Legislation Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Legislation Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 16 October 2012. Volume:684;Page:5863. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Legislation Bill 
In Committee 
Part 1 General provisions 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 Thank you for the opportunity to address the Committee stage of the Legislation Bill. As of course we are all aware the Legislation Bill is designed to modernise and improve the law relating to the publication availability reprinting revision and official versions of legislation bringing them together in a single piece of legislation. So that is an excellent move in respect of this particular piece of legislation and that is something that we all support in this House—in fact we welcome it. I think that it is an important advance in the way that we are able to bring together the legislation into the one single format. 
This bill was introduced to Parliament on 25 June 2010 and normally I would make some reflection as to the time that it has taken to return to the House in the Committee stage. I think Mr Chairman would know that normally I would be somewhat critical of such a delay but I am not critical of the delay in this particular instance because I believe that the legislation is so important. 
In many respects it is not the sort of legislation that as my husband might use the phrase smokes your tyres. He always uses that expression. Something that is particularly exciting is something that smokes your tyres. This does not normally smoke the tyres of anyone I know but the truth is that it is really important legislation and it is worth taking the time in order to put the effort in and in order to make it really worthwhile. So a lot of people who are tuning in to their crystal sets tonight will be thinking that this is a very technical and a very dull bill but I can assure those people who are listening tonight that this is anything but certainly for this side of the House and for certain members on both sides of the House. For a lot of members of the House this will be a technical and dull bill but those of us who have been here for some time will know that it is a really important part of making sure that our legislation speaks to our modern environment rather than reflecting that which has come before. 
There are elements around this particular law though that I do think are worth reflecting on as we deal with the Legislation Bill in the Committee stage. I really would like the Attorney-General to speak to a particular issue that I want to put on the table and it relates to a former Leader of the House and Attorney-General Sir Michael Cullen who believed very strongly that the Parliamentary Counsel Office should report to the Leader of the House as opposed to the Attorney-General. I personally think that he was on the right track with that and I really would like the Attorney-General to respond to that because it was a comment made by a former Attorney-General. 
The reason I support it is that in fact the Leader of the House controls the agenda of the House controls the Order Paper and looks after the legislative programme. I remember as a former Minister having to negotiate quite a hard bargain from time to time to get bills that I wanted on that programme. Often the point at which it was held back was when the Parliamentary Counsel Office was not able to prioritise that work. Therefore rather than having the Attorney-General being the Minister responsible for parliamentary counsel it actually made good sense to have the Leader of the House with that particular role. Actually the more that we debated this issue—because we did have quite a long discussion about this when we were in Government—and the more we had the discussion around the different roles that were brought to bear in this regard there was not a vote as it were that sat with the role of Leader of the House and it made good sense for the Parliamentary Counsel Office to be the basis for a vote to be allocated. 
I will give you an example of where that particularly worked. I want to go back perhaps more than 10 years now back to the last time when the sale of liquor legislation was before the House with any sorts of substantive amendments. Of course in those days all parties operated under a conscience vote. As a result of a number of different amendments that were going to be moved during the Committee stage of the sale of liquor amendment legislation that we had in front of us at that time the Attorney-General was asked to make provision for parliamentary counsel to be available to private members—to individual members—to assist in the drafting of amendments. The reason that this occurred was to ensure that under a conscience vote scenario if legislation was to be amended by way of a Supplementary Order Paper by a member at least it would be drafted in a form that would work. Again that really reflected back to me. 
I am trying to remember who the Minister was at the time. I know that Tony Ryall was the Minister of Justice when the legislation went through but I cannot recall whether it was still Doug Graham in those days who was the Attorney-General. But whoever it was they did make the Parliamentary Counsel Office available for the amendments that were going through. It did strike me at the time that it would actually go a lot better with the role of Leader of the House. 
In terms of the good order of the House around the question—particularly in conscience vote areas and I know that there are fewer of those today—it did seem to me that it made a lot of sense for that to occur. So I really would appreciate the Attorney-General actually responding to that issue. I know that Sir Michael Cullen would have felt—well I think he would appreciate the fact that the House was considering this particular issue in the context of the Legislation Bill in front of us tonight. So I do ask the Attorney-General whether he would respond to that particular question. I do actually think that it has a lot of merit. 
I want to mention just one other example of when this particular issue came to light and that was when I was part of a select committee that was looking at constitutional arrangements. Again this dates back a number of years. I think it was just prior to 2005—it might have been 2004 or 2005. I was involved in a small select committee that was established for the purpose of looking at constitutional arrangements and I recall that Peter Dunne I think was the chair of that particular committee. We traversed a whole range of different issues around constitutional matters including this whole question of whether a vote should apply to the Leader of the House and whether there were grounds for particular support around some of the constitutional issues that would arise in terms of the House and the roles of private members arose on that occasion as well. So even though it is not obviously a part of this bill in the sense that it was not a proposition that the Government did pick up I would actually appreciate having the Attorney-General on record in response to that particular issue because it is an important one. 
The point that I really wanted to make was how important these sorts of legislative measures are. There is a lot of serious work that goes on behind the scenes to modernise the rules around legislation. I think that for legislation to be accessible and available to people generally we do have to have a serious look at these kinds of legislative improvements from time to time. 
