Brown SimeonSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you Madam Chair. I take this opportunity to talk about my Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 244. This is submitted in great generosity to the member. I'm trying to assist the Government the Labour Party by basically trying to strip out the bureaucracy. So this particular Supplementary Order Paper deletes clause 8 which is about the plain language officers. I'd like to ask the member firstly did I write that SOP in plain language? I'd love to have her assessment of that just for the laughs.But the key point is that we've talked a lot about the increased bureaucracy. The member doesn't even know how many additional staff. She got up and she said Look some agencies already have some people who do this but I don't really know which ones they are and I don't know which ones don't." And so therefore we could have dozens and dozens and dozens of people employed in this role to effectively be plain language police; to go along as Mr Brownlee put it looking over the shoulders of all of the public servants out there checking to make sure they're using the right plain language and sifting through the documents to ensure that everything is—Hon David Bennett: They'll be known as "Sifters".SIMEON BROWN: They'll be the "Sifters" they'll be the "Readers" they'll be the plain language police who go through. But what we know is this will be more people more cost and more taxpayers' money and ultimately that's what it comes down to: more taxpayers' money.And the member talked about the benefit. Well there's no cost-benefit analysis done to actually determine what the problem is what the cost impact of that problem is if this solution solves it and if so if the benefit is greater than the cost. And that's a pretty basic type of analysis which should be undertaken by the member to actually identify because the costs will be able to be accounted for. You'll be able to work out what the cost is. But if you're talking about 88 departments with three or four extra staff—250 people at $100000 each—you're quickly in the millions of dollars here. We're not talking about small change now we're talking about tens of millions of dollars for the taxpayer to have to cover. And that's tax money which isn't in people's pockets to help pay for bread and petrol and food and milk and all of those things. So ultimately this is a real issue. And so the question that needs to be asked is: are there other ways this problem could be solved?And so I'm suggesting that actually bringing in hundreds of more staff—yes some of them may be already in particular other departments but hundreds of more staff—at a cost of millions of dollars is not the answer. Therefore I'm proposing that we delete clause 8 delete reference to "plain language officers" and therefore the requirements—which as Mr Brownlee pointed out aren't actually requirements; they're just sort of nice words and—Hon Gerry Brownlee: Suggestions.SIMEON BROWN: —suggestions to maybe do these things if you feel like it. I mean if I was a chief executive of a Public Service department I'd be just saying "Yeah forget this. Thank you very much Parliament for writing that bill. It doesn't put any requirements upon me to do anything." and chuck it in the bin. But the reality is we know that the diligent chief executives of our Public Service departments will want to be seen to be doing the work and they'll be hiring people—Hon Gerry Brownlee: You can't say "Thank you Parliament."; you say "I thank the Parliament."SIMEON BROWN: —well that's right "I thank the Parliament"—will be writing all of these things down and doing all of this work. So I ask the member to—and I'm asking all members in this Parliament actually—to support my Supplementary Order Paper to remove the requirements for plain language officers. I hope the ACT Party will support my Supplementary Order Paper thank you. I hope the Green Party will too. I'm asking Te Paati Māori—Hon Gerry Brownlee: They're closed minds over there.SIMEON BROWN: Very closed minds on the other side but this is genuinely in the interest to improve this piece of legislation to reduce the bureaucracy. Look I mean I still wouldn't support the bill even if this Supplementary Order Paper was passed but in the interest of trying to reduce the bureaucracy trying to get it under control—Hon Willie Jackson: Oh OK!SIMEON BROWN: —trying to actually respect taxpayers' dollars Mr Willie Jackson—something which the Government is failing to do every single day.Hon Willie Jackson: Give me an example.SIMEON BROWN: Well what about the Public Interest Journalism Fund or your merger of RNZ and TVNZ—hundreds of millions of dollars. I could give you example after example Mr Jackson. And this is the latest example and this is a Supplementary Order Paper which helps to solve the problem. But I know on the other side there's no interest when it comes to trying to reduce cost—no interest. "It's taxpayers' money who cares. It's taxpayers' money someone will pay. Oh we'll just increase taxes. Go for the KiwiSaver tax. Find some money somewhere else." That's what this Government does. And so we say no. And this is something which I suggest the members across the House vote in favour of my Supplementary Order Paper to remove the requirement of plain language officers.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): Point of order Madam Chair. I don't like to do this but I need to point out to the committee in the interests of plain language that my colleague just made a statement where he said that State service chief executives would be saying "Thank you Parliament." You can't do that. It would be—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Thank you—thank you. That is not a point of order."