What makes Parliament tick?

(Legislative Council Chamber, Parliament House, 17 August 1999)

Geoff Lawn¹

Introduction

1. In his paper², George Tanner described the drafting process and the involvement of the Parliamentary Counsel Office (PCO) in producing legislation. In terms of the theme of this seminar, "What makes Parliament tick", he might be regarded as having described the turning of the cogs that make up the drafting process, and how this helps drive the mechanism that turns the hands on the parliamentary clock-face.

2. There is a basic irony in this metaphor for drafters, because drafters are not only part of the machinery that makes the parliamentary clock tick, but also very often find themselves racing against that same clock when it comes to producing the draft legislation demanded by the Government and the Parliament.

3. This race produces its own dilemma, because the object of legislation is to communicate a message from the legislators to the public, and it is essential that the message be clear and unambiguous. Yet the pace at which legislation is drafted often demands a compromise between clarity and precision on the one hand, and on the other the need simply to get the message down on paper (or at least on the hard drive of a computer).

4. It is that basic feature of legislation, as the mechanism for communicating the rules of society, that I want to focus on. The idea that drafting is communication. Communication has two aspects: the message itself, and how it is disseminated. I deal with the issue of access to legislation first. I will then look at the message itself, how legislation is drafted.

Access to legislation

5. The PCO is responsible, under the Acts and Regulations Publication Act 1989, for arranging for the printing and publication of—

• copies of Acts and regulations
• copies of reprints of Acts and reprints of regulations
• reprints of Imperial enactments that have effect as part of the laws of New Zealand.

6. And under the same Act, the PCO must make available for purchase by members of the public, at a reasonable price, copies of Acts and regulations.

7. The compilation department of the PCO is established by the Statutes Drafting and Compilation Act 1920. The principal function of the Compilation Department is to compile, with their amendments, statutes and regulations that have been amended, and to supervise the printing of these compilations. They produce the brown volumes that you will all be familiar with.

8. Reprints of legislation have the same legal status as copies of the original legislation. They are presumed to correctly set out the law as at the date of the reprint. They can therefore be relied on by Judges, lawyers, and other users of legislation as authoritative statements of the law³.

9. The present compilation (or reprinting) process is not working, for a number of reasons:

• it does not take advantage of modern technology, and as a result is too slow and inefficient
• it does not satisfy the need for timely access to up-to-date legislation
• it is difficult to link subordinate legislation to its primary legislation
• it does not make the law available in an easily accessible form.

10. There has been dissatisfaction with the current reprint system for many years. Both the process and the product of the current system have fallen behind the reasonable expectations of the legal profession and the public for access to legislation in an up-to-date form. In the meantime, advances in technology, particularly the Internet, have raised expectations as to the way in which the public should be able to access public information, and as to the currency of that information.

11. Other jurisdictions have embraced the new technology, and many now provide free public access to legislation in electronic form over the Internet. New Zealand has not followed suit, at least not yet. The private sector has moved to fill the gap, but generally on the basis of user pays, and the cost is not inconsiderable. One or other of the 2 commercially available databases of New Zealand legislation is used by many law firms, by Government departments, and by the Judiciary. The PCO itself subscribes to one.

12. It was against this background that the PCO undertook a review of its reprint process. We went back to first principles. That everyone is presumed to know the law, and ignorance of the law is no excuse. But to the extent that the law is contained in legislation, if one is to know what the law is, then it is necessary to have access to legislation in an up-to-date and authoritative form.

13. This basic principle is echoed in the statement of Wild CJ in VUWSA v Government Printer⁴:

I think it can be accepted that the Crown is broadly responsible for making the text of enactments of the Legislature available for public information. People must be told what Parliament is doing and must be able to read the letter of the law.

14. The PCO wanted to find out what users of legislation and the general public thought about the current system of publishing legislation, so we issued a public discussion paper⁵ in September 1998. You can still read the paper on the PCO website⁶. The paper raised a number of fundamental issues:

• what role should the State and the private sector play in providing access to legislation?
• what form should an official version of legislation take?
• on what basis should the Government charge for access to legislation?
• in what form should Bills be published?