The select committee looked at the regulations disallowance changes proposed in the bill as well—the provisions in the bill that separate the publication and the disallowance of delegated legislation in the broad definition of “disallowable instrument”. That is designed to ensure that there will be parliamentary oversight of the use of delegated powers by the executive and to make it more difficult to avoid disallowance. I also agree with that. I think it is very important that we are able to hold the executive to account which is the proper process of the Regulations Review Committee and parliamentary process in general. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 I want to make a couple of points about Part 1 of the Legislation Bill. The purposes of the bill are set out in clause 3. The first is that the new Act should bring together the main provisions of New Zealand legislation relating to the drafting publication and reprinting of legislation and the disallowance of instruments. The other purposes include providing for electronic and printed copies of Acts and legislative instruments to be published to provide for official versions of Acts and legislative instruments to be published in electronic form—at the moment the only authoritative form is the written form—and to facilitate the production of up-to-date reprints that are modernised and made consistent with current drafting practice concerning their mode of expression style and format. 
The next purpose is a very significant one because it relates to accessibility. This is a principle that the Regulations Review Committee has stressed the importance of a number of times. The bill expressly sets out to make New Zealand statute law more accessible more readable and easier to understand. It sets out to do so by means of facilitating a progressive and systematic revision of the New Zealand statute book so that statute law is rationalised and arranged more logically inconsistencies and overlaps will be removed obsolete and redundant provisions will be repealed and expression style and format will be more modernised and made more consistent. Another important purpose of the legislation is to enable certain kinds of subordinate legislation to incorporate material by reference in reliance on the statute subject to compliance with consultation and other requirements. 
Members will know that the phenomenon of the incorporation of material by reference into our law is an increasingly common phenomenon particularly as we adopt international legal standards. It is not uncommon for legislation these days to refer for example to Treaty provisions that are extraneous to the statute itself and which are not necessarily even scheduled to the statute as used to be the practice. There is often a reference in the schedule to where the provisions of the Treaty can be found. So it is important that we are clear about how material incorporated by reference into the laws of the land is able to be found by the reader so that the reader may ascertain on any occasion what the law of the land is. 
Finally the legislation will replace an Act of Parliament that is many many years old—the Statutes Drafting and Compilation Act 1920. It will replace it with modern legislation that continues the Parliamentary Counsel Office but as a separate statutory office that facilitates the drafting and publishing of high-quality legislation. Those are all purposes with which the Opposition wishes to associate itself. Listeners to the debate might be wondering why this set of aims is necessary and what is wrong with the status quo. Perhaps what they might like to think about is the way in which statutes are published and accessible at the moment. When they are published Acts of Parliament are ordered chronologically which means that the user looking for an Act on a particular topic is likely to have trouble knowing exactly where to look for it unless they have an index or unless they are searching on the internet for electronic copies of the legislation. 
The law on any one particular topic could be scattered through an entire range of Acts. All of the content of an Act may not be indicated by its title. Provisions about certain matters can be located in all sorts of unlikely or unexpected Acts unless the reader or the searcher has a degree of legal training and knows because of that training where to look. Sometimes it might be quite a surprise to find particular provisions where they are actually located. 
Amending Acts sometimes contain substantive provisions that stand separately from the Act being amended and these can be easily missed when searching for provisions on a particular subject. Obviously some Acts are old drafted in archaic language that is difficult to understand or drafted in a style that because it is not compatible with contemporary usage is just not accessible to the reader today. 
Acts can be amended several times before they are replaced and this can mean that there are inconsistencies in drafting style between the original and the inserted provisions in the same Act. In addition redundant and obsolete provisions can remain in force and although the Parliamentary Counsel Office is responsible for publishing Acts of Parliament it does not have an express function relating to the presentation or accessibility of public Acts. When formulating policy Government departments do not always treat accessibility of statute law as a priority. 
So I am hopeful given the aims of the legislation that those are some of the problems that we currently face in accessing our statute law that will be remedied by this bill. Certainly that was the hope that was expressed by a number of submitters to the Regulations Review Committee and the committee has done its best to ensure that in reporting a draft of the bill back to the House the principles that I have listed will be preserved as we enact the legislation. 
Just a word about the background to the bill. The bill will implement the majority of the legislative recommendations made in two Law Commission reports: first  
Presentation of New Zealand Statute Law 
 dating back to October 2008 NZLC R104 and  
Review of the Statutes Drafting and Compilation Act 1920 
 from May 2009 NZLC R107. Many of the problems that I listed earlier are identified in those reports and the bill is an attempt to address a number of them. 
The Minister has tabled I see a 27-page Supplementary Order Paper and it would be I think helpful to know while we have had a chance to read Supplementary Order Paper 127 at least cursorily whether the Supplementary Order Paper makes any substantive changes to the aims of the legislation and the purposes of the bill. Obviously it would be helpful if that were the case for him to address any of those changes so that the Committee is clear as to what we are doing as far as recommendations that might differ from the reported-back version from the Regulations Review Committee are concerned. 
