This week Parliament debated a members' bill from Rachel Boyack that aims to combat official gobbledegook. Some MPs fought it tooth and nail as tantamount to balderdash, gadzooks!
This week Parliament took a day to focus on five members' bills; ideas put forward by MPs from any party who are not in the Executive. Five different bills were debated. Two were rejected at their first hurdle, three more progressed including two bills now close to the finishing line.
On the face of it those two bills are reasonably innocuous. One wants arriving international passengers to be given more biosecurity information, the other wants to encourage and assist government agencies to communicate with the public in more comprehensible language.
In short, it desires less obfuscatory, labyrinthine missives replete with less circumlocutious, ambiguous parisology, for crisper elucidation in public communion - obviously.
The Labour MP for Nelson Rachel Boyack, who is sponsoring the bill, acknowledged her inspiration.
"The United States has legislation in place, and this legislation is based off that legislation... When that legislation was introduced, the compliance for people to pay things like taxes and fines actually went up as a result, because information was presented in a clearer way for people to understand."
By that telling it is useful and offers a return. It wasn't entirely popular inside the debating chamber though. The Plain Language Bill's committee stage this week was a slightly surreal experience. Entertaining, but unusual.
National and ACT MPs are not in favour of the bill. They characterised it as costly, pointless, unnecessary and a step towards an imagined future where 'woke' language-police from the liberal clerisy control everything we say. Contrariwise, they also criticised it for being toothless and without enough enforcement. But mostly they spent time making mock.
The MP in charge of the bill was at the table to answer questions from other MPs - not a typical experience for backbench MPs. Nelson's Rachel Boyack could be heard guffawing with mirth at some of the claims and questions offered.
The Art of the Filibuster
National MPs had a go at filibustering the committee stage. That is, slowing it down as much as possible, by drawing out the debate.
Gerry Brownlee spent time critiquing the language of Parliament's Standing Orders which was charming but definitely a tactic that fell outside those same rules. He then spent time arguing with the chair about that. It all uses time.
Simeon Brown spent time pondering the meaning of individual words in the definition section of the bill. …