Boyack RachelRACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): I'm pleased to begin the debate in the committee of the whole House stage of my bill the Plain Language Bill. The purpose of the Plain Language Bill is to improve the effectiveness and accountability of Public Service agencies and Crown agents and to improve the accessibility of documents that they make available to the public.New Zealand is at its best when we can all understand and easily participate in our democracy. The Plain Language Bill is important because clear information from Government organisations is a basic democratic right. The bill will make it easier for members of the public to engage with public sector agencies. This bill will make a real difference to how our Government agencies communicate with the public. For the purpose of the bill plain language means language that is appropriate to the intended audience; and clear concise and well organised. The definition talks specifically about recognised guidelines of plain language writing and it's important I note that we place the obligations on defining those guidelines with the Public Service Commissioner. The Plain Language Bill requires a reporting agency to use plain language and ensure that relevant documents for which it is responsible use plain language. A document for which a reporting agency is responsible is relevant if the document is in English; the intended audience is considered to be the general public; it provides information about what services are provided by or on behalf of a reporting agency or information about how to obtain those services. A relevant document" means a document that is necessary to obtain a service file a tax return provides information about a benefit or service or explains to the public how to comply with Public Service requirements. The select committee made specific reference to documents that incorporate te reo Māori. We noted that the Public Service incorporates te reo Māori in many documents and we do not want to discourage agencies from using te reo Māori in their documents. We inserted clause 4B(3) to make it clear that the Act would not restrict a reporting agency from including te reo Māori in any relevant document. The committee also included clause 4B(4)(a) which outlines that a standard form or template may be considered a relevant document. This is because these documents may be used to communicate with a significant section of the public. On this matter I've had representation made to me as an electorate MP about these particular documents such as documents that are sent from Work and Income and Immigration New Zealand that are template documents that are often difficult for people to understand and require some level of interpretation from an advocate. It was important to the committee that these documents were included. However a standard email that a public servant may be sending to a member of the public just in a back and forth style email exchange would not be covered. So we made that clarification clear. I also want to note that the bill does not apply to documents under the Official Information Act just because they are subject to the Official Information Act. Documents that are internal documents between public sector agencies and for example Ministers or other agencies are not considered to be public documents in the bill. I'm looking forward to taking more calls throughout this debate on further parts. I'm looking forward to hearing questions and looking forward to the debates in the House on this bill. On that note I'll finish this call and come back shortly."