26 the role of the legislative drafters in OPC to raise issues that are likely to be of concern  to  the  Australian  Parliament  and  the  Scrutiny  of  Bills  Committee  in particular. Part 3 Legislative language and accessibility 45 Lord Oliver’ s injunction that badly drafted laws, however well intentioned, are a form  of  tyranny  relates  to  issues  about  accessibility  at  a  different,  but  equally fundamental, level. Badly drafted laws create a range of problems. Not only is there a cost involved in having to get legal advice or in recourse to the courts to ascertain meaning, but more importantly the  courts, and not Parliament or the executive, ultimately determine what the legislation means. Parliament cannot complain about “jud icial legislating” if that is the necessary consequence of unclear legislation. Badly  drafted  laws  constitute  a  barrier  to  access  to  justice.    In  an  ideal  world, legislation would always be crystal clear and the courts would have nothing more to do but apply it. The drafting of legislation is not, however, an exact science. 46 To a degree, accessible legislation will always be illusory. A reader cannot go to a statute and safely assume that, having read the words, he or she will know what the law  is  on  the  subject  with  which  the  statute  deals.  The  meaning  of  a  statute  is affected    by    interpretation    legislation    and    by    common    law    principles    of interpretation, like the canons of construction. 47 In some jurisdictions, legislation expressly authorises recourse to extrinsic aids in the  reading  of  statutes.  In  others,  reference  to  material  outside  the  statute  is permissible within limits determined by the courts. Whether recourse to material outside  the  statute  should  be  permissible  at  all  or,  if  so,  to  what  extent,  is  not