Hon Christopher Finlayson

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General) : This is a very important issue of black-letter law, and I am excited by this legislation. But it would be quite remiss of me, on this red-letter day for the Labour Party, not to express my sympathy to that party for its ongoing problems. I am especially sorry for my good friend Trevor Mallard, who has today lost his special buddy at pump class at Bodyworks on Thorndon Quay, Chris Carter.

Grant Robertson: You’ll still be there for him, though, won’t you?

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: I will not be there for him, because—

Grant Robertson: No, you will still be there for him.

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: No, I say to Mr Robertson, I will not be there, because while Trevor does pump classes, I am upstairs lifting the real tin. But I digress, and we have important issues to concentrate on this afternoon.

Grant Robertson: A challenge, does the Minister have?

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: I will challenge him any day. I doubt whether he could lift what I lift.

Paul Quinn: Too busy sunning himself.

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: Oh, he is too busy sunning himself, which is why he looks like an orange.

The Law Commission proposed that the Parliamentary Counsel Office should be given enhanced powers of editing when producing reprints of statutes, and this recommendation is implemented in full.

Very importantly, the commission also recommended that there should be a systematic programme of statute law revision. This is a process whereby an Act is re-enacted with all the amendments made to it over time incorporated in one single statute. One concern that is often expressed about New Zealand statute law is its inaccessibility, and that is what we are trying to address here. Under this bill, Attorneys-General will be required to produce a programme of statutes to be revised during each Parliament. The Parliamentary Counsel Office will then be required to draft revision bills in accordance with that 3-yearly programme, and Parliament will be able to agree that revision bills will progress through Parliament under a streamlined process that will be set out in the Standing Orders.

Part 3 deals with subordinate, or secondary, legislation. Importantly, it makes provision for disallowance. The categories of instrument that are subject to the disallowance process have been revised. Until now, it has not always been easy to determine whether a delegated instrument was disallowable, and this bill addresses that issue. Part 3 also makes provision for the incorporation of material into legislation by reference to another document. This is a drafting technique whereby a document is given legal effect by being referred to in secondary legislation without being copied out in full or redrafted in some way into the legislative instrument.

Finally, Part 4 makes provision for the Parliamentary Counsel Office by updating the provisions in the Statutes Drafting and Compilation Act 1920. The commission recommended that the Parliamentary Counsel Office should no longer be an Office of Parliament but that it should continue to be outside the core Public Service and that it should remain under the Attorney-General’s control.

The Legislation Bill represents a very significant step in the process of improving and modernising the New Zealand statute book. It brings together law on drafting, publication, and the disallowance of legislation for the first time, and it ensures that legislation is made available to the public through the most appropriate and convenient method. It preserves and enhances the powers of this House to scrutinise and challenge delegated legislation and, importantly, it preserves the independence of the Parliamentary Counsel Office, which has done such an outstanding job for Governments of all hues over many years to ensure that legislation is drafted carefully. I commend the bill to the House.