Perhaps also just a word here about the legislative history. The bill was considered by the Regulations Review Committee of the previous Parliament. The deputy chair from the committee is present in the Chamber. There was I think at one point a proposal from the Attorney-General that this legislation should be combined with the Regulatory Standards Bill and apparently that does explain some of the delay in bringing the legislation back to the House. I think the Attorney-General would agree that it was considered not proper to combine this legislation with the regulatory standards legislation given that the latter bill does not have wide support across the Parliament whereas as my understanding is concerned this Legislation Bill does have that support. So it has been decided to now bring this bill forward in its current form back from the select committee with the reasonably substantial Supplementary Order Paper that I mentioned. If my understanding is correct if the Minister in the chair can confirm that then certainly that is a move and an approach that the Opposition would support. 
This legislation is good technical remedial legislation. It would not have been appropriate to combine it with legislation that advances a particularly partisan agenda from the ACT Party as the Regulatory Standards Bill is intended to do. With those few words of introduction on Part 1 I certainly look forward to and anticipate the rest of the debate with interest. 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill) 
: 
 This is an important piece of legislation and a very worthy piece of legislation. In equal amounts it is very technical and very dull which probably explains why all the speakers tonight on this bill the Legislation Bill with my exception will be lawyers. They thrive on this sort of thing. Labour will be supporting it. It looks like a common-sense bill and certainly not before its time when you consider that one of the pieces of legislation that the bill replaces is the Statutes Drafting and Compilation Act 1920. Well that was 92 years ago. That was a different age and it is really quite remarkable that a piece of legislation could have survived this length of time albeit with amendment but in its original form. Because the legislation has been there for 92 years I guess it is understandable that this legislation has sat around since the Regulations Review Committee heard submissions on it about 2½ years ago. So it is not the sort of legislation that the Government has given any particular priority to notwithstanding its worthy nature. In fact I see the closing date for submissions was 23 September 2010. Almost exactly 2 years later the Minister brings to the House an extensive Supplementary Order Paper which runs into 23 pages. Because this bill is about drafting and printing one wonders why the Supplementary Order Paper has come in and those technical changes were necessitated so long after the submissions were received and the select committee looked at it. Maybe the Attorney-General can give an explanation for that. 
Essentially what this bill does is to modernise and improve the law relating to the publication availability reprinting revision and official versions of legislation and it brings them together in one piece of legislation. Well I think that is an important first point. It replaces three pieces of legislation: the 1920 Statutes Drafting and Compilation Act which I have mentioned and two pieces of legislation from 1989 the Acts and Regulations Publication Act and the Regulations (Disallowance) Act. So it is always good that in the myriad tomes of statutes we can try to consolidate down legislation into one piece. In fact the first purpose of the bill under Part 1 is set out “to bring together in this Act the main provisions of New Zealand legislation that relate to the drafting publication and reprinting of legislation and the disallowing of instruments:”. So that is certainly something to be said in its favour. 
Because it is a modernising Act it also provides as well as for printed copies of Acts for there to be electronic copies. The old days when people studied for long hours over dusty books in the law library have been replaced with most people having access to legislation online and that certainly has been an improvement as well. The bill sets out as a purpose the facilitation of the production of up-to-date reprints that are modernised and consistent with current drafting practice particularly in terms of expression style and format. That is a good thing. What so much of this legislation is about is to try to make Acts of Parliament less impenetrable for the average citizen. I am going to come to the really important part of this legislation and what the Law Commission actually said about that in just one moment. 
The bill also sets out as its purpose “to make New Zealand statute law more accessible readable and easier to understand by facilitating the progressive and systematic revision of the New Zealand statute book …”. What it tries to do in that sense is to rationalise and arrange statute law more logically and that is praiseworthy; to remove inconsistencies and overlaps and certainly the legislation will benefit from that; to repeal obsolete and redundant provisions and if you can make the legislation shorter again that makes it more comprehensible; and to modernise the expression style and format and make sure it is consistent. I note what the Law Commission said which is at the heart of this legislation and this was in its  
Presentation of New Zealand Statute Law 
 that came out way back in October 2008. I want to quote from it because I think it is the heart and the soul of the legislation: “The state has an obligation to make law accessible to citizens. People have to obey the law; ignorance of it is no excuse. So they need to be able to find it and understand it. They will not respect the law if they cannot. Moreover law which is not accessible is expensive in terms of both time and money.” It is notable that this legislation—I mean it is very hard to find any politics in this legislation—actually comes out of two reports by the Law Commission. I want to acknowledge the work of the Law Commission because this is the sort of thing that actually you would be waiting forever for if it was the Ministry of Justice that was responsible for putting it together. The Law Commission put out first of all the  
Presentation of New Zealand Statute Law 
 in October 2008 and then a year later the  
Review of the Statutes Drafting and Compilation Act 1920 
. 
I think it is important to go over what was wrong with the existing law why we have this very large new piece of legislation and why it is necessary. There are a number of things I think we need to take into account. Acts of Parliament are ordered chronologically which means that the user who is looking for an Act on a particular topic is likely to have trouble in knowing where to look for it. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that the law on one topic can be scattered across any one of a number of different Acts. That makes it very hard for somebody who is trying to understand the law in a particular area. We need to address that. All of the content of an Act might not be indicated by its title which again makes it more difficult for people to find. Sometimes the legal provisions about particular matters are located in very unlikely sounding Acts and that is a frustration for people trying to follow the law as well. Amending Acts sometimes contain substantive provisions that are actually separate from the Act that is being amended and therefore you can miss that when you are looking for the provisions on a particular subject. 
