Brown SimeonSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you Madam Chair. I'd like to continue with the line of questioning that my colleague the Hon Michael Woodhouse is asking around plain language officers because this is one of the key clauses of Part 2 of this legislation—plain language officers. Clause 8 requires: A reporting agency must appoint as plain language officers for the agency 1 or more individuals (within or outside the agency) whose responsibilities include"—not just making sure that they're plain language documents—"(a) educating agency employees regarding the requirements of this Act: (b) dealing with feedback from the public about the agency's compliance with this Act: [and] (c) ensuring that the agency complies with this Act." And there are three parts to that.The core question I have and I think the public would like to know is: how many more bureaucrats are going to have to be hired because of this piece of legislation being passed by the Labour Party? How many more bureaucrats? Does the member in the chair Rachel Boyack know how many more bureaucrats will have to be hired by this piece of legislation being passed into law?Hon Gerry Brownlee: Will they get a uniform?SIMEON BROWN: Will they get a uniform? That's a good question Mr Brownlee.Hon Member: A high-vis vest?SIMEON BROWN: Or a vest? That's a very good question because if you read the three things these are the plain language police who will be walking around Government agencies educating agencies regarding the requirements of the Act.I find this quite amusing: they took out the word "complaint". So you can't complain anymore. The public can't complain. They'll still come to your office Rachel Boyack—they'll still come to your office—because they can't complain to the department; they can only provide feedback. How soft and cool is that! How kind! They can provide feedback to the Government. Feedback? It sounds so soft and cuddly doesn't it? But you can't make a complaint. You can't turn up and say "I can't read that document." because that's a complaint but what you can say is "May I suggest that you do this document differently because I fail to be able to comprehend it?" You know that's the soft kind of nonsense in this.How many people will have to be employed to be able to make sure that this piece of legislation can actually be enforced? And it's in the context of an additional 14000 public servants in the core Public Service. We know that's only for the core Public Service. There are all the agencies and everything outside of that but the core Public Service has increased by 14000 more staff under this Government—14000 at a cost of almost $2 billion per year. So the public are looking at that and going "We're facing a cost of living crisis and this priority from this member is to basically mean that more public servants will have to be hired at an unknown cost and an unknown number." That really worries me. It really worries me that we're going through the committee of the whole House and we don't actually know that number. It's not in the reports. It's not covered by any of the advice. The member if she knows it I'd love for her to get up and answer that question and give me some surety. If it's 10 or 15 people that's one thing but we know it's more than that because every single agency—so if there are 88 agencies as Mr Woodhouse was saying—Hon Michael Woodhouse: Well that's my best guess.SIMEON BROWN: That's his best guess. How many is it? Good question. If it's 88 that's 88 employees minimum in addition to what is currently in existence. That is absolutely enormous. And it says "at least". I can't imagine any public department saying they're only going to employ one because they need one to do the education one to deal with the feedback and one to make sure that they comply—at least. So I can see it being three times the number of agencies at least. It'll be 250 people easily. It'll be 250 people within absolutely no time under this Government. We see the largesse. This is just another picture of the largesse of Government. It's absolutely extraordinary isn't it? Just the absolutely extraordinary growth in bureaucracy and this is just another layer and more people under this Government.New Zealanders are getting sick and tired of it and they will be speaking up against this. They won't just be giving feedback; they'll be complaining and they'll be voting at the next election on issues like this where they see the priority of this Labour Government is totally out of whack. So I'd like to know the answer to that question. There is more to get into because it talks about "(within or outside the agency)" and I'll take the opportunity to take another call on that point shortly. But I look forward to the member answering my question."