Boyack RachelPLAIN LANGUAGE BILLSecond ReadingRACHEL BOYACK (Labour—Nelson): I move That the Plain Language Bill be now read a second time. It's good to take the first call on the second reading of the Plain Language Bill. The bill has now been reported back from the Governance and Administration Committee. I particularly want to acknowledge the select committee who did a lot of detailed work on the bill; officials from the Parliamentary Counsel Office; also the Public Service Commission who provided extremely useful advice on the bill; and a good number of submitters who submitted to the committee and have helped to make this bill a much better more useful bill now that has been reported back from select committee. I'm going to talk through a number of the changes that the select committee made because they are numerous.First though I do just want to note the importance of plain language in our public documents and actually in all documents. One of the pieces of information that experts on plain language often talk about is that for those of us who have the opportunity and privilege often to attend education institutes like universities we often are trained to use academic language and to reach a word limit and often we need to have that trained out of us when we go into the working world. That was my own experience in my first public sector role. As a young graduate I had a communications role and was sent on a number of plain-language courses run by an organisation in Wellington called Write Ltd who do an excellent job of training many public servants in Wellington and across New Zealand and they're experts on plain language.What that's taught me was the importance of ensuring we think about the reader we think about the person who is going to be reading that document and the importance of them being able to understand it. As an electorate MP it's an issue that does come across my desk a lot. People will often bring forms in letters from the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) from Immigration New Zealand that are challenging for them to understand—and particularly our migrant community. I've also had situations where migrants have been sent emails that actually have had a life and death component to them where they needed to exit from a dangerous situation and the documents were difficult for them to understand. It goes to the heart of this issue which is that all citizens of New Zealand or residents of New Zealand should have the right to be able to understand what is being asked of them and understand their rights and obligations as citizens and residents of this country.So I'm just going to take the House through a number of the changes that we made at select committee just so that we can explain further how this bill has changed coming back at this point. Mr Speaker while I know I wouldn't normally bring you into the debate I do want to acknowledge you and your chairing of the committee and your role in these changes as well.So first of all I'll begin with clause 4 which sets out what documents must use plain language. It was important to us that we were very explicit about which documents would be used and which ones wouldn't. One of the areas where we've made it clear in the bill is that for example a document that would go through say a Cabinet process—just because it was subject to the Official Information Act doesn't automatically make it a requirement for it to be in plain language. We're very clear that it was about the purpose of that document in terms of the readers and I'll just actually take the House through that particular section in terms of what documents must use plain language.So in the legislation a document for which a reporting agency is responsible is a relevant document for the purpose of plain language if the document is in English—although I'll make some commentary around that a little bit later—and if the agency considers that the intended audience for the document is the public generally rather than just one or more person. The document also provides information about what services are provided by or on behalf of a reporting agency or information about how to obtain those services including any document that is necessary to obtain any of those services or provides information about filing registering or lodging information with or giving information to a reporting agency or explains to the public how to comply with a requirement that a reporting agency administers enforces or provides information to the public about a requirement that a reporting agency administers or enforces that may affect their rights or interests or provides information as part of a public education initiative. We made a specific note in the bill that a department publishing on its internet site a guide to the services it provides would also be covered.So we also made a number of changes specifically around the definition of plain language" and how that will be achieved. One of the changes we made was that the definition talks specifically about recognised guidelines of plain-language writing. It's important I note in the second reading speech—and I'll also raise it again in the committee of the whole House—that we placed the obligations on defining those guidelines with the Public Service Commissioner. We've put that role at that heart of those guidelines.One of the points that we've noted as a committee is the importance of using internationally recognised definitions of plain language in putting those guidelines in place. One of the reasons that we've done that specifically is that there is currently an International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) standard being developed internationally on what is plain language. So we've written the bill in a way that when that ISO standard does make its way through that process and becomes an internationally accepted standard the bill is written so that it enables the commissioner to reference that ISO standard. And that's the appropriate guideline to use once that standard has been fulfilled. I note that Write Ltd who I mentioned earlier have participated in the development of that ISO standard so we will have New Zealand influence over it.So the other matter I just wanted to note around the commissioner's role is that the original bill said that the commissioner may issue guidelines. Actually what the committee felt was that it was better for us to place the onus on the commissioner but that they must issue guidelines. So the commissioner must issue guidelines but then we have given some more I guess room for the commissioner to be able to actually do that issuing of those guidelines.The other component we've included is the importance of accessibility within those guidelines. We heard from a number of submitters from disability groups who made us very good submissions about how important it is for them to understand information that they have access to. One of the examples I'll use—and I'll just briefly mention that we made specific noting of template-type letters that are used for example to inform people of their rights and obligations—and an obvious one would be template letters that go out to people on behalf of the Ministry of Social Development. I had representation made to me by a constituent who is—Simeon Brown: Was it a submission or was it to you?RACHEL BOYACK: —vision-impaired. Yes Mr Brown they did submit. What she explained to me was that there's a very basic use of a PDF template letter where you can allow it to actually read out information to you. It hadn't been implemented within a particular letter that she received and as a result she couldn't read the letter. She rang MSD spent a long time on hold and MSD refused to read the letter out to her and told her she needed to get somebody to read it to her. All of this is a transaction cost that actually would have saved her and MSD a lot of time if she had been able to have a reader put on that. So it's one of the reasons why we've said that the commissioner must include those accessibility guidelines for exactly that type of situation that presents itself.I could speak for another few minutes on this because there's much more to say so I'm looking forward to further contributions. There are many more changes that the committee has made which I look forward to having deep discussion on during the committee of the whole House. I thank everyone for their participation in considering this bill and I commend it to the House."