15. The PCO received 92 submissions on the discussion paper from a wide variety of interest groups, commercial publishers, and individuals. In summary, the responses to the issues raised are as follows:

• what role should the State and the private sector play in providing access to legislation?
  • 95% of submissions said that the Government should continue to make available an official version of legislation
• what form should an official version of legislation take?
  • 78 submissions said that legislation should be printed in both its uncompiled and compiled form
  • 25 submissions said that uncompiled legislation should be published in annual volumes, and 14 said that compiled legislation should be published in bound volumes
  • 78 submissions said that uncompiled legislation should be published electronically (68 said over the Internet)
  • 80 submissions said that compiled legislation should be published electronically (71 said over the Internet)
  • 29 submissions said that the electronic version should include historical versions
• on what basis should the Government charge for access to legislation?
  • 19 submissions said that there should be free public access
  • 18 submissions said that there should be subsidised general access
  • 14 submissions said that access should be based on cost recovery
  • 38 submissions said that there should be free access to electronic versions
• in what form should Bills be published?
  • 65 submissions said that Bills should be published in electronic form (57 said over the Internet)
  • 32 submissions said that Bills that amend other legislation should be published in a form that allows users to see how the amendment affects other legislation.

16. The PCO has now engaged PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) to assist in formulating recommendations to the Government as to the way ahead. The basic rationale for involving PWC is the complex, and in some respects unique, situation in which New Zealand finds itself with respect to public access to legislation.

17. We need to find a cost-effective solution that fits with the New Zealand situation, including the existence of private sector providers of written and electronic access to legislation. We also need to devise a solution that, if it involves Government investment in technology, does not run the same risks that other public sector IT projects have run.

18. PWC's brief is to identify more clearly the options that might be recommended to the Government. These options include the following:

• an enhanced status quo, in which the PCO would continue to publish hard copy reprints, but with increased resources devoted to the task. There would be no official electronic reprints
• the status quo, but with the reprint process subcontracted out to the private sector. Again, there would be no official electronic reprints
• the PCO produces an in-house electronic database of legislation, with this database becoming the official version. The database could then be used as the source of "camera-ready" copy, which would be made available to private sector publishers to print and distribute
• the PCO authorises a private contractor to produce electronic reprints, and PCO verifies the accuracy of the product
• the PCO appoints an external agency to verify electronic versions produced by private sector publishers
• PCO integrates the drafting process and production of reprints (which is the situation in Tasmania).

19. PWC will provide an analysis of the costs and benefits of these options, having regard to public policy, financial, and technology considerations, and will provide recommendations, and a timetable for implementation. The PCO will then be in a position to make recommendations to the Government. I emphasise that all of the options are just that, and the Government has yet to determine its policy in relation to any of them.

20. New Zealand is behind other countries in providing public access to legislation, but one advantage of this lag is that New Zealand stands to gain from the experience (and perhaps mistakes) of other countries in developing a system that meets the needs of New Zealand.

21. One commentator, Jane Treadwell, presented an insightful and thought-provoking paper late last month to the Law via the Internet '99 Conference in Sydney. In her paper⁷, she raises the issue of whether or not, given that the private sector has filled the gap when it comes to electronic access to New Zealand legislation, it is too late for the Government to step back into the field of play. She queries whether the provision of free access to electronic legislation may risk destroying the finely balanced legal information market which exists in New Zealand. And she questions whether legislation provided free of charge reduces the incentive to provide a product that is timely and reliable, and the competition that drives the need to have a high quality information product.

22. It is not for me to answer these questions, which raise issues of a commercial and political nature, but I simply raise the following matters:

• up-to-date legislation that is easily accessible and comprehensible to the public may be regarded as part of the basic infrastructure of society, as essential as the roading system or a reliable telecommunications system, and without which the everyday functioning of society is made more difficult
• does the current situation, in which the availability of legislation in electronic form is dependent solely on the private sector, make legislation as widely available as it should be? It may suit the needs of the legal profession, which can generally afford to pay, but does it meet the needs of the general public for access to "their law"? Does it simply entrench the position of the legal profession as a sort of "priestly caste", the interpreters of the law for those unable to access it for themselves?
• is it desirable to rely on the private sector for such a basic commodity? Can the State afford to run the risk that private sector providers might someday decide to pull out of the market, leaving the State and therefore the public without any central electronic database of legislation?
• and as to quality, can a version of legislation in electronic form that is not official, that cannot be relied on as authoritative, really be regarded as fulfilling the duty that Chief Justice Wild clearly imposed on the Government?

23. It is interesting to note in this context that the Canadian Government introduced legislation⁸ in October last year that would provide for the publication of an official version of the consolidated statutes and regulations of Canada in either a printed or an electronic form. Either version would be able to be used as evidence. The same legislation would provide for the electronic distribution of the Canada Gazette. Under the legislation, copies of the consolidated statutes and consolidated regulations would have to be distributed free of charge to certain persons or classes of persons identified by Order in Council.

