Reading the average one comfortably takes 14 years of schooling — that's university-level reading. New Zealand cared enough about this to pass a Plain Language Act in 2022; the guidance behind it says public information should need about nine years of schooling — what a 14-year-old in Year 10 has had — because that's where most adults read comfortably. On this page, anything written above your level is shown the way it actually reads: blurry. Set your level below.
Average reading grade of each government's releases. Every one of them sits four to five school years above the Year 10 standard, and today's releases are about a full grade harder than the 1990s. The harder the prose, the smaller we've printed the name — like a line further down the chart.
Each bar is one year; its height is the average years of schooling needed to read that year's releases. The scale runs 13.4–15.0 — not zero — so the movement is visible. Difficulty peaked in 2020–22, eased, and is rising again. The two markers: the Plain Language Act took effect in 2023 — and the bill to repeal it passed its first reading in 2025.
Ministers ranked by the average reading grade of their own press releases. Current cabinet covers this government only (40+ releases since Nov 2023); the all-time lists need 150+. A blurry name is a minister writing above your level.
Sentences are only slightly longer than in 2000. The real shift is which words get used. These are the four-syllable-plus words that surged between the early 2000s and now — occurrences per 10,000 words.
The individual releases with the highest scores ever recorded — each one a public announcement, written to inform the public. Grade 20+ means nobody without a postgraduate degree reads it comfortably.