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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
World
Tess McClure in Auckland

New Zealand hopes to banish jargon with plain language law

Stack of file folders bound up with a chain and padlock
New Zealand has passed anti-jargon legislation to make government documents easier for the public to understand. Photograph: kyoshino/Getty Images/iStock

Internal pain points, change-adaptability, enhanced performance capability and the overlaying of certain planning provisions: these are the bewildering, often-enraging spectres of government gobbledegook that haunt official documents.

Now, the New Zealand government is attempting to drawing a thick red line through the worst offenders, with a new law demanding bureaucrats use simple, comprehensible language to communicate with the public.

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