85 315.  There are many contributors to the New Zealand Statute Book besides the Law Commission, but there are no other contributors with the Commission’s overall responsibility  for  looking  at  the  whole  product.    In  many  ways  that  is  a  task which remains, although some progress has been made towards it since 1985. 316.  But law reform in whatever guise it appears attracts political controversy.  It is inevitable.  The word “reform” as Justice Michael Kirby has said is “a word of approbation”.⁶³    Most  reform  proposals  have  to  be  expressed  in  a  legislative form.  To effect change they must become Acts of Parliament.  Yet the life of legislation is uncertain; its passage is rocky and unpredictable.    317.  In our constitutional arrangements in New Zealand proposals for change must secure the approval of the Executive Branch of Government on most occasions before  they  can  be  assured  of  Parliamentary  passage.    And  to  have  any durability the proposals need to be carefully worked out and this requires a lot of effort.    318.  The quickening pace of change in our lives brought on by science, technology, globalisation   and   economic   reform   have   all   contributed   to   increasing complexity and complication for law.  Yet if the law is not up to date difficulties ensue for ordinary citizens.  Sometimes they can be quite dramatic.    319.  As Justice Kirby puts it⁶⁴:    But if the idea of reform is accepted in the battle of ideas, the law will submit and become  the  servant  of  the  new  idea.    It  may  even  promote  its  acceptability  in society.  When the new idea becomes law, it is clothed with the respectability and authority of the acquiescence in the change by the representative legislature, the powerful bureaucracy or the orthodox judiciary. 320.  In New Zealand where there are few constraints upon the enactment of laws that exist  in  many  other  countries,  it  is  surprising  that  we  have  not  done  better  in reforming the law and keeping it abreast of modern demands.  The Statute Book has  on  it  too  many  provisions  that  are  extraordinarily  difficult  to  work  and sometimes even to understand.  In a country that does not have the restraints of a written constitution and federalism, it is surprising that our statute law is so unsystematic and sprawling.