24. The legislation is now on hold while the Canadian Parliament enjoys its summer recess, but there is every indication that it will pass.

The content of legislation: format and language

25.When one compares statute law with case law, it is clear that legislation is infinitely more accessible to the general public than the other source of law in our legal system, the common law.

26. I note here the words of Jeremy Bentham, a strong advocate of the codification of the law and its enactment in statute. He considered that statutes would "mark out the line of the subject's conduct by visible directions instead of turning [the subject] loose into the wilds of perpetual conjecture"⁹.

27. On the other hand, Bentham was extremely critical of the style of legislative drafting of his time, which he regarded (rightly) as unacceptable because it was intelligible to a very narrow audience. To Bentham, laws should be drafted—

so that every moment in which they ought to influence the conduct of a citizen, he may have presented in his mind an exact idea of the will of the legislator in this respect.¹⁰

28. Chief Justice Sir Richard Wild identified a legal duty on the State to make legislation physically available to the public. Is there also a duty on the State to make legislation understandable by the public, that is, to communicate the message?

29. For what is the point in ensuring that the public and other interested parties have access to the law, if it is unintelligible to them when they find it? This leads on to the second aspect of my address: the content of legislation, the message itself.

30. I am not aware of any precedents that express plain drafting as a legal duty. The closest one might come to such a duty is in the context of subordinate legislation, where one aspect of ultra vires is legal uncertainty. If subordinate legislation is not expressed clearly enough, the courts may hold that there has not been a valid exercise of the power to legislate. By contrast, the courts cannot declare an Act of Parliament invalid on the ground of uncertainty.

31. The case of Queensland is interesting, however. There the Office of the Queensland Parliamentary Counsel is created by the Legislative Standards Act 1992. The purposes of the Act include ensuring that—

• Queensland legislation is of the highest standard
• an effective and efficient legislative drafting service is provided for Queensland legislation
• Queensland legislation, and information relating to Queensland legislation, is readily available in both printed and electronic form.

32. The Legislative Standards Act 1992 states that these purposes are primarily to be achieved by establishing the Office of the Queensland Parliamentary Counsel. One of the functions of the Office of the Queensland Parliamentary Counsel is to provide Ministers, members of Parliament, and government entities with advice on the application of fundamental legislative principles, which are defined as the principles relating to legislation that underlie a parliamentary democracy based on the rule of law.

33. The principles include requiring that legislation has sufficient regard to rights and liberties of individuals and the institution of Parliament. Whether legislation has sufficient regard to rights and liberties of individuals depends on whether, for example, the legislation...is unambiguous and drafted in a sufficiently clear and precise way. So Queensland legislation explicitly links good drafting to fundamental legislative principles.

34. So what is the New Zealand PCO doing to promote the clear drafting of legislation?

35. The PCO's mission statement is as follows:

• to provide high quality legislative drafting services and advice in a professional, impartial, and responsive manner
• to ensure, as far as it can, that New Zealand legislation is based on sound legal principles
• to ensure that New Zealand legislation is readily accessible.

36. The PCO's vision statement contains a commitment to improve access to legislation by ensuring that legislation is drafted as clearly and simply as possible.

37. We do recognise the need to make improvements in drafting style. And so at the beginning of 1997 we took some simple and unremarkable steps in this direction:

• we have abandoned certain archaic language (hereby, notwithstanding)
• we now express dates in a simpler form
• we now omit unnecessary internal referential words, such as "of this section" and "of this Act", when it is clear what part of the legislation is being referred to
• we now number Parts using arabic numerals instead of roman
• we have abandoned "shall" in favour of "must" or another formulation (such as the simple present tense)
• we omit unnecessary qualifying words, such as "except as provided" and "subject to".

38. These changes have generally passed without comment, except for general expressions of endorsement from members of Parliament when debating a motion giving authority to change Bills then before the House into the new style.¹¹

39. For example, the next speaker at this seminar, Lianne Dalziel MP, expressed the view that:

... the ordinary person should be able to access statutory information. They should be able to read Acts of Parliament and to understand that their plain meaning is that which was intended by Parliament.¹²

40. Rt Hon Paul East QC said that "it is probably fair to say that lawyers tend to be a little conservative when it comes to changing the written style of our statute law..."¹³. I will return to this theme later. Although he considered that the changes were not particularly dramatic, they were a good first step.

