Webb DuncanDr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): It's a little bit sad to hear such a—Marja Lubeck: Diatribe.Dr DUNCAN WEBB: —diatribe. Because this is actually a really good and serious bill and yet some members around the House have taken it as an opportunity to show how much they know about Shakespeare or Oxford commas. I'd much rather have a discussion about the merits of the bill because it is a really good bill. I guess it's all very nice for the members on the other side to say Oh well what we should do is make people speak and understand better English." but the fact of the matter is that we have a really diverse population and if we want to include others we need to communicate at an appropriate level. It's not good enough to look out at the masses as Simon O'Connor would and say "Well if you're not good enough to lift yourself up to my level of education then you don't deserve to understand." This is a bill that says the law and Government is for everyone and it's the job of Government to come to the people not for the people to expect to understand complex language. So this is actually about real democracy.We've got people throughout our Public Service now who work hard to make sure that they are accessible and understandable to members of the public. This is a further and welcome step down that road because we absolutely need a legislative solution to this problem because it is a problem. And whilst it's fair to say that a Government of the day or a department or a ministry could direct by executive action better English and plain English the fact of the matter is that that remains optional. We as a Parliament want to say "Plain English isn't optional." Plain English isn't a decision for the executive plain English is a dictate of this House. We require our public servants in our Public Service to take into account who is expected—and the example of the warrant of arrest is a really good example because we know that the people who are subject to a summons are often people with poor education and poor literacy. And so it's entirely appropriate that if we are going to put out a summons that it should say in clear letters at the outset: "You must turn up to court on this day."—that's pretty plain that's an example—not: "You are hereby summoned to attend." That's not plain English.We want plain English in all of our documents. The more important the documents are the plainer it should be; the more widely circulated the documents are the plainer it should be. So that's what this is about; it's about saying "These documents take into account who they're aimed at. Write these documents so that those people will understand." It's said that ignorance of the law is no excuse and it's true. But it should certainly not be the case that we use that in some perverse way so that people don't understand and by accident or by some perverse trickery find themselves on the wrong side of the law. This is about enabling people to be on the right side of the law. It's a great bill. It's been far too long in coming and I cannot believe that there's any members on the other side of the House who seem to think in some way it's a good idea not to aim for the highest—because that's what we do on this side of the House. That's what this member has done and today we're improving the law we're making it better and it's just as plain as that."