New Zealand Labour, supported by the Greens, and Māori Party, have passed ‘plain language’ legislation, which will require all branches of government to employ language compliance officers.

The ‘plain language’ bill was approved by the New Zealand Parliament on Wednesday and comes into effect once the legislation receives Royal assent.

Advocates of the new law defended the bill arguing, in sum, that a bigger bureaucracy was better for democracy.

The language compliance legislation’s author and Labour member for Nelson, Rachel Boyack, told Parliament:

‘New Zealand is at its best when we can all understand and easily participate in our democracy.