SpeechSARAH PALLETT (Labour—Ilam): Thank you Madam Speaker. It is a genuine pleasure and privilege to rise in support of this Plain Language Bill. I have many reasons for my firm support of it which I will outline as clearly and concisely as possible. I'd like to commend Rachel Boyack for bringing this bill to the House. I understand that it has been in the tin for quite some time which might explain the amount of work that the admirable Governance and Administration Committee put into it and I will outline a few of the changes that they did undertake as I move through this speech. But it's important I think when we're looking at bills that come before the House to look at why we're doing them. It's obviously really important to have a clear understanding of why we do what we do and why we're here. I'm going to share a few quotes that I think really explain fully why this is important the first being from the former chairman of the National Consumer Council in the UK where the plain English campaign has been going for quite some time extremely successfully. Michael Shanks said Gobbledygook may indicate a failure to think clearly a contempt for one's clients or more probably a mixture of both." He goes on to say that a system that can't or won't communicate is not a safe basis for democracy. I first became really interested in plain language or plain English as I have a very old friend in the UK from many many years ago who's an extremely successful lawyer and absolutely passionate about ensuring that all of his clients—and everybody in the United Kingdom by extension from the work that he's doing to introduce plain language into legal documents—actually understands what it is that they're agreeing to when they sign a contract. He is passionate about ensuring that legal documents are fully accessible to his clients. He's deeply committed to removing gobbledegook jargon and misleading public information and that's what we're trying to do here. It isn't about dumbing down; it's about ensuring that everybody understands what we're saying. Some of the implications that we've heard as this morning has drawn on are equating clarity with dumbing down and that's pandering and clearly offensive. The bottom line is if you're unable to explain your ideas clearly and concisely you probably don't understand them yourself. I'll give you a couple of examples. In my profession as a midwife we would use acronyms and jargon all the time and it was something that I absolutely discouraged in my students because although it does make for shorter notes it doesn't make for more easily understandable notes and it can also lead to confusion. So an example would be "IUD" which some people might be familiar with as a form of reversible long-term contraception. But actually IUD is also an acronym for intrauterine death which is quite different from intrauterine contraceptive device so you'd have to be pretty careful about where you use that. "LOA" commonly used by midwives—"Baby LOA"; left occiput anterior. What it means is and what I would write is that your baby is positioned with its head down with their back to your left-hand side. Their head is fully flexed and they're in a great position to be born. Now if you were pregnant—forgive me for making this personal. If anybody here in this room were pregnant surely they would like to know what LOA meant and they would really love that reassurance and clear understanding of what was going on with their pregnancy. I myself got asked the other day by a school principal to explain why I was wearing a mask because they'd had a little bit of confusion in their school. Now I would commonly say that I wear masks to prevent the transmission of what is an airborne respiratory infection—that is a virus. But you can't say that to primary school pupils—well you can but they're not going to understand a word of what you're saying. So I just told them that I wore my mask to show them that I cared about them because I didn't want any bugs that I might have to be shared with them. And they seemed to understand me quite clearly. But support for plain language has come from unexpected places and I imagine the National Party will be quite surprised to hear that Baroness Thatcher was one of the key proponents of the sharing and undertaking of plain language in the United Kingdom. I imagine that many of you across the House are actually fairly good fans of the work of Baroness Thatcher and I find myself in the unusual position of agreeing with her which is not something you're going to see very often—so do make the most of it. She said "It is no exaggeration to describe plain English as a fundamental tool of good Government."—a fundamental tool. "Some people" she said "think that flowery language and complicated writing is a sign of intellectual strength. They are wrong … Plain English must be the aim of all who work in Government." Take those words on board my friends on the Opposition benches. Maybe you'd like—Hon Michael Woodhouse: We agree.SARAH PALLETT: —to listen to—you agree? I'm glad you agree. Awesome. David Cameron another person whose work I imagine you approve of—again I find myself agreeing with him when he says that bureaucracies that overcomplicate things to boost their own self-importance build barriers between Government and the people.Submitters to the select committee are probably more important than historic United Kingdom parliamentarians. Their views are the ones that we should be listening to. I'm just going to highlight what the Citizens Advice Bureau had to say: "We regularly assist people to make sense of information that they receive from Government agencies." My colleague Tangi Utikere I believe spoke about the investment in the front-end of communication with our constituents and for lawyers with clients. We are not talking about introducing a whole new level of bureaucracy. We're actually talking about giving people who already undertake that work a role to play in ensuring that we're communicating more clearly. Citizens Advice have said that they see examples of clients struggling with a range of communications constantly and really welcome this legislation. The National Disabled Students' Association said specifically that the Plain Language Bill will support equity for accessing essential information ease the burden of disabled persons' advocacy create more transparent and accountable agencies and strengthen Government relationships with the disabled community.I find it absolutely inexplicable. It's really hard for me to understand why anybody in this House would stand in the way of clear communication between Government and the people that we serve. This concern was shared by a constituent this morning who was interested in what I was doing and really didn't understand why the National Party was in opposition and not only in opposition but in strong opposition to the point where we have had to sit on this side of the House and actually listen to some nasty comments coming from our colleagues on Opposition benches some of which it has to be said would definitely fall into the category of people in glass houses Mr Bishop. But the submitters who matter here people with disabilities people who are advocating for our constituents—Citizens Advice who are trying to make things more accessible; People First New Zealand who are a disabled persons' organisation—they are in clear support of this bill. There is obviously a time where flowery language is of use. Flowery language—I love language. It's a critically important part of my world and I've been an avid reader and writer for my entire life and I brought to mind the times when it is important to use more words longer words make things less accessible. I enjoy Chaucer; I enjoy Shakespeare but I would not expect anybody to take a document that was as complex as the language of Chaucer or Shakespeare and actually understand what it said when they're applying it to their legal rights where it's really important that we have absolute clarity.I wandered lonely as a cloudThat floats on high o'er vales and hillsWhen all at once I saw a crowdA host of golden daffodils;Beautiful. Basically "I was feeling sad. I went for a walk. I saw a lot of beautiful daffodils and they cheered me right up." Good old Wordsworth. But that is the place for flowery inaccessible language—in poetry and literature and not in Government legislation. Thank you.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): I call Chris Penk—five-minute call."