SpeechNAISI CHEN (Labour): Thank you Mr Speaker. I am extremely disappointed that the member who has just resumed his seat Simeon Brown did not spend one single minute in our select committee as we were considering this bill. As the Opposition spokesperson on this matter I'm really really disappointed when you Mr Speaker have ably chaired the Governance and Administration Committee we had gone through all of these details giving so much attention making sure we had investigated all of the issues he just talked about but he chose to not show up and not participate in any of those conversations.Can I put it on record here that this bill will not necessarily create more positions in the public sector but it is just putting the responsibility of making sure that we communicate correctly and clearly to the public that we actually serve as a Government and to make sure in terms of the communication coming from each department that there is someone—who is probably already in a comms position at this moment—who will actually use their time officially to make sure that there is a standardised approach to all of the public when each Government department or agency communicates.Also there has been research from the United States that shows actually communicating in plain language will reduce the cost of human resource in terms of communicating with the public as well. If you've done it correctly the first time you won't need to actually have to pick up the phone and then call the Government agency or department for clarification again. That is really really simple math.Can I just take it back to my own personal experience. I have spent four years in the District Courts of Auckland being a court-appointed interpreter. In my daily job back at university I could see how unclearly written English language was affecting our migrant community. Every day in my electorate office I'm having to translate—reinterpret—all of the documents on our Government websites that we have to actually do. There is so much more barrier that we have created without communicating clearly and efficiently to everyone. That's probably one of the parts of the select committee process that I really enjoyed having conversations with the submitters on.Not only is it our migrant community those with English as their second language those perhaps that we need translation services to do—and on that note can I just also put on record as well that we heard submissions and through my own experience as well that if the original language was clear succinct and written in plain English and plain language then actually the quality of translation improves as well.We also were in conversation with those who were from the disability sector as well—those who needed for instance a screen reader. So being able to have websites with information clearly written that is not in convoluted ways of actually expressing ideas or giving instructions or explaining a process accessibility to that information increases as well.Also I just remember from my days in the court where if you actually gave statements in short succinct sentences more of the meaning gets conveyed through the interpreter. A lot of the time we have agencies for instance like the Citizens Advice Bureau who actually help a lot of our migrant communities a lot of people within our communities that have learning disabilities and that have other disabilities that hinder them from being able to access that information themselves. But even if we have this bill in place then the original context of which it is communicated in will actually help those who are the most vulnerable and most prevented from accessing that information in our community as well. It also cuts down the time of these services that are trying to help our communities who need translation services so they can spend that time helping people who need other types of assistance in their lives as well.Can I also just thank the officials as well who have worked with us on this bill that have gone through all of those details we were talking about making sure that for instance the Public Service Commission had the capability but also knew that they had the right legislative imperatives in place in this bill to make sure that they could do their jobs properly. We tested many different scenarios in terms of whether there would be a legal obligation and we landed that there shouldn't but there should be a reporting within the public sector so that we could monitor the standard in which all public sector agencies communicate.We talked for instance—and I know Mr Woodhouse contributed to this—in terms of personal or technical communication. Firstly on the personal side a letter to an individual we decided not to put into this legislation because we know that sometimes communication to an individual needed to be very very specific needed to lay out all of the details of their personal circumstances and we needed our Public Service to be able to give them the right and the most accurate information possible.The other one we had discussed in a lot of detail was actually the issuing of standard guidance. One particular industry sector that we had particularly used as an example was the immigration industry where the office of Immigration New Zealand would be issuing standardised advice and directions for immigration consultants. We wondered whether communication to a class of immigration consultants would count as public communication. Through rigorous conversation and debate I think in the end we landed that we would not include that in the bill because we realised that we needed to issue very technical guidance even though this advice was public is published on the internet that anyone else who might be clients of these advisers who might be someone who was going through an immigration process themselves had access to these documents but we still decided that that needed to be of a level of technicality that we wouldn't include it in the bill.I think we had a discussion about the tax guidance as well that yes if it's on the website and it's intended for just the public for normal laypeople to read then yes that would come under the bill and that would have to be written in plain language. However if it was a specific piece of direction that was aimed at tax consultants at accountants at tax lawyers as well that wouldn't be counted. So there would be a level of technicality that could still be communicated. Then at the same time if there was a criteria to judge that if this was open to communication to everyone else that would be written in plain language.I also particularly enjoyed in select committee the conversation around whether te reo would be included in this bill. Te reo obviously as we all know is an official New Zealand language and so is sign language but we did decide that we would not touch on te reo in this bill either just to make sure that the English communication that the Government or the public sector provides to the public would be something that would be written in just plain English and that any other te reo words or te reo phrases that happens in Government communications would not fall under this bill.Can I also touch on the last point which is that I think throughout this whole entire conversation—indeed so far in the debate—one phrase that has resonated in my mind is that communication is an art. We as politicians should know that better than anyone else—that clear concise communication is good for everyone in terms of whether we are conveying information or we're conveying a message. In our communities there are lots and lots of people who need us to communicate clearly for them. Just as my colleague Rachel Boyack has said as well it's sometimes a matter of life and death that we actually need the website; we need our public servants to be communicating clearly so that not only is it a matter of accessibility and it's a matter of equity but at the same time it's a matter of efficiency as well. So this bill will benefit everyone in terms of cost savings in terms of efficiency in terms of that emotional stress of even though you might be reading it not understanding. If you have English as a second language as I know in my family many of my family have then in that situation this bill will be really really helpful. So I would invite all members of this House to come into the shoes of our community and to understand how important this bill is for us. So on that note I commend this bill to the House.