A lot of the Acts that we are dealing with—and you have only to walk out into the lobbies and pick up some copies of the statute book to see that—are old drafted in archaic language that is difficult to understand and drafted in a style again that is not accessible. Acts can be amended several times before being replaced—God knows how many times the Crimes Act has been amended and it still has not been replaced. One day there will be a Government with the time or the courage or the stupidity to take on that particular task. But because of those amendments it can mean that there are inconsistencies in drafting style between the original and the inserted provisions in the same Act. You are clearly looking at something that appears to be scissors and paste in how it is put together. It lacks coherence it lacks consistency it lacks flow and again that is not desirable. Sometimes when the National Party is really desperate and it is looking for a member’s bill it repeals things that nobody has thought about nobody cares about and that have not been seen for many years. The truth is that you get redundant and obsolete provisions that remain in force for a very long time. That is one of the— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: John Banks. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: Sometimes members of Parliament come into that category too my colleague Lianne Dalziel very—well I would not say unfairly I think it is absolutely fair—unkindly suggested that John Banks might be redundant and obsolete. One wonders why he is in the House—a dead man walking. The last point to come back to— 
Maggie Barry 
: People in glass houses. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: Yes people in glass houses. Well tell us about it. One day Maggie Barry somebody will explain why somebody who lies can retain a ministerial portfolio. Can you explain that? Not you Mr Chairman but Maggie Barry if she wants to worry about glass houses. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Order! 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: I know. I will come back to the point. I have been distracted by that unfortunate intervention from that unfortunate member. So what you can see from what I have been saying right up to date—trying to make this non-political because essentially the bill is non-political—is that there are real problems with the status quo and we need to make those changes. If we look at the summary of the provisions the Parliamentary Counsel Office which is the key agency here will be required to publish legislation electronically and in printed form. It will issue official versions of legislation in both forms. This provision is a sensible one. We support it. 
Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram) 
: 
 I am very happy to take a call on the Legislation Bill. Many of my colleagues have already spoken at length on this bill and what it seeks to do. And they spoke very well. We heard from Lianne Dalziel who got up and told us that although this was not a very exciting piece of legislation and was not legislation that would smoke your tyres it was indeed very important legislation that needs good consideration by this House. 
Then we heard Charles Chauvel in a much more tempered way call this bill good technical remedial legislation—he did not go down the “smoke your tyres” route. And then Phil Goff called it technical and dull and said that he was going to be the only non-legal to take a call on it—well I join you in taking a call on this bill. In fact Charles Chauvel and I decided that you got the gold star for finding politics in this bill. 
In all seriousness this is an incredibly important piece of legislation. As colleagues have set out what it is doing is both modernising and improving the law relating to the publication availability reprinting revision and official versions of legislation. At its core what this bill is about is making the laws that we make in this House accessible to the people whom we make those laws for. I think that is an incredibly important piece of work. 
This bill was very carefully considered at the Regulations Review Committee under the excellent chairmanship of Charles Chauvel. It is important that it had such a thorough examination at the select committee because it deals with important constitutional matters as previous speakers have talked about. What this bill does is provide unelected officials greater power to change the words agreed to by this Parliament in terms of the law of New Zealand. These provisions are carefully constructed to ensure that the powers are limited only to obvious errors. This should be the case; we need to make sure that we have tight controls around this when we have unelected officials making changes to what we enact in this Chamber and the laws that we make here. 
In terms of clause 3 “Purposes” what we see is that there is a very great purpose in this bill. The provisions giving the Parliamentary Counsel Office the power to correct errors are sensible. In fact they not only are sensible but will also be of great assistance to this Parliament. However any time that we propose to transfer this power as I said we must make sure that that transfer is wise. I think that this legislation has achieved this. 
The bill also establishes the very important practice of revision bills which will be overseen by the Attorney-General. This will provide for the revision of the wording the numbering the title etc. of Acts of Parliament. The aim of these bills will be to simplify New Zealand’s legislation and make it easier to access and understand by embarking on a 3-yearly programme of systematic revision. 
I note that in the regulatory impact statement the Chief Parliamentary Counsel has considered the cost of what this revision will be. He says that it is not possible to quantify with any precision the cost associated with a statutory programme of revision because it will depend on the size and nature of that programme. A programme of 3 or 4 revision bills per year would approximate to around $220000 per annum of additional cost to the Parliamentary Counsel Office but $220000 is a small price to pay to make the laws that we make more accessible to people. 
Many members have spelt out the status quo and what is wrong with it. Acts of Parliament are ordered currently in terms of chronology. That means it is hard for ordinary members of the public who are looking for an Act on a particular topic to know where exactly to look for it because things are scattered all over the place. We need to consolidate this and bring this together. 
All the content of an Act might not be indicated by its title. There are laws and provisions contained in Acts with titles that would never lead you to suspect that that is what you are looking for. Amending Acts sometimes contain substantive provisions that stand separately from the Act being amended and these can be missed when people search for the provisions on a particular subject. So when the Parliamentary Counsel Office publishes law it has an express function relating to the presentation and accessibility of public Acts. When formulating policy Government departments do not always treat accessibility of statute law as a key priority. When they are putting together policy and putting together legislation whether or not people can access it and find it easily is not their key concern. 
