Chauvel Charles: Legislation Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Chauvel Charles: Legislation Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 16 October 2012. Volume:684;Page:5871. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 Part 2 of the Legislation Bill is divided into three subparts—a bit like Gaul. Subpart 1 deals with requirements and responsibilities for publishing legislation. The Chief Parliamentary Counsel will be required under the bill to arrange for the publication of copies of every Act enacted after the commencement of the legislation copies of all legislative instruments—which is the term that is used in the legislation broadly to describe delegated legislation—any reprints of Acts and legislative instruments any reprints of regulations made before the commencement of the section and finally reprints of imperial enactments and imperial subordinate legislation that remain in force as part of the laws of New Zealand. 
The innovation that will be required by the bill is that not only is there to be a definitive written copy of the legislation which is to be the responsibility for publication of the Parliamentary Counsel Office but there will be an authoritative electronic version of legislation as well. Clause 6(2) requires that every Act must be published in electronic form after enactment and clause 6(3) requires there to be a copy of every legislative instrument in electronic form. The rest of the clause carries on the scheme that I have begun to describe. Then there are provisions around availability sale of physical copies and availability of electronic versions. There are also provisions around the numbering of legislative instruments and notice of making legislative instruments all of which are sensible machinery provisions that will assist with the accessibility questions that were referred to in the debate concerning Part 1. 
One of the other things that the bill will enable when it is passed is a more logical way of accessing delegated legislation and that is certainly something that I think people will welcome generally. At the moment the regulations are well accessible if they are actual regulations in the strict legal sense of the term but there are a whole range of other types of delegated legislation that are much more difficult to access and it is hoped I think that the provisions of the bill will make that sort of thing much easier to locate and read. 
There is a sensible provision around the power to revoke or otherwise declare ineffective or no longer effective a legislative instrument. That is a power that the Governor-General will have on advice from the Attorney-General. The re-enactment of provisions around judicial notice of Acts regulations and legislative instruments and confirmation of the official status of both electronic and written versions of legislation—all those are very sensible provisions as I have said. Particularly in this age where a whole new generation has become quite accustomed to locating reading and using material that is not in printed form at all any more—it is all simply online—this is a useful probably overdue innovation. It is good that a number of years after the Law Commission recommendations around these matters we are finally moving to enact them. 
Subpart 2 of Part 2 deals with reprints. There are some sensible provisions around empowering the Chief Parliamentary Counsel to make changes around gender-neutral language and changes around updating references so that references for example to Her Majesty the Queen can be automatically changed to references to the Sovereign in keeping with contemporary usage and references are able to be changed automatically around the content of legislation and schedules. As I say they are all measures that make a lot of sense and ought to make for much more efficient updating of our body of laws. They are ones that we commend. 
Probably the most interesting part of Part 2 though is the provisions around revision bills which are contained in Subpart 3. 
Denis O’Rourke 
: Fascinating! 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: I know that my New Zealand First colleague is raring to speak on this particular issue. He is greatly excited by the notion of revision bills. But seriously the bill will require that the Attorney-General provide each new Parliament with a draft 3-yearly revision programme. The revision programme will be presented to the House as soon as practicable after it has been approved by the Government. 
Basically revision bills can do a number of things. They can revise the whole or part of one or more Acts and for that purpose combine or divide Acts or parts of Acts; they can adopt a title that is different from the title or titles of the Acts or parts of the Acts being revised; they can omit redundant and spent provisions and renumber and arrange provisions from Acts being revised or parts of Acts; they can make changes in language format and punctuation to achieve a clear consistent gender-neutral and modern style of expression; they can include new or additional purpose provisions outline or overview provisions examples diagrams graphics and flowcharts; they can include new or additional provisions alerting users of the revision to enactments that are not incorporated in the revision but are relevant to the subject matter of the revision; they can correct typographical punctuation and grammatical errors and other similar errors; they can make minor amendments to clarify Parliament’s intent or reconcile inconsistencies between provisions; they can update monetary amounts other than an amount specified for the purpose of jurisdiction or an offence penalty with regard to movements in the CPI; they can omit forms and schedules and instead authorise the matters in those forms and schedules to be prescribed by or under regulations; they can make consequential amendments to enactments that are not incorporated or are incorporated only in part in the revision; and they can include any necessary repeals savings and transitional provisions. 
Then there are some safeguards that are built into the legislation around revision bills so that they are not able to be misused. There has to be a certification that a bill is in fact a revision bill. The certifiers are to be the president of the Law Commission the Solicitor-General a retired judge nominated by the Attorney-General and the Chief Parliamentary Counsel. 
This provision relating to revision bills really is an important part of the legislation in respect of the objects that I referred to in my earlier contribution. It will allow for mechanical updating in a sensible way that is not provided for at the moment. It is really a very important piece of the bill. It is a subpart that the Regulations Review Committee considered in some detail. We did recommend some amendments which I am pleased to see are largely being adopted. One thing that is not dealt with in the bill but was dealt with in the Law Commission report is the necessity to come up with some new Standing Orders to facilitate the changes that will be made by Subpart 3 when revision bills become a reality. I am sure that the Attorney-General has given this careful consideration and is already working with the Office of the Clerk to ensure that these new Standing Orders are recommended to the Standing Orders Committee. They will be required. There was some suggestion that we ought to deal with these machinery Standing Order - type issues in the bill itself but we on advice agreed with the position that that was really a matter for the House. It was for the procedure of the House itself and it was something the Standing Orders Committee would need to come to in due course in order to operationalise. It will be I think a welcome move to see those provisions in particular and those new Standing Orders come into force and to see the very commendable innovations that Part 2 will enact.