system of English language than non-Māori non-Pacific adults and for many New Zealanders English is not their only language."Now we heard from a previous speaker Naisi Chen; she highlighted this point really well and I'd also like to touch on it: the fact that for a lot New Zealanders English is not their first language. It's absolutely vital that they have the ability to access Government agencies to access information in their language. We are a diverse multicultural society and that's one of our strengths. It's important that we continue to work in this area to enable people for whom English is not their first language to be able to access Government agencies.I will just touch on a final submission the Parents of Vision Impaired NZ. They highlight the fact that "The bill would improve the effectiveness and accountability of the public service by requiring communications to be clear and accessible to the public." In terms of the work that they do they link in with a number of submissions—we had many submitters who highlighted the importance of accessible information.I am confused that the Opposition are not supporting this; I'm disappointed that they're not supporting this. But this is the party that stand up for all New Zealanders in terms of public service.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The member's time has expired."