My colleague Phil Goff talked about the Law Commission saying that it was going to save a lot in terms of time and money making this process much simpler for it. The Law Commission has gone back to some very clear research on the values of plain drafting of legislation. Several pieces of research have found that untidiness and obscurity in statute law are likely to add to the costs of providing legal advice about rights and obligations to Government businesses and the public generally. 
So what we have here in this legislation is not only an ability to make law more accessible to the public of New Zealand more generally but also an ability to make it more accessible to the Government when it goes about its business and to New Zealand businesses when they are going about their everyday work and running their businesses. Anything that seeks to modernise bring together and make what we do here in making laws for New Zealanders more accessible is something that we are happy to commend to the House. Thank you. 
JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
Motion agreed to. 
Part 1 agreed to. 
Part 2 Law relating to publishing reprinting and revising legislation 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 Part 2 of the Legislation Bill is divided into three subparts—a bit like Gaul. Subpart 1 deals with requirements and responsibilities for publishing legislation. The Chief Parliamentary Counsel will be required under the bill to arrange for the publication of copies of every Act enacted after the commencement of the legislation copies of all legislative instruments—which is the term that is used in the legislation broadly to describe delegated legislation—any reprints of Acts and legislative instruments any reprints of regulations made before the commencement of the section and finally reprints of imperial enactments and imperial subordinate legislation that remain in force as part of the laws of New Zealand. 
The innovation that will be required by the bill is that not only is there to be a definitive written copy of the legislation which is to be the responsibility for publication of the Parliamentary Counsel Office but there will be an authoritative electronic version of legislation as well. Clause 6(2) requires that every Act must be published in electronic form after enactment and clause 6(3) requires there to be a copy of every legislative instrument in electronic form. The rest of the clause carries on the scheme that I have begun to describe. Then there are provisions around availability sale of physical copies and availability of electronic versions. There are also provisions around the numbering of legislative instruments and notice of making legislative instruments all of which are sensible machinery provisions that will assist with the accessibility questions that were referred to in the debate concerning Part 1. 
One of the other things that the bill will enable when it is passed is a more logical way of accessing delegated legislation and that is certainly something that I think people will welcome generally. At the moment the regulations are well accessible if they are actual regulations in the strict legal sense of the term but there are a whole range of other types of delegated legislation that are much more difficult to access and it is hoped I think that the provisions of the bill will make that sort of thing much easier to locate and read. 
There is a sensible provision around the power to revoke or otherwise declare ineffective or no longer effective a legislative instrument. That is a power that the Governor-General will have on advice from the Attorney-General. The re-enactment of provisions around judicial notice of Acts regulations and legislative instruments and confirmation of the official status of both electronic and written versions of legislation—all those are very sensible provisions as I have said. Particularly in this age where a whole new generation has become quite accustomed to locating reading and using material that is not in printed form at all any more—it is all simply online—this is a useful probably overdue innovation. It is good that a number of years after the Law Commission recommendations around these matters we are finally moving to enact them. 
Subpart 2 of Part 2 deals with reprints. There are some sensible provisions around empowering the Chief Parliamentary Counsel to make changes around gender-neutral language and changes around updating references so that references for example to Her Majesty the Queen can be automatically changed to references to the Sovereign in keeping with contemporary usage and references are able to be changed automatically around the content of legislation and schedules. As I say they are all measures that make a lot of sense and ought to make for much more efficient updating of our body of laws. They are ones that we commend. 
Probably the most interesting part of Part 2 though is the provisions around revision bills which are contained in Subpart 3. 
Denis O’Rourke 
: Fascinating! 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: I know that my New Zealand First colleague is raring to speak on this particular issue. He is greatly excited by the notion of revision bills. But seriously the bill will require that the Attorney-General provide each new Parliament with a draft 3-yearly revision programme. The revision programme will be presented to the House as soon as practicable after it has been approved by the Government. 
Basically revision bills can do a number of things. They can revise the whole or part of one or more Acts and for that purpose combine or divide Acts or parts of Acts; they can adopt a title that is different from the title or titles of the Acts or parts of the Acts being revised; they can omit redundant and spent provisions and renumber and arrange provisions from Acts being revised or parts of Acts; they can make changes in language format and punctuation to achieve a clear consistent gender-neutral and modern style of expression; they can include new or additional purpose provisions outline or overview provisions examples diagrams graphics and flowcharts; they can include new or additional provisions alerting users of the revision to enactments that are not incorporated in the revision but are relevant to the subject matter of the revision; they can correct typographical punctuation and grammatical errors and other similar errors; they can make minor amendments to clarify Parliament’s intent or reconcile inconsistencies between provisions; they can update monetary amounts other than an amount specified for the purpose of jurisdiction or an offence penalty with regard to movements in the CPI; they can omit forms and schedules and instead authorise the matters in those forms and schedules to be prescribed by or under regulations; they can make consequential amendments to enactments that are not incorporated or are incorporated only in part in the revision; and they can include any necessary repeals savings and transitional provisions. 