41. Another member, Jim Anderton MP, went a bit further¹⁴. He thought that some of the changes were good in themselves, but relatively cosmetic. But he felt that it is necessary "to go to the heart of the way in which the law is drafted, and the inability of ordinary citizens to understand it, and having to hire lawyers". He thought that this issue of accessibility to the law was a parliamentary matter. Parliamentarians "have to have confidence that ordinary citizens can understand the law of the country, because if they cannot then how can they obey it, and how can they have respect for it?"

42. Mr Anderton suggested that one option would be to assemble a panel of ordinary citizens, give them a selection of legislation, and ask them whether or not they can understand any of it. He described this process as a sort of "language audit" on behalf of ordinary citizens.

43. The matter of document testing is something that has been undertaken in other jurisdictions, and has, I understand, been used by the Inland Revenue Department in the Tax Rewrite Project. The PCO has not so far investigated this issue, but one matter on which we have sought the public's input is on the format of legislation.

44. The Law Commission published a report on The Format of Legislation¹⁵ in December 1993. The work of the Law Commission was subsequently further advanced and refined by a Steering Committee comprising representatives from the Law Commission, Office of the Clerk, Inland Revenue Department, GP Legislation Services (now Legislation Direct), and the PCO.

45. The Steering Committee expressed general agreement with most of the Law Commission's recommendations, but felt that it would be appropriate to survey the views of a broad cross-section of users of legislation.

46. The PCO undertook a survey of users of legislation in June 1998 on a number of issues raised in the Law Commission's report, in particular on the issue of what typeface should be used for New Zealand legislation. The survey sought the views of members of Parliament, Judges, librarians, academics, lawyers in private practice and in government, legal publishers, and interested members of the public. Over 174 survey packs were sent out, and the survey was publicised on the PCO website.

47. The survey asked participants to compare 6 samples of an Act of Parliament reproduced in the proposed new format. The samples were produced in 3 different typefaces: Baskerville (the typeface currently used), Bembo (recommended by the Law Commission), and Times New Roman (the typeface adopted in a number of Australian jurisdictions and in the United Kingdom). Each typeface was produced in 2 different sizes. The survey asked participants to rank the 6 samples in order of preference, and also asked some other questions about matters of format.

48. Over 90 responses were received on the issue of typeface. The larger size Times New Roman was the first preference of nearly twice as many respondents as the second preference (the Baskerville typeface used now). Most of the other proposed changes to format were favourably received.

49. The new typeface (Times New Roman) and the new format for legislation will be introduced on 1 January 2000. They will be adopted for Bills and Acts, and Statutory Regulations.

50. The larger size typeface will in future be used for schedules of Bills and Acts, and for Statutory Regulations. These are currently printed in a smaller point size. Many people have commented that they find the smaller size difficult to read.

51.Some of the changes in format are as follows, illustrated by a reformatted version of the Defamation Act 1992¹⁶:

• the number, year, and date of assent are included on the front page, in a more prominent position
• section headings appear above the text of the section, and are therefore more distinctive
• to make it easier to find a particular Part or provision, a running head at the top of each page contains the number of the first or last provision on that page, and the Part in which it appears
• defined terms in the interpretation section are identified in bold type, rather than within double quotes as at present
• punctuation is simplified, for example, colons at the end of definitions are omitted
• the layout of provisions is simplified, with the different levels of provisions simply indented progressively across the page, rather than using the current practice of alternating between indents and hanging indents
• there is more space between provisions, and generally more white space on a page, making provisions easier to read
• a short legislative history will be added to the end of each Act, after enactment.

52. The Law Commission, in its report The Format of Legislation, argued that the physical appearance of legislation is an important factor affecting access to the law. Understanding of even the best drafted law may be hindered or helped by such factors as typeface, type size, the space between lines of type, the length of line, the layout and ordering of provisions, the use of headings, and the indentation of text. The Commission pointed out that communication experts agree that a page that is well designed is not only more attractive but also aids understanding.

53. The Law Commission's conclusion was that improvements to the design of New Zealand legislation can help to make it more accessible and more easily understood. It pointed out that legislation is becoming increasingly complex and its volume is growing. At the same time, the number of people making, administering, and, most important, seeking to understand the effect of legislation is growing.

54. The Law Commission saw 2 issues arising in this context. First, the time devoted to such matters needs reducing. It argued that it must be beneficial—

• if members of Parliament spend more time dealing with policy questions in new legislation than trying to ascertain the meaning of the proposals put before them
• if lawyers can more readily find the law and so advise their clients
• and if the public can more easily determine the rules which govern their personal or business transactions.

