Webb DuncanDr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you Madam Speaker. That was very The Cat in the Hat wasn't it? But actually for all of his facetiousness Mr Penk makes a good point that clear language is a good thing. But to say that nothing's broke is wholly inaccurate and suggests that Mr Penk should delve into a few more Government documents. We heard about the immigration instructions and only yesterday I was looking at the animal welfare codes in respect of dogs to respond to a couple of school students. Those documents are turgid.Hon Michael Woodhouse: What does turgid mean?Dr DUNCAN WEBB: To suggest that it's—well turgid Mr Woodhouse is whatever comes out of your mouth when you stand up. To be perfectly honest to have a responsibility on Government to turn their minds to who the audience is—the animal welfare code for dogs is a great example because frankly that's something we want every dog owner to be able to look at understand and comply with so that they can look after dogs appropriately and in accordance with the law. But that's actually not that easy to do with a 40-page document that uses technical language.Let's face it that our advisers and our people who work in ministries do a great job but they do need to get out more sometimes. They can sometimes get trapped into a circle of thinking and communicating with each other in ways which they understand but are jargonistic and complex and sometimes convoluted. To have a pair of eyes saying Don't say give devise and bequeath; just say give because that's redundant"—just those obvious things. Use active not passive sentences. Let's break up sentences. Let's use bullet points. These are all good ideas.Let's be honest: there are some Government documents that are very good very accessible. In fact could I just say this is actually about a working functioning democracy because one of the things we need is for law to be accessible. In New Zealand as in any developed democracy it isn't just legislation that's law; it's regulation ordinances and of course policy guidance and documents which sometimes are where the rubber really hits the road. Those documents can be extremely complicated. Whilst it's appropriate to have comprehensive rules when the thing that's being regulated is complicated we need to push back against the idea that language has to be inaccessible because the subject matter is inaccessible.So this is a very good bill. I was talking only moments ago to Jan Tinetti who was doing a lot of research on this noticing that we're well behind the plate—we're well behind the plate. The United States has had this in place for decades and has strengthened it over time. Why? Because they take seriously the right of any citizen to know and understand what their obligations are. They should be able to do that—not by going into a Government department and having it explained by an official or bureaucrat not by going to a lawyer not by going to a community advice centre but by picking up a document and using normal reading skills because citizens in most cases are the people who are intended to be the recipients the audience for any given document. And it's a basic rule of drafting; it's not that much to ask. When you write something think about who you're writing it to or for and write it so that they will understand it. It's not a high threshold. To suggest that in some way it's wrong-headed to have someone running the rule over a communication and saying "Oh look our intended audience couldn't possibly understand it"—to suggest that's wrong-headed is just utterly ill-conceived.This is a very good piece of legislation that will make our democracy better will make our citizens better informed and make our Public Service more effective. That is an excellent piece of legislation. I look forward to the day it is passed."