Then there are some safeguards that are built into the legislation around revision bills so that they are not able to be misused. There has to be a certification that a bill is in fact a revision bill. The certifiers are to be the president of the Law Commission the Solicitor-General a retired judge nominated by the Attorney-General and the Chief Parliamentary Counsel. 
This provision relating to revision bills really is an important part of the legislation in respect of the objects that I referred to in my earlier contribution. It will allow for mechanical updating in a sensible way that is not provided for at the moment. It is really a very important piece of the bill. It is a subpart that the Regulations Review Committee considered in some detail. We did recommend some amendments which I am pleased to see are largely being adopted. One thing that is not dealt with in the bill but was dealt with in the Law Commission report is the necessity to come up with some new Standing Orders to facilitate the changes that will be made by Subpart 3 when revision bills become a reality. I am sure that the Attorney-General has given this careful consideration and is already working with the Office of the Clerk to ensure that these new Standing Orders are recommended to the Standing Orders Committee. They will be required. There was some suggestion that we ought to deal with these machinery Standing Order - type issues in the bill itself but we on advice agreed with the position that that was really a matter for the House. It was for the procedure of the House itself and it was something the Standing Orders Committee would need to come to in due course in order to operationalise. It will be I think a welcome move to see those provisions in particular and those new Standing Orders come into force and to see the very commendable innovations that Part 2 will enact. 
DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First supports the Legislation Bill wholeheartedly. We think it is a very good piece of legislation. Indeed we think it is high time that this country had it. I would like to begin by acknowledging the work of the Ministers involved of the Regulations Review Committees past and present and also of course of the officials who have been involved in producing this very good piece of legislation. For me I think the improvements it will make to public access—what I call understandability and what is called navigability in the regulatory impact statement—are the most important aspects of the bill. I can tell you that when I was admitted to the Bar in 1972 things were a lot more difficult for people then when they tried to navigate their way through legislation. I remember staggering into courtrooms with arms full of statutes or regulations in case I had to refer to some obscure part of one of them and track my way through various amendments. So Phil Goff’s reference to dusty volumes was very real for me in those days. But of course things have much improved and this particular bill is going to make things better still. I think accessibility and understandability not just for judges and lawyers but particularly for the public are what I particularly like about this piece of legislation. 
It is very important legislation dull though it may be to many people because it does govern the drafting of legislation in this country. It also concerns some new definitions of roles for the Chief Parliamentary Counsel. Principally it will be replacing the Statutes Drafting and Compilation Act 1920 which is an old and rather out-of-date piece of legislation the Acts and Regulations Publication Act 1989 and the Regulations (Disallowance) Act 1989. More important still will be the programme for a 3-yearly review on a systematic basis of New Zealand legislation. I think that is extremely important as well. I do think also that the functions of the Chief Parliamentary Counsel in ensuring that legislation will be published in an electronic as well as a printed form are equally important and that he will be able to issue official versions in an electronic as well as a printed form. That is also important. 
I do however particularly want to refer to something that is stated in the regulatory impact statement when giving an example of why it is important for people to be able to navigate their way through legislation. It says: “For example the law on one topic can be scattered with provisions sometimes hidden in unlikely statutes; and Acts are amended many times before they are replaced. This can lead to inconsistencies with obsolete and redundant provisions remaining in force.” Those are exactly the sorts of problems that this bill addresses and it is why New Zealand First is so happy to support the bill. 
I do want to refer especially to clauses 31 and 33 because I think that these are most important parts of the bill as a whole. The most important part of all is clause 29(2) which sets out the purpose: “The purpose of revision is to re-enact in an up-to-date and accessible form the law previously contained in all or part of 1 or more Acts but (except as authorised by this subpart) revision is not intended to change the effect of a law.” That is the crux of the whole thing I believe. I also note that in clause 33A(1) it says: “A revision Bill as introduced must not contain any proposed change to the effect of the law unless the amendment is authorised by section 31.” So that is repeated there again. I note with some pleasure also the requirements for certification in clause 33 which I think are a very valuable safeguard. 
However if I were to express any concerns at all—and I must say that they are not great concerns—I would have to refer to clause 31 which does provide the revision powers. It refers particularly to some I think important items in clause 31(2) which states that “A revision Bill may—(a) revise the whole or part of 1 or more Acts and for that purpose combine or divide Acts or parts of Acts:”. I do not think that is likely to cause any difficulty with regard to the requirement not to change the law. However if you look at clause 31(2)(f) it does state that it is possible to “include new or additional purpose provisions outline or overview provisions examples diagrams …” and so on. So actually that does make it possible for some change in the substance of the law to be introduced. However with the certification provisions I think the risk of that is minor. The greatest risks—if there are any of course—are in clauses 31(2)(i) and (j). Clause 31(2)(i) says that it is possible to “make minor amendments to clarify Parliament’s intent”. The problem is of course that we will never really know what the word “minor” means and “to clarify Parliament’s intent” can be a lot more difficult than the words as stated might on the surface mean. Clause 31(2)(j) refers to updating “any monetary amount” and so on—those sorts of things. So there is some scope for a change to the substance of the law to be introduced as part of a revision bill. However I think care has been taken in the bill as a whole to make sure that that will not happen especially the certification provisions. Indeed clause 31(3) states quite explicitly that “A revision Bill must not change the effect of the law except as authorised by subsection (2)(i) or (j).” which are the very ones I referred to under which such a change is possible. 
