Finlayson Christopher: Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFinlayson Christopher: Social Security Legislation Rewrite Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 10 May 2016. Volume:713;Page:10901. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General): On a day when we should all be rejoicing what a negative and mealy-mouthed contribution from Carmel Sepuloni. I was expecting much better from her than nothing more than pettifogging criticisms of what is in the words of David Clark the most significant rewrite in 50 years. It is timely that we have this rewrite because the Social Security Act 1964 is a shambles. It is unintelligible. It requires legions of lawyers in the Ministry of Social Development to go like soothsayers through the legislation and its amendments to try to discern its meaning. The public do not know what it means in a critically important area of law and that is why we are doing it. It is something that has been commended to this House by retired Supreme Court judges by the Law Commission and by academics on many occasions.It is a tribute to this excellent Minister for Social Development and her wonderful team of lawyers at the ministry and the great team at the Parliamentary Counsel Office that we have reached this stage. So instead of mindless criticism from Carmel Sepuloni we in this House should be rejoicing. We should be supporting the rewrite of legislation across all fields that is out of date because it is the fundamental right of the citizen to know what his or her obligations or rights are in legislation.We can do revisions under the Legislation Act 2012 and I will shortly be bringing to the House a very interesting revision. But this is not a simple revision. This is if you like a revision-plus. There are a couple of matters that were required to be included to bring the legislation up to date and this bill is an example of the kind of work this House should be undertaking.Lest anyone think that the rewriting of legislation is some kind of cold arid exercise it actually goes to the heart of a parliamentary democracy. A senior English judge once analysed the rule of law in eight sub-rules. One of his sub-rules was that the law must be accessible and so far as possible intelligible clear and predictable. A very wise person who served this House for many many years the former Chief Parliamentary Counsel the late George Tanner QC once said: “A state in which people cannot plainly understand the laws might as well be a lawless state.” So here we are.It is a great day for Parliament that we are dealing with this legislation to introduce what could be called a plain English approach to complex and often convoluted legislation. Too much of our legislation is wordy and hard to understand. Mind you it is going to take a lot to beat this real shocker from the United Kingdom contained in the Banking Act 1979 Appeals Procedure (England and Wales)Regulations 1979 which says: “Any reference in these regulations to a regulation is a reference to a regulation contained in these regulations.” I mean that is exactly the sort of rubbish that all too often is put in the statute book. It means nothing and therefore one has to employ lawyers to interpret that kind of garbage and although I am very much in favour of lawyers getting a fair share of the fees I think that that kind of reference is simply nonsense.So my congratulations go to Mrs Tolley an outstanding Minister for Social Development who has done such a wonderful job of pushing this legislation reform through. There are no votes in it but it is extremely important to maintain the structure of our legislation and if necessary undertake a leviathan rewrite. Mrs Tolley has done what many many Ministers in the past have failed to do. She has grasped the nettle and I am so very very proud of her.The second matter I want to just refer to is my section 7 report. Mrs Tolley did say and it was a fair enough point that the provisions relating to blind people—the totally blind—have been included in the legislation from time immemorial but when we did the rewrite it was an opportunity to go through the legislation even though it is a rewrite and say: “Well let’s just kick the tyres in Bill of Rights terms to see that nothing breaches the Bill of Rights.” There was this issue that arose and I hope the select committee will take a look at it and perhaps give the House an opinion.Clause 33 deals with the supported living payment on the grounds of restricted work capacity or total blindness and sets out the requirements. I also refer honourable members to schedule 4 on the rate of benefits and particularly to Part 3 of that schedule which deals with the supported living payment. Clause 1(e) of that part sets out the payments to a beneficiary but further on clause 1 says: “in computing the income of any beneficiary receiving a supported living payment under section 33 for the purpose of this schedule MSD must—(a) disregard that part of the beneficiary’s income (not exceeding $20 a week) earned by the beneficiary’s own efforts; and (b) disregard all of the income of a totally blind beneficiary earned by the beneficiary’s own efforts.”So on the face of it there would appear to be an issue that engages the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act substantively. It may be understandable but in New Zealand Bill of Rights Act terms there does appear to be a discrimination between various classes of groups suffering from a disability. Individuals who are totally blind are eligible for certain entitlements that people with other disabilities are not entitled to so that is why I reached the conclusion that the distinction materially disadvantages people with disabilities other than total blindness. So that is the reason why the section 7 report was produced although it was produced in the knowledge that the provisions have been in the social security legislation for quite some time.I hope that there will be other examples of rewrites in the months and years to come. Both parties have done it in Government. In the Labour Government Mrs King when she was the Minister of Justice kicked off the reform of the Limitation Act. That was a piece of legislation that was so lousy that the Court of Appeal was saying: “We can’t do anything with this legislation. It’s beyond repair so far as the judges are concerned. There needs to be work done.” That is why Mrs King when she was the Minister of Justice got on with reforming it and got the Law Commission to look at it and the result is we have a Limitation Act that is now fit for purpose. So these things do matter.Keeping our legislation up to date should not be the cause of that biting negativism - type speech that we heard from Carmel Sepuloni. We as parliamentarians should be very pleased this sort of thing has happened. As I said law commissioners have told us to do it judges have told us to do it and now we are actually doing it—the first rewrite of social security legislation in 50 years. I have no doubt at all given the gruesome smile by the Green MP sitting down the back that we are about to endure another negative speech on the subject. But I say to her as I say to all in the House in the immortal words of Mrs Thatcher: “Rejoice rejoice. This is indeed a great day.”