¹³“Esoteri c knowledge” is the term used by Sir Geoffrey Palmer to describe a commodity needed by law reformers  in  his  essay  “T  he  N ew  Ze aland   Legislative  M achine ”,  Victoria University  of  Wellington  Law Review, Vol 17, 1987 , p 285. Another was stamina. 7 10 The  LAC  Guidelines  are  endorsed  by  the  Government.  Every  Government  Bill referred to the Cabinet Legislation Committee and to Cabinet must be accompanied by  a  written  submission  signed  by  the  Minster  responsible  for  the  Bill  stating, among other things, whether the Bill complies with the LAC Guidelines. The LAC Guidelines represent a codification of a good deal of the esoteric knowledge about principled law-making.¹³ This is not to say that, before the LAC Guidelines, New Zealand legislation was unprincipled and manifested bad practice. The Guidelines have brought together in a 2-volume publication much in the way of institutional knowledge previously diffused throughout the bureaucracy. 11 Annexed to this paper is a copy of the LAC Guidelines Checklist of issues that ought to be addressed in developing legislative proposals. As will be seen, not all the  considerations  will  be  relevant.  Large  cognate  statutes,  such  as  the  Local Government  Act  2002,  the  Sentencing  Act  2002,  the  Parole  Act  2002,  and  the Terrorism  Suppression  Act  2002,  to  take  a  few  recent  examples,  will  require consideration to be given to most, if not all, of the issues identified. A technical amendment to an existing statute may require consideration of only a few of those matters. The subject matter of the legislation is relevant, but not always. Statutes that affect the rights and freedoms of individuals will obviously raise issues. So too will statutes whose principal focus is on commercial matters but that also contain powers of search and seizure and require disclosure of information. 12 A quick glance at the checklist gives an insight into the breadth of considerations that have to be addressed. Among the key considerations are— • have alternatives to legislation been evaluated (Chapter 1)?