But I think the safeguards are quite sufficient and New Zealand First for that reason is very satisfied with the bill as it stands. We believe that it will result in legislation being regularly updated that it will be much more understandable or navigable as it says in the regulatory impact statement and that certainly from the public’s point of view it will be much much more accessible. For all of those reasons New Zealand First will be very happy to support the bill as amended at this stage. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I was very keen to speak on this part of the Legislation Bill because this is a particularly exciting part. In particular it is actually Subpart 2 “Reprints”—not retreads Megan Woods; it is reprints that I am talking about. The reason I am quite excited about this is the capacity for legislation to stay up to date with current drafting practice. 
When I first arrived in Parliament a few years ago I had completed my law degree at Canterbury University. I actually enrolled for a particular component of my degree and it was a course called Legislation. My university lecturer was one John Burrows who went on to become of course an esteemed professor at our university and then on to his most recent role at the Law Commission. Because of his influence I believed that working in the Parliamentary Counsel Office was something that anyone with an interest in the law a passion for the law would be absolutely interested in and fascinated by because he made the Parliamentary Counsel Office and the work of parliamentary counsel sound so fascinating and so important. 
When I arrived here I did not find that colleagues were quite of the same understanding of the fascination and the passion for the work of parliamentary counsel. But having served for three terms on a range of select committees I actually did realise that parliamentary counsel were able to bring to bear a consistency in terms of the language that they used and the method for prescribing the law in a way that made sense right across a range of different laws. And they were all able to do that. We had some incredible parliamentary counsel officers from the top down at select committees but right across the board there was this absolute commitment to what is now described in this legislation as current drafting practice. 
There would be some challenges faced when legislation came before a select committee and it did not meet that test of current drafting practice. The one I recall the most was actually a very early bill that was referred to the Justice and Law Reform Committee as it was called in those days and that was the Companies Bill. It was a brand new piece of legislation that had been the subject of a Law Commission report. The Law Commission had in fact drafted a bill but the bill did not meet the Parliamentary Counsel Office’s current drafting practice to adopt the modern phraseology. As a result the Ministry of Justice issued drafting instructions to the Parliamentary Counsel Office and completely redrafted the legislation. 
I will never forget sitting at that select committee listening to submission after submission after submission all of them beginning with their particular theory as to why the Law Commission draft was different from the Ministry of Justice’s draft. There was theory after theory after theory as to why a particular phrase was used and why a particular clause was drafted in a particular way and so the debate at the select committee came about as a debate around the two different drafting styles and the different approaches that they represented rather than a discussion about what our company law ought to look like. I have to admit and I think that colleagues on both sides of the House felt exactly the same way how difficult this made our job as a select committee. It really led me to the very strong view back in those early days that the Law Commission should in fact have the advantage of a direct delegation of someone from parliamentary counsel to the Law Commission when it was drafting bills. Then we would get the current drafting practice merged into the Law Commission’s work so that when it returned a bill to the Minister the Minister would with confidence be able to introduce that bill to the House. So I am very pleased to see an entire subpart of Part 2 devoted to this whole question of current drafting practice. 
One of the frustrations that I have experienced over the many years that I have been here is when legislation was drafted in a format that is no longer representative of current drafting practice and an amendment has to be made and the number of times that parliamentary counsel have to go through the existing legislation in order to essentially upgrade it so that it is fit for purpose and to accept an amendment that Parliament is dealing with several years later. I believe that that frustration can be dealt with as a result of this subpart which is why I am very very pleased to see it in the form that it is in. 
Of course there are simple editorial changes that can be dealt with at the time of a reprint which actually make incredibly good sense. We can for example see language changed to gender-neutral language so that we can refer to “he or she” instead of the word “he”. I mean I remember all of those laws that existed for many many years that only ever referred to “he”. You know I felt as a woman that these things never quite— 
Andrew Little 
: Excluded—you felt excluded. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: I felt excluded. That is exactly the word I was looking for. Thank you Mr Little. 
Charles Chauvel 
: They didn’t apply to you. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: But sometimes I felt that they ought to apply to me. I felt definitely excluded. But now the words “he or she” can simply be replaced for the word “he” and that enables the law to be updated in a sensible way. The word “chairman” may be changed to “chairperson”. I remember—this is going to show how long I have been here—the Rt Hon Sir Robert Muldoon debating in the House once and he actually got a bit upset that somebody had been referring to the Chair. He got up and gave a speech about how unfortunate it was that the previous speaker was able to address only an inanimate object that the Chairman was sitting on. He really was not quite up to date himself. 
The words “Her Majesty the Queen” may be changed to “the Sovereign”. I actually think the fact that we are signalling this does suggest that you know we are getting ready for the inevitable there. I think the same thing happens when you refer to things like Queen’s Counsel and it becomes King’s Counsel over time and vice versa. We have to make sure that our legislation is able to stay up to date in that regard. 
