Farewell for retiring chief parliamentary counsel
George Tanner's staff at the PCO will miss him. He leaves his mark on the Parliamentary Counsel Office, and on the laws of New Zealand.
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Your honours, Parliamentary colleagues, distinguished guests.
It's a pleasure as Attorney-General to join you in paying tribute this evening to the chief parliamentary counsel on his retirement.
Were my comments being made in the style of a law drafter I might start with a short title: An Act to honour the distinguished career of George Tanner.
My former parliamentary colleague Sir Geoffrey Palmer once speculated that a junior drafter of laws might be as powerful as the most senior jurist, because a drafter makes so many decisions on constructing policy into statutes and regulations. Both drafters and judges give effect to the intentions of Parliament, but inevitably there are tactical decisions about the best way to approach a problem. A drafter of laws is in a pivotal, influential position.
Parliament is dependent on the unique training of drafters. We are dependent on the skills of drafters, stemming from their ability to master intricate policy. And we depend on the experience of drafters honed on clause after clause and sharpened over years of judgment and amendment.
If it were up to Members of Parliament to author legislation through muddled amendments and negotiations, we would occasionally formulate the language in statutes well, and often get it very wrong.
So we are farewelling someone who has had a very influential role in New Zealand's law making.
George Tanner joined the Parliamentary Counsel Office in 1981 and took over from Walter Iles as chief parliamentary counsel nearly eleven years ago, in 1996.
It is daunting to reflect on the changes to our law over those many years, and to reflect how much of our statute law has been penned on George's watch.
The Parliamentary Counsel Office itself has grown substantially over the years he has been here.
Many of us recall the days when the PCO was perpetually besieged. In those days it was chronically under-resourced and staffed by enormously over-worked personnel. Today the office is many times larger. It is an engine house of Parliament and a centre of knowledge and learning.
In those old days, though, drafters often had to work alone. One example of the demands on parliamentary counsel was George's work on the Companies Act and related reforms in 1993. It is a monumental achievement. The package included more than 23 separate Bills. The story goes that one Sunday George and two officials from Justice (who now work at the PCO) had an all-day meeting with Doug Graham, who was then my predecessor as Attorney-General. At the end of the day they refuelled at McDonalds, and worked on till 10 at night when the others left. By 9 o'clock the next morning a hundred pages of drafting had appeared. It was either magic, or George worked alone all night.
When George Tanner started at PCO in 1981, the pace of law making was different to today's. Then Parliament commonly would sit all night under extraordinary urgency to ram through laws on the government's timetable, rather than because of a particular need for urgency. Today, urgency is much less common and many fewer acts are passed. Some of George's own research shows that from 1980 to 1996 Parliament passed an average of 153 acts a year; after the first MMP Parliament in 1996 the number of acts fell by more than a quarter, to an average of 112 a year.
But though the quantity of acts might have fallen away, the demand for quality is as high as ever. Perhaps it's higher - if there is a mistake in drafting a statute, let alone in the policy behind the statute, it might be much harder today to pilot through an amendment tidying things up.
Fortunately the quality of our legislation is higher because it is becoming clearer - and I want to pay particular tribute to George for the contribution he has made to the clarity, structure and format of our statute book. He has worked hard to make legislation accessible, in its widest sense, and has been a great champion of the 'Public Access to Legislation Project'.
His work and encouragement has led to the development of the PCO Drafting Manual, and a review of PCO drafting by an international expert in clear drafting. George doesn't accept that legislation should be intelligible to a select few - the wider public reads legislation too. To quote from George himself, "If an unpleasant message has to be communicated, and not all legislative messages are pleasant ones, the message ought not to be hidden in a mass of words."
This is not just a matter of convenience and style. Clarity in our legislation is an important issue of democracy, for two reasons.
First, democracy requires that people should be able to understand the laws that govern them. If you cannot reasonably understand the laws, you cannot comply with them - and therefore the application of law to your actions will be random or arbitrary. A state in which people cannot plainly understand the laws might as well be a lawless state.
And second, plainly formulated laws are vital for democracy because elected representatives of the people, not the judiciary, should have the primary responsibility for making the policy of the law. When laws are badly drafted, decisions are kicked to Judges. Judges attempt to determine and give effect to the intention of the House but if we want laws that reflect the democratic will of the people then the House should express them clearly in the first place.
So clear expression of our statutes is a basic democratic requirement. And drafters are therefore guardians of our democracy.
George has played his part as a guardian of our democracy with changes made at the end of the nineties to layout, to drafting style and to PCO powers (which allowed it to make editorial changes in reprints.) These days we use ordinary language. Our laws don't use archaic language like "hereby" and "notwithstanding". Statutes say "must" instead of "shall". They use ordinary arabic numbering instead of roman numerals. They use the active voice instead of 'the voice that is used being passive.' And statutes use English expressions instead of Latin.
