Hon Christopher Finlayson

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General) : I move, That the Legislation Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be referred to the Regulations Review Committee for consideration. Today is an exciting day for black-letter law. There are some people who may say this is all dullsville, but I remind them that these days legislation, not case law, is the major source of law in this land. I can say that no better than to quote from a paper I was given today by an Australian called Wainwright, who had prepared a paper for a meeting of senior officials of Commonwealth law ministries. He said: “It’s axiomatic that legislation, both primary and secondary, has assumed ever-increasing importance in Government and in the everyday lives of people over the last 200 years, and continues to do so at what some see as an alarming rate. Even political parties committed to the ideal of small government seem unable to do without it.” I suppose that is us. He continued: “In addition to making laws in response to concerns arising within their respective jurisdictions, legislatures are increasingly under pressure to do so in order to meet expanding international obligations.” So one cannot get away from legislation, and legislation has to be kept up to date and it needs to be accessible, not just for lawyers and parliamentarians but for everyone.

The Legislation Bill is a central part of the Government’s response to two recent reports of the Law Commission. The first, entitled Presentation of New Zealand Statute Law, was presented to this House in December 2008. I just cannot understand why the Chamber is emptying—this is so interesting. This is an important report, focusing as it does on how to make our Acts of Parliament up to date and accessible, so that people can easily find and understand the law that applies to them. As the introduction to the report states: “The rule of law is an important concept in most democratic societies. One aspect of the rule of law is to ensure that Acts of Parliament are accessible and available. Otherwise those to whom the law applies cannot find its content.”

The second report of the Law Commission, which was tabled in June 2009, was the review of the Statutes Drafting and Compilation Act of 1920. That Act established the Parliamentary Counsel Office and made provision for its governance and its functions. Although the role and functions of the Parliamentary Counsel Office have expanded since the 1920s, the Act has remained largely unchanged. The Law Commission reviewed the status and the functions of the Parliamentary Counsel Office, and has made recommendations about how its underpinning legislation might be modernised.

The Law Commission, in its first report, had some good things to say about the accessibility of New Zealand’s statute law. But it also identified some problems, such as the law on one topic being scattered across several statutes, the practice of Parliament passing reforming laws that do not entirely replace their predecessors, and the existence on the statute book of some very, very old Acts. These older Acts were inevitably drafted in a style that is now quite hard to read and understand. The commission made a number of recommendations about how the current situation could be improved. Many, but not all, of those recommendations were accepted by the Government. Some do not require legislation. For example, the commission recommended that a full collection of historical New Zealand statutes should be captured digitally and made available online. The Parliamentary Counsel Office has already started this process, and certain of the repealed New Zealand statutes are now freely accessible on the Internet. Other recommendations that were accepted by the Government can be implemented only by changes to the law as set out in this bill.

I turn now to the bill itself. Part 2 makes provision for the publication of legislation. The most significant change here is that the Parliamentary Counsel Office will be required to publish legislation electronically. Electronic versions of legislation will eventually have the same official status as the printed versions. The commission proposed that the Parliamentary Counsel Office should also be given enhanced powers of editing when producing reprints of statutes, so that these versions are more accessible and easier to read.