55. The Commission stated that the democratic, social, and economic benefits of clearer, more accessible legislation and proposed legislation are obvious. In some contexts the financial savings have been quantified; they can be significant, and they continue to grow.

56. Second, the Law Commission pointed out that it is the right of people to know how the law affects them. The availability of the law is not sufficient: those who are expected to know, obey, apply and advise on the law must be helped so far as practicable to understand it.

57. The Law Commission's views were supported by the comments it received on its proposals, and by the results of the survey undertaken by the PCO.

58. The changes in format will have a flow-on effect in relation to reprints of legislation. New legislation, and amendments to existing legislation, passed or made after 1 January next year will be in the new format. When it comes to reprinting the existing legislation with its amendments incorporated, it would clearly be unsatisfactory to produce the reprint in a mix of formats. But there is doubt about whether there is power to reprint existing legislation in the new format. This would require altering some of the text of the original legislation.

59. The Government therefore introduced a Bill in June this year, the Acts and Regulations Publication Amendment Bill, that would permit the production of reprints of existing legislation using the new format, and adopting some of the new clearer drafting practices. The Bill authorises various editorial changes, such as—

• changes to the setting out of provisions
• the repositioning of marginal notes
• changes to typeface and type size
• changes to punctuation, the way dates are expressed, and the replacement of roman numerals in Part headings with arabic numbering
• the omission of unnecessary referential words, such as "of this section".

60. The Bill imposes an important overall constraint on the exercise of these powers. A change will not be permitted if it would change the effect of the legislation. It would clearly be inappropriate, through the reprint process, to change the meaning of the legislation reprinted.

61. Some members of Parliament, in the debate in the House on the 1997 changes in drafting style¹⁷, urged the PCO to be a bit bolder, and we have made steps in this direction.

62. The PCO recently adopted a set of guidelines for clear drafting. Some of these are obvious, but nonetheless useful as constant reminders to drafters of the need to communicate the legislative message as clearly as possible. Quite a bit of what we have done owes it origins to the Legislation Manual produced by the Law Commission in 1996¹⁸.

63. The guidelines begin by reminding the drafter to plan, so that the material is organised clearly. What does the reader want or need to know?

64. The guidelines then set out a series of basic principles. Some of these are as follows:

• use the simplest word that conveys the meaning intended
• use short, simple sentences
• use positive statements, avoiding passive constructions if possible
• use headings liberally to indicate the subject-matter of the various provisions.

65. Another innovation introduced recently is to include an outline part (or reader's guide) in new principal legislation. We tried this device for the first time in the De Facto Relationships (Property) Bill. The outline part is designed to be of particular assistance to someone (particularly a lay person) who picks up the legislation for the first time. It is intended—

• to provide a general indication of what the legislation is about
• to indicate how the legislation is arranged
• to assist the reader to identify the provisions that are relevant to them.

66. Outline parts have also been included in the Accident Insurance Act 1998, and the Personal Property Securities Bill. And the Year 2000 Information Disclosure Act 1999 contains a provision incorporating a statement of what the legislation is about.

67. The PCO has been encouraged by the generally positive response to the use of outline parts. In the case of the De Facto Relationships (Property) Bill, the comments in submissions are predominantly supportive. For example, one submission commended the PCO for "this insightful innovation which allows clear and easy access to the legislation" ¹⁹. Another submission considered the outline part to be a very useful guide for the average New Zealander to find their way around the Bill.

68. It is interesting to note that support for this innovation has come predominantly from lay persons. On the other hand, the reaction of the legal profession has been less enthusiastic, and sometimes quite negative. More than one commentator has questioned whether the device is appropriate for inclusion within the body of the legislation itself, and suggested that an explanatory brochure might be a preferable alternative.

69. The recent introduction of more examples into New Zealand legislation has met with a similar response. I hasten to add that the use of examples is not new. Sir James Stephen included them in the Indian Evidence Act 1872.

70. The Personal Property Securities Bill includes many examples that are intended to illustrate the operation of various provisions. Some submissions to the select committee criticised their use, and suggested that they may be confusing and may inhibit the court's ability to properly interpret the Bill. However, the select committee considered that the examples should remain. It felt that the examples would assist lay people, and even professionals, to understand some of the Bill's more complex concepts.