I welcome these changes and George Tanner's midwifery of them into our statute books.
George made strong contributions to the Legislation Advisory Committee, and to the as-yet-incomplete Law Commission/PCO project on indexing and other ways of enhancing the accessibility of legislation.
This is a legacy, but the sheer weight of legislation he has drafted is a legacy in itself. He drafted a huge swathe of the commercial legislation currently in use - companies, fair trade, banking, competition, insurance - plus umpteen Securities Act exemption notices. He continued to draft Securities Act Exemption Notices after he had to give away all his other drafting work when he became chief parliamentary counsel.
George's work in the field is generally regarded as jewels of fine drafting and he gave superb service to the Securities Commission. But I do know of one exception in the smooth management of the exemption notices: On one particular notice George took a different view from the commission on the best approach. Neither side would back down and it took 2 years for the parties to agree on a satisfactory outcome!
Entities wanting their vision turned into legislation can be demanding. One meeting between an instructor and George as drafter began with the instructor saying that what was required was too complicated to express in words. He pulled out a diagram so large and detailed it looked like an internal combustion engine. He spent the next 90 minutes explaining it, and finally offered to give instructions in writing. George listened politely throughout, but accepted the written instructions.
Another time George presented a Bill he drafted to a select committee, and found it criticised from beginning to end. They sent it back for more work and when it returned the following week the committee declared the work was perfect - just what they wanted. But he hadn't changed a word.
This has been a fine career. George's academic and general legal writings on the legislative process, interpretation, and the overall role of legislation in the law have been influential and thought provoking. The PCO has become more outward looking under George's leadership. He has encouraged cooperation with Pacific nations, and has formed close relations with drafting offices in Australia and the UK.
His work has been recognised in the House several times, including by myself, by Doug Graham and David Caygill. My colleague Margaret Wilson, as Attorney General in 2003, made George a Queens Counsel. I understand he shared with my predecessor as deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the House Wyatt Creech a passion for the Flashman novels of George MacDonald Fraser - and they would swap personal copies.
So in every sense he is a product and a steward of our parliamentary environment.
George has given so much during his time at the PCO, and as Chief Parliamentary Counsel. His wife Allison and their family have also made many sacrifices, not least through the long nights he has spent at the office.
His staff at the PCO will miss him. He leaves his mark on the Parliamentary Counsel Office, and on the laws of New Zealand.
---------------------------------
Your honours, Parliamentary colleagues, distinguished guests.
It's a pleasure as Attorney-General to join you in paying tribute this evening to the chief parliamentary counsel on his retirement.
Were my comments being made in the style of a law drafter I might start with a short title: An Act to honour the distinguished career of George Tanner.
My former parliamentary colleague Sir Geoffrey Palmer once speculated that a junior drafter of laws might be as powerful as the most senior jurist, because a drafter makes so many decisions on constructing policy into statutes and regulations. Both drafters and judges give effect to the intentions of Parliament, but inevitably there are tactical decisions about the best way to approach a problem. A drafter of laws is in a pivotal, influential position.
Parliament is dependent on the unique training of drafters. We are dependent on the skills of drafters, stemming from their ability to master intricate policy. And we depend on the experience of drafters honed on clause after clause and sharpened over years of judgment and amendment.
If it were up to Members of Parliament to author legislation through muddled amendments and negotiations, we would occasionally formulate the language in statutes well, and often get it very wrong.
So we are farewelling someone who has had a very influential role in New Zealand's law making.
George Tanner joined the Parliamentary Counsel Office in 1981 and took over from Walter Iles as chief parliamentary counsel nearly eleven years ago, in 1996.
It is daunting to reflect on the changes to our law over those many years, and to reflect how much of our statute law has been penned on George's watch.
The Parliamentary Counsel Office itself has grown substantially over the years he has been here.
Many of us recall the days when the PCO was perpetually besieged. In those days it was chronically under-resourced and staffed by enormously over-worked personnel. Today the office is many times larger. It is an engine house of Parliament and a centre of knowledge and learning.
In those old days, though, drafters often had to work alone. One example of the demands on parliamentary counsel was George's work on the Companies Act and related reforms in 1993. It is a monumental achievement. The package included more than 23 separate Bills. The story goes that one Sunday George and two officials from Justice (who now work at the PCO) had an all-day meeting with Doug Graham, who was then my predecessor as Attorney-General. At the end of the day they refuelled at McDonalds, and worked on till 10 at night when the others left. By 9 o'clock the next morning a hundred pages of drafting had appeared. It was either magic, or George worked alone all night.