Then there are some simple changes that just reflect some sensible changes to the way we use language. Sometimes there are simple spelling errors errors in numbering and cross-referencing and any other errors of a similar nature. All of these can be tidied up in a very straightforward manner and that is something that I think makes really good sense. So I believe that this is a helpful part of this legislation—this subpart in particular I think—to embed current drafting practice because of course the language always speaks to the present moment. The definition of “current drafting practice” in clause 23 is that it “means the legislative drafting practice for the time being used by the PCO”. That means that whatever the drafting practice of the day is that is the definition that will apply. That will enable our laws to remain of a particular standard. That means that when one looks at a particular piece of legislation and at another piece of legislation the differences will not be there. They will in fact be drafted in the same way and will meet the same tests and that will ensure that people have a common understanding of what they mean. 
So again I think this is an excellent bill and I am pleased to see this particular part. I know that people have sort of taken my comments as being somewhat facetious but having had the experience of sitting on a variety of select committees and seeing the incredibly hard work that our parliamentary counsel bring to the task I believe that these changes will assist them in the work that they do and obviously in that regard assist the work of this House. 
ANDREW LITTLE (Labour) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to take a call on the Legislation Bill. Some of the comments from my colleagues and others in the Chamber earlier might have suggested that this legislation is tedious or boring but this is actually absolutely fundamental to the operation of the House. If there is one thing that this House stands for and that it is measured by it is the lawmaking that it does and the legislation that it produces. Therefore to make good the record of the laws that we make and to ensure that the public and the voters—the citizens who are subject to the laws that are the product of this House—have access it is vital that those laws be properly accessible and understandable. So this legislation goes some way to ensure that that happens. 
What I wish to address my comments to is that issue of accessibility. I know hearing some of the earlier comments from other speakers as I say that some people think that this is more exciting for lawyers than it is for others. I have to say that yesterday morning like no doubt many others I watched the leap—the death-defying leap—of Felix Baumgartner from 39000 feet on the edge of the stratosphere and that was exciting. But when we get to talk about our role as lawmakers that goes beyond excitement. That is enjoyable and it is essential and it is uplifting and it is a better thing than watching somebody jump 39000 feet. When we talk about the accessibility of the law clause 7 of the bill requires that the places where the printed legislation can be purchased be designated so that there are known places where the law can be purchased. But the good thing is that the places where printed legislation can be purchased are not just confined to designated places; it can be purchased from other places as well. That is a good piece of flexibility in a good piece of law. Clause 8 requires the price of printed legislation to be reasonable and so it should be. That is another question of accessibility and if I can refer to the debate in this House earlier hopefully the CPI measures can be properly adjusted to ensure that the price of printed legislation is not artificially inflated or added to and that it remains accessible. 
I think that what is most important in this day and age in the 21st century and the age of the internet is free access to legislation on the internet. We already have the legislation.govt.nz website which is a fantastic resource wherever you are and no doubt that will continue to be a place where the legislation is available and provided for as the legislation says for free. I think the question about accessibility through the internet is going to be vital and we need to ensure that that portal that means of access to the legislation is as widely available to as many citizens as possible. May I suggest without a hint of facetiousness that maybe the IT department for Work and Income could be contracted on a special project to assist in that to ensure that the widest possible access is given to legislation available through that portal. That will satisfy the demands and the needs of clause 9 of the bill and that will be very important in that central task of making the laws that we make accessible. It is grouped together as we know on the present internet site. When you enter your search it provides all the available legislation—delegated legislation as well—that is relevant to the topic and this new legislation will ensure that that is mandated by statute. 
The provisions in this particular part go on as my colleague Charles Chauvel talked about to the 3-yearly review of legislation. It is now a standard procedure in any organisation private or public to ensure that the outputs and the services that are provided are given a regular review to ensure that they are up to date meet the need and are fit for purpose. 
I do notice in clause 33 that those who are empowered to give certification to legislation that is reviewed and given revision—so that there is editorial change without changing the meaning of the law—are confined to the president of the Law Commission the Solicitor-General and a retired High Court judge appointed by the Attorney-General. That is a sensible provision so that this House does not get bogged down in having to utilise its very expensive processes to make what are often purely administrative or editorial changes to make the law current and alive and relevant for today. Typographical errors need to be able to be dealt with without taking unnecessarily the time of this House. Making the changes that tidy up the law and modernise the language without changing the meaning is a very important task and in terms of those who are tasked with it and those who have the job of certifying that the task is done without the changing the meaning of the law I would note that it does require some of the best legal minds we have. Indeed the provisions in clause 33 with the designated positions that are provided for will I am confident ensure that that will happen. 
On this part of the bill we are very keen to support it and see a 92-year-old piece of legislation transformed and modernised so that we can get on and ensure that our legislation the work we do continues to be made relevant and most important made accessible to the citizens who are touched by it. Thank you. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Hon Christopher Finlayson to the proposed amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 127 in his name to insert new clause 32A be agreed to: 
to omit new clause 32A.  
Amendment to the amendment agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendments as amended set out on Supplementary Order Paper 127 in the name of the Hon Christopher Finlayson to Part 2 be agreed to. 
Amendments as amended agreed to. 
Part 2 as amended agreed to. 
Progress to be reported presently. 
House resumed. 
The Chairperson reported the Taxation (Annual Rates Returns Filing and Remedial Matters) Bill with amendment progress on the Legislation Bill no progress on the Airports (Cost Recovery for Processing of International Travellers) Bill and no progress on the International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill. 
Report adopted.