71. The pace of change in legislative drafting is not determined solely by the PCO. There are a number of factors that temper progress in this area, and some are not easily overcome:

• the PCO is not the only player in the game of legislation. Our instructing departments have views on what legislation should look like, and how it should be expressed. They are particularly sensitive to changes in what they regard as "sacred phrases" that in their view have stood the test of time
• there is a natural desire to avoid changes in language that might upset long established judicial interpretation of a particular enactment. And a desire too to maintain administrative certainty that comes from the existing language and structure. Even things as simple as a change in the numbering of a longstanding provision can provoke resistance
• when it comes to amending existing legislation, there is an understandable reluctance to change a provision any more than is necessary to achieve the policy outcome, even where the language or structure is demonstratively archaic and impenetrable. This reluctance stems in part from the desire to avoid putting provisions that contain controversial policy up for Parliamentary re-examination, or the scrutiny of the Regulations Review Committee. This reluctance can indeed be a powerful force against the rewriting of existing legislation in a more user-friendly style. The old aphorism coined by Lord Thring, one of the great legislative drafters, that "bills are made to pass as razors are made to sell" ²⁰ rings loud and clear in the ears of the law drafter who suggests a scorched-earth approach to legislation of this sort.

72. Despite all of this, I suggest that we have made considerable progress in making New Zealand legislation easier to understand. A comparison of legislation drafted in the last year or so with that drafted as recently as 5 years ago will, on the whole, show a considerable improvement in clarity.

73. And the format changes to be introduced next year will also assist.

74. There are other things that the PCO would like to experiment with in the future. Some of these innovations were suggested by the Law Commission in its report on format. These include the use of flow charts, formulas, pictures, graphics, and diagrams.

75. Another factor in this equation is technology. It clearly has an impact on how legislation is accessed, but it may also affect how it is written. It is possible that limitations on what can be communicated electronically may determine the content of legislation, for example, with respect to numbering and layout. It is interesting to note that the Canadian Bill mentioned earlier²¹ provides that a publication in electronic form may differ from a publication in another form to accommodate the needs of the electronic form, if the differences do not change the substance of any enactment.

76. It would be helpful to receive more feedback from the public and the legal profession on the various innovations that the PCO is seeking to introduce in legislation. Our overall objective is to produce legislation that is accessible, both in a physical sense and in the sense of being comprehensible. I go back to Bentham's premise. That may well be a counsel of perfection, but it is a goal worth striving for nonetheless. That goal will only be achieved if everyone is prepared to work constructively towards it.

Footnotes

¹ Deputy Chief Parliamentary Counsel, Parliamentary Counsel Office, Wellington
² The Role of Parliamentary Counsel
³ Evidence Act 1908, section 29A
⁴ [1973] 2 NZLR 21, at page 23
⁵ Public Access to Legislation: A Discussion Paper for Public Comment, Parliamentary Counsel Office, Wellington, September 1998
⁶ www.pco.parliament.govt.nz/pal/
⁷ Free access to the law: the strange case of New Zealand, Jane Treadwell, Principal, Know Where Limited, Auckland, New Zealand
⁸ Bill C-54—"Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act"
⁹ Burns and Hart (eds), A Comment on the Commentaries and a Fragment of Government (1977) at p. 198, quoted in Free the Law - Beyond the "Dark Chaos", The Hon Justice Michael Kirby AC CMG, a paper presented to the Law via the Internet ‘99 Conference, Sydney, July 1999 (available at www.austlii.edu.au/)
¹⁰ View of a Complete Code of Laws, in Works (ed Bowring), William Tait, Edinburgh, 1938-43, Vol 3, p. 207, quoted in Access to the Law: the structure and format of legislation, Report No. 33, Law Reform Commission of Victoria, May 1990
¹¹ New Zealand Parliamentary Debates (Hansard), 1997, Vol. 559, pp. 869-879
¹² ibid, p. 872
¹³ ibid, p. 875
¹⁴ ibid, p. 871
¹⁵ Report No. 27, The Format of Legislation, Wellington, December 1993
¹⁶ See slides 16 to 19 in the Appendix to this paper
¹⁷ See footnote 11 above
¹⁸ Report No. 35, Legislation Manual: Structure and Style, Wellington, May 1996
¹⁹ Submission DR/123, Human Rights Action Group (Wellington)
²⁰ See Sir George Engle, " ‘Bills are made to pass as razors are made to sell': practical constraints in the preparation of legislation" [1983] Stat LR 7
²¹ See footnote 8 above