When George Tanner started at PCO in 1981, the pace of law making was different to today's. Then Parliament commonly would sit all night under extraordinary urgency to ram through laws on the government's timetable, rather than because of a particular need for urgency. Today, urgency is much less common and many fewer acts are passed. Some of George's own research shows that from 1980 to 1996 Parliament passed an average of 153 acts a year; after the first MMP Parliament in 1996 the number of acts fell by more than a quarter, to an average of 112 a year.
But though the quantity of acts might have fallen away, the demand for quality is as high as ever. Perhaps it's higher - if there is a mistake in drafting a statute, let alone in the policy behind the statute, it might be much harder today to pilot through an amendment tidying things up.
Fortunately the quality of our legislation is higher because it is becoming clearer - and I want to pay particular tribute to George for the contribution he has made to the clarity, structure and format of our statute book. He has worked hard to make legislation accessible, in its widest sense, and has been a great champion of the 'Public Access to Legislation Project'.
His work and encouragement has led to the development of the PCO Drafting Manual, and a review of PCO drafting by an international expert in clear drafting. George doesn't accept that legislation should be intelligible to a select few - the wider public reads legislation too. To quote from George himself, "If an unpleasant message has to be communicated, and not all legislative messages are pleasant ones, the message ought not to be hidden in a mass of words."
This is not just a matter of convenience and style. Clarity in our legislation is an important issue of democracy, for two reasons.
First, democracy requires that people should be able to understand the laws that govern them. If you cannot reasonably understand the laws, you cannot comply with them - and therefore the application of law to your actions will be random or arbitrary. A state in which people cannot plainly understand the laws might as well be a lawless state.
And second, plainly formulated laws are vital for democracy because elected representatives of the people, not the judiciary, should have the primary responsibility for making the policy of the law. When laws are badly drafted, decisions are kicked to Judges. Judges attempt to determine and give effect to the intention of the House but if we want laws that reflect the democratic will of the people then the House should express them clearly in the first place.
So clear expression of our statutes is a basic democratic requirement. And drafters are therefore guardians of our democracy.
George has played his part as a guardian of our democracy with changes made at the end of the nineties to layout, to drafting style and to PCO powers (which allowed it to make editorial changes in reprints.) These days we use ordinary language. Our laws don't use archaic language like "hereby" and "notwithstanding". Statutes say "must" instead of "shall". They use ordinary arabic numbering instead of roman numerals. They use the active voice instead of 'the voice that is used being passive.' And statutes use English expressions instead of Latin.
I welcome these changes and George Tanner's midwifery of them into our statute books.
George made strong contributions to the Legislation Advisory Committee, and to the as-yet-incomplete Law Commission/PCO project on indexing and other ways of enhancing the accessibility of legislation.
This is a legacy, but the sheer weight of legislation he has drafted is a legacy in itself. He drafted a huge swathe of the commercial legislation currently in use - companies, fair trade, banking, competition, insurance - plus umpteen Securities Act exemption notices. He continued to draft Securities Act Exemption Notices after he had to give away all his other drafting work when he became chief parliamentary counsel.
George's work in the field is generally regarded as jewels of fine drafting and he gave superb service to the Securities Commission. But I do know of one exception in the smooth management of the exemption notices: On one particular notice George took a different view from the commission on the best approach. Neither side would back down and it took 2 years for the parties to agree on a satisfactory outcome!
Entities wanting their vision turned into legislation can be demanding. One meeting between an instructor and George as drafter began with the instructor saying that what was required was too complicated to express in words. He pulled out a diagram so large and detailed it looked like an internal combustion engine. He spent the next 90 minutes explaining it, and finally offered to give instructions in writing. George listened politely throughout, but accepted the written instructions.
Another time George presented a Bill he drafted to a select committee, and found it criticised from beginning to end. They sent it back for more work and when it returned the following week the committee declared the work was perfect - just what they wanted. But he hadn't changed a word.
This has been a fine career. George's academic and general legal writings on the legislative process, interpretation, and the overall role of legislation in the law have been influential and thought provoking. The PCO has become more outward looking under George's leadership. He has encouraged cooperation with Pacific nations, and has formed close relations with drafting offices in Australia and the UK.
His work has been recognised in the House several times, including by myself, by Doug Graham and David Caygill. My colleague Margaret Wilson, as Attorney General in 2003, made George a Queens Counsel. I understand he shared with my predecessor as deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the House Wyatt Creech a passion for the Flashman novels of George MacDonald Fraser - and they would swap personal copies.
So in every sense he is a product and a steward of our parliamentary environment.
George has given so much during his time at the PCO, and as Chief Parliamentary Counsel. His wife Allison and their family have also made many sacrifices, not least through the long nights he has spent at the office.
His staff at the PCO will miss him. He leaves his mark on the Parliamentary Counsel Office, and on the laws of New Zealand.