Allan KiritapuKIRITAPU ALLAN (Labour): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Just before the Hon Christopher Finlayson leaves this House—he's gone but I just want to make some quick notes on his comments in respect of Te Ture Whenua and the way that this legislation the Legislation Bill interacts with such important pieces of legislation like Te Ture Whenua.The Act in and of itself is not a taonga but the substance of what it goes to the protectionary mechanisms certainly is. Now the honourable member who has just left the House—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! You can't mention members not being here.KIRITAPU ALLAN: Oh I'm not allowed to mention that. Sorry about that—sorry. Apologies I've still got my green shoes on so I'm learning the rules of the House as I go. So thank you for indulging me sir and to the honourable member my sincere apologies.This Legislation Bill is a fantastic piece of work and I want to turn to it in a couple of seconds and really commend the Hon Christopher Finlayson for his work in getting it to this House. But actually I applaud the work of the current Attorney-General David Parker and the Hon Christopher Hipkins the Leader of the House for expediting this piece of legislation because it brings—Andrew Bayly: They expedited it.KIRITAPU ALLAN: —there we go—to the forefront what I think many of us came into this House to do which is to ensure that the legislation—in fact the laws that govern our country—is in fact accessible and accessible to all. I think there were 1800 clauses that the Parliamentary Counsel Office found that had in some way shape or form a secondary legislative effect in that they simply are not accessible.I turn to the comments of the Law Commission paper that they presented in respect of the presentation of statute law. They said There are three aspects of accessibility. First [that] the law should be publicly available. Secondly it should be navigable. We mean by this that we should know how and where to find the parts of it that we want. Thirdly [that] the law should be clear; it should be as easy to understand as possible given its content. Some parts of our law will inevitably be complex because they have to regulate complicated matters but the law should not be made harder to understand than it needs to be because of the way it is written or presented. It is important to understand that [the] law is not just for lawyers. Many people who are not legally trained use the law in their jobs (employees of government departments …). Members of Parliament who pass our laws need to be able to understand them. People who wish to make submissions on bills going through Parliament should also be able to understand the bills."Having reviewed this legislation in some detail it's very pleasing to see—I think you start to see a real shift actually in modernising the way in which law was accessible by the ordinary layperson. Really there was a substantive push towards accessibility of the legal system in the early 2000s and I want to commend the Law Society the Law Commission and others that contributed to that piece of work.I see that this bill here is merely an extension of what many of us would just call a sensible amendment to our laws. In effect this bill centralises and makes accessible our secondary legislation that ordinarily is not—well actually it is not accessible for many people. I just want to draw on the comments made by Miriam Dean QC who did head that inquiry into the whey protein concentrate aka the botulism scare report. Her comments were that she was not certain whether or not the dairy industry could in fact draw on all of the regulatory mechanisms that they were required to consider.I want to echo the comments of the former Attorney-General the Hon Christopher Finlayson. It's actually egregious. The fact that a person of the most highest stature in our country could not be certain in her report as to whether or not a whole entire industry that is so pivotal to New Zealand's economy could in fact access or understand let alone navigate the regulations that it was required to is absolutely shambolic. So I applaud the work of those members that have come long before me that have seen it as common sense to bring some shape and emphasis and focus on accessibility as this piece of legislation seeks to do.That was one substantive inquiry—the botulism scare. I think that they produced in excess of 12000 pages and talked about the difficulty to navigate our current legal system with the emphasis on—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Sorry to interrupt the member but the time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.KIRITAPU ALLAN: Madam Deputy Speaker as this is the first time I have appeared before you in your role as Deputy Speaker I would like to commend you and say it is a mighty fine day for the East Coast Madam Deputy Speaker.Prior to the break I was outlining some of the issues involved with the complexity of locating secondary legislation. Over the break it became apparent to me that there wasn't necessarily a clear distinction not necessarily by members of this House but by many people out there in the general audience that have a clear understanding of the differences between primary legislation and secondary legislation which this Legislation Bill by and large goes to the heart of making more accessible.So primary legislation is legislation that is passed in this House under the scrutiny of three readings of a bill. Sometimes they're referenced off to a select committee and of course there is the assenting by the Governor-General under the authority of the Queen. It is not necessarily an absolute but there is not the rigorous scrutiny that of course secondary legislation is required to go through. Now secondary legislation is legislation that is enacted by dint of delegated authority to a Minister or some ministry officials and so on and so forth.Over the break I was thinking about why this Legislation Bill probably comes so close to my heart and why I'm so pleased to see it go through under this Labour-led Government is because it is about enhancing access to law and good law. Really it goes to the heart of the rule of law.Now reflecting back to my second-year classes sitting in a public law class being made to recite Dicey's articulation of the rule of law it prompted me to go back and have a quick recheck as to how the rule of law is defined. So the Oxford Dictionary says that the rule of law is "The authority and influence of law in society especially when viewed as a constraint on individual and institutional behaviour hence the principle whereby all members of … society including those in government are considered equally subject to publicly disclosed legal codes and processes." This Legislation Bill does exactly that.Now if I enter in "primary legislation" into the old Google search up springs a myriad of direct sources but they take me directly to legislation.govt.nz and I can track the history of that Act and the various bills before this Parliament for debate and consideration. But when it comes to regulations and secondary legislation I have no such luck.I recall my time working recently as a lawyer for a client where they were required to navigate secondary legislation made by a Minister under delegated authority that had to comply with international free-trade agreements. I remember being huddled in a room with a couple of Harvard-educated lawyers a few senior counsel and a good handful of junior lawyers as we all cobbled around in a wee room trying to understand the intricate overlay between these secondary pieces of legislation as they related to the Treaty and of course our domestic law.This Legislation Bill in my view goes directly to what I would like this House to be passing which is good decent accessible law that enables accountability so that for us as lawmakers but particularly those in the executive that are passing laws in this House ordinary citizens can hold those decision makers to account. And adherence—so ignorance is no defence of the law; we know that but in order to understand what we are compelled or obliged to do we have to understand what that law is.So I am absolutely pleased to commend this Legislation Bill to the House as it accords with the rule of law."