Brown SimeonSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you Mr Chair for the opportunity and I commend my colleague Michael Woodhouse for outlining what I think are some genuine questions for the member to actually answer. Because the reality is that we have to ask ourselves: why are we here spending time on a piece of legislation which doesn't even have any teeth or any requirements to actually make a difference? Now we come to Parliament to actually write legislation which is actually going to make a difference. Basically all this could do is lead to some guidelines being published and then basically being put in the file and forgotten so it's an absolute waste of time. But I did note in the member's response there that she actually failed to answer a question and it relates to what Michael Woodhouse was talking about which is the question that I ask. Is legislation" covered by the definition in clause 4B "What documents must use plain language"? I ask that question because plainly according to the plain—that's my lay reading of this complicated piece of legislation. It does say here in clause 4B(1)(c) that "the document provides (i) information about what services are provided by or on behalf of a reporting agency or information about how to obtain those"—so that's unlikely to be legislation. But when you get down to "(iv) provides information to the public about a requirement that a reporting agency administers or enforces that may affect their rights or interests;" when I think of legislation I think about rights and interests. I think about administration; who administers that. I think about enforcement; legislation includes enforcement—most legislation except for this one obviously for other reasons. But the question I've got there to the member in the chair is: is legislation included? And I would say in the plain language reading of clause 4B(c)(iv) that legislation does provide information to the public. It's a public-facing document about a requirement that a reporting agency administers or enforces that may affect their rights or interests. And if that is the interpretation of this piece of legislation then this really does put significant responsibility on all Ministers and members in relation to the language used in terms of legislating in this House. I know that there have been great efforts made over many years to try to make legislation more accessible so it is more easily read. But the reality is it's legalese; it's effectively the way it's structured the words and particular phrases that are used the way clauses interact with other clauses and the way that sometimes even legislation refers to other sections in other legislation which does have an impact. All of these things have an impact in terms of plain language. So I really genuinely would like to know from the member whether this legislation does include "legislation" because the Crown Law Office obviously would be I would say an agency which—well they're clearly an agency; they are a Crown agent or a public service agency. They are covered by the definitions of the piece of legislation is my understanding and therefore they have a significant responsibility in terms of drafting legislation for Ministers and in terms of making sure that the legislation that is taken to Cabinet is in plain language and obviously brought to the House before being passed. So I seriously would like the member in the chair to give this committee some answers to that question. And I think the point of that question is that it shows the level of where this issue starts to affect throughout Government departments. Of course we'll get to Part 2 shortly which talks about plain language officers and I'm really looking forward to that conversation around plain language officers. But of course the more requirements or the more agencies or the more documents which may be covered will lead to more officers needing to be employed to be able to fulfil the grand purpose of this legislation and its great ambition to somehow make all documents plain language through this piece of legislation. So I look forward to announce that question and I'll have more to come after that."