Finlayson Christopher: Legislation Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Finlayson Christopher: Legislation Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 05 December 2012. Volume:686;Page:7257. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General) 
: 
 I move  
That the Legislation Bill be now read a third time 
. This is a very important piece of legislation. It is based on the Law Commission’s recommendations in its 2008 report  
Presentation of New Zealand Statute Law 
 and its 2009 report  
Review of the Statutes Drafting and Compilation Act 1920 
. The Law Commission noted in its foreword to the 2008 report that the New Zealand statute book is perhaps the most important part of our legal infrastructure so it goes without saying that legislation must be accessible to all New Zealanders. It needs to be readily available easy to navigate clearly written and kept up to date. 
The Legislation Bill aims to improve the presentation and accessibility of our statute law so that people will find more easily the law that applies to them. The bill updates and brings together the law on drafting printing publication and disallowance all into one statute. Currently to find the relevant rules folk need to work their way through several statutes—for example the Statutes Drafting and Compilation Act 1920 the Acts and Regulations Publication Act 1989 and the Regulations (Disallowance) Act of 1989. The bill carries forward the existing regulations disallowance regime to allow Parliament to continue to oversee the use by the executive of delegated lawmaking powers. Very important is that it defines more clearly the nature of the subordinate legislation that will be the subject of the disallowance regime—and I can see you are riveted Mr Deputy Speaker. This has not always been clear because some delegated legislation has been excluded from the disallowance regime on the basis of its form rather than its effect. The bill defines a disallowable instrument to include an instrument that has significant legislative effect—that is it affects the rights and obligations of the public. This has the effect of broadening the scope of the Regulations Review Committee’s jurisdiction and strengthens parliamentary scrutiny of regulations and regulation-making powers. 
The bill also does a number of other things. Some of our law that deals with the technical or operation aspects of a policy is set out in documents that are incorporated by reference into our delegated legislation. The material may have been developed by a specialist Government agency or by a private or an overseas organisation and it may be impractical to include this technical lengthy material in delegated legislation. So the practice has been to include provisions in individual statutes to enable material to be incorporated by reference in instruments made under these statutes. Since 2003 standard provisions set out in the Legislation Advisory Committee guidelines containing important public consultation and access requirements have been used. The bill includes these as generally applicable provisions so that they will not need to be duplicated in every new bill. This will ensure greater clarity and consistency in how this material is to be incorporated into our law. 
The Parliamentary Counsel Office’s governance arrangements and operations are also being modernised under the bill to reflect how the office operates today and—very important—to ensure its continuing independence. That office ensures that bills and regulations are properly drafted and I believe I speak for all members when I say it does a fine job on behalf of all of us. Its printing and publication functions enable legislation to be publicly available easily located and expressed in clear language. Some important new functions are being added by the bill and these include providing official electronic as well as paper versions of Acts and legislative instruments carrying out a 3-yearly statute revision programme to improve the presentation of our statutes and advising departments and agencies on the drafting of instruments that are not drafted by the Parliamentary Counsel Office such as rules codes and standards. 
In 2009 the Law Commission identified that there are over 1100 statutes in force. Some of these statutes are old and are expressed in language that can be described only as archaic. Many have been amended over the years in a piecemeal way and this has resulted in sometimes unwieldy and incoherent legislation. The statute revision programme reforms in the bill will enable amendments to be incorporated with principal Acts outdated language to be converted into the Parliamentary Counsel Office plain-language drafting style and obsolete and expired provisions to be removed. Re-enacting legislation in a more accessible form will help individuals and businesses more easily to understand the rules that apply and this will reduce regulatory cost. These changes and the enhanced reprinting powers in the bill will also assist in reducing the need for and the cost of technical remedial legislation. 
Can I conclude by thanking the Law Commission for its work and the Regulations Review Committee for recommending some valuable amendments which I think have the effect of further clarifying and improving this bill. I commend the bill to the House.