McClay Todd: Legislation Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
McClay Todd: Legislation Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 05 December 2012. Volume:686;Page:7259. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) 
: 
 I like this piece of legislation because it brings simplicity to and reduces unnecessary complexity of cumbersome processes that often come out of this House. I think it was the at the time president of the European Commission in Europe Jacque Delors from France who said that Governments should do less but what they do they should do better. And as far as this Legislation Bill is concerned I think very much this goes a long way to helping bring the legislation that this Parliament creates closer to the people of New Zealand. 
The Legislation Bill intends to “modernise and improve the law regarding the publication availability reprinting revision and official versions of legislation”. But all MPs in this House at one time or another would have constituents come to them and say: “Well I hear in the media what you’ve done. I was able to have a look and see what the legislation says.” but it does not make any sense to them. So I think it is important that we replace the Statutes Drafting and Compilation Act of 1920. I am not sure whether it has had revision in that period of time but 1920 is quite some time ago and the world has certainly moved on. In particular I recognise that the changes made in this legislation will have a big impact. “The establishment of a three-yearly programme of systematic revision of Acts”—well that is quite important. Indeed if this had been in place earlier then perhaps one of the Acts it is replacing like the Act drafted in 1920 would have been updated previously and we would not need to do what we are doing today. 
I want to say that a couple of things are very important to all New Zealanders. The clear accessibility of law I think is a fundamental part of the rule of law and it is because people need to understand the legislation that we pass here in this House. For this to happen Parliament needs to focus and do its job properly. Waffly and imprecise wording is of absolutely no use to anybody. The Law Commission has rightly said that our statute law as a whole currently lacks cohesion is untidy and can be difficult to understand. I want to recognise that the Parliamentary Counsel Office has gone to great lengths to try to work within this but it is important that we use clear English in our bills so that they can be more easily understood. 
From research I want to give an example of how you can get it so very wrong. One real shocker from the United Kingdom is contained in the Banking Act 1979 Appeals Procedure (England and Wales) Regulations 1979. The Act of Parliament says: “Any reference in these regulations to a regulation is a reference to a regulation contained in these regulations.” Well actually that is quite precise in so far as how the court would interpret it but there will be people at home watching on their TV or listening on their radio to this who will be concerned greatly at what that means. So is it not wonderful that we do not have to grapple with that in New Zealand legislation? This bill will ensure that in so far as Parliament doing its job properly and appropriately is concerned never will we have something that says: “Any reference in these regulations to a regulation is a reference to a regulation contained in these regulations.” I might just leave it there. I commend this bill to the House.