About Plain English Power

We're a network of New Zealand residents promoting the use of plain English for official documents and web sites. We believe that comprehensible information from government is a basic democratic right. We want to make plain English the standard for all New Zealand contracts, consumer information, and communications from government organisations.

We believe plain language in government documents is a democratic right

When ordinary people understand official information, they gain:

Our strategy: gather support then lobby Parliament for legislation

We want a culture change to plain English as the standard for certain kinds of public information in New Zealand. Obvious targets include information related to:

To create such a change, we need to lobby government for change. Legislation is necessary. As a lobby group, we need the support of organisations that represent New Zealand residents badly affected by unclear information. We believe they include patients, beneficiaries, older people, builders, manufacturers and business people.
Read our draft bill Plain English in Government Communications 2008

Obviously, we want full commitment from all political parties. (The tiny Plain English Power committee members are politically diverse, to put it politely!) Our movement has no affiliation to any political party, and we know that all the main parties have MPs who believe in our cause.

We also welcome support from the many editors, trainers, academics and public servants in New Zealand who strive to write clearly and train others to do so. We respect the serious efforts made by many government agencies to communicate clearly. We would just like that to become the norm.

Our history in 150 words or fewer

The plain English network initiative was first conceived by Lynda Harris of the Write Group in 2005. In 2008 a small committee met to discuss strategy, and later launched Plain English Power.

Plain English Power has no commercial interests and is set up solely to promote plain English in New Zealand. Everything we do, we do for free.

We are very grateful to Dr Annetta Cheek, a heroine of the plain language movement in the US. She has generously shared her experience and expertise with us. Dr Cheek is Chair of the Center for Plain Language (Washington DC, USA). For many years she has worked tirelessly to promote clarity in government communications. The Center's work culminated in the Plain Language in Government Communications Bill (2008).

Meet the Plain English Power people
Join Plain English Power—we need you!

We link to resources that help you write plain English

No need to start building resources from scratch: around the world this topic has been researched for many years. Much is known about what makes documents clear and readable, and some brilliant resources have been developed by others. We'll just show you where they are. But we do plan to make a PowerPoint presentation that you can use to explain Plain English Power to your group.