Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister for Disability Issues) : I move, That the Disability (United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) Bill be now read a second time. This bill forms part of the steps that will enable New Zealand to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The Justice and Electoral Committee has examined the convention and recommends ratification of it. I am pleased that the committee also supports the bill being passed without amendment. I acknowledge all the other parties that have participated in this process, and also the officials, who have worked hard over many months on the preparation of this legislation.

The bill does not in itself provide for ratification, but instead removes some obstacles in existing legislation. Historically, New Zealand has set a very high standard for ratification of international human rights treaties. We ratify when the Government is satisfied that our laws, policies, and practices are not inconsistent with the treaty at issue. Passing the bill will reinforce the Government’s confidence that New Zealand meets this high standard.

The bill seeks to achieve two outcomes. Firstly, it removes outdated and discriminatory provisions in some legislation that automatically disqualify a person from certain public or fiduciary offices on the grounds of being mentally disordered within the meaning of the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act 1992, or being subject to a compulsory treatment order under that Act. Instead, the bill proposes amendments that will ensure that a person’s capacity to perform a role or a function is able to be individually assessed. Secondly, the bill clarifies the provision of reasonable accommodation under the Human Rights Act in certain areas where it is uncertain. This is not a new obligation.

New Zealand has made strong progress in removing barriers experienced by disabled people living their lives. However, much more work remains to be done before we can say we are a fully inclusive society. The convention is a useful tool to help us in this work and to ensure that all New Zealanders enjoy their rights of citizenship and lead highly valued and productive lives. Passing the bill will enable us to proceed quickly with ratification of the convention. I look forward to our building on our strong reputation as a human rights champion by putting our commitment into action. I commend this bill to the House.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) : Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the second reading of the Disability (United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) Bill. I very much also appreciated the fact that there was unanimity within the Justice and Electoral Committee on the need to put this bill through. In fact, all submissions were in support of the bill, and in some cases in passionate support of it. I think I see that Wendy Wicks and some people from DPA (New Zealand) are in the gallery, and indeed they articulated a most passionate and convincing submission. The DPA submission urged all different political parties to “embody the spirit of the UN by cooperating to ensure that the rights of disabled New Zealanders remain paramount. This will be demonstrable by ratification as quickly as possible.” So indeed it is good that the National Party, along with all the other parties in Parliament, is able to support this bill to go through.

National did have some reservations, however, with the fact that there appeared to be no time for other interested parties to be able to submit on this bill, and I will come to that aspect later. It seems to me that if we are going to realistically implement the sorts of things we want to, in the way of the New Zealand Disability Strategy, then it is really important that organisations like unions, businesses around the country, and the general public, do have the time and opportunity to participate in this process. Unfortunately there was a rush of circumstances, and I do not know why that was absolutely necessary because the initial convention was signed, I think, back in March 2007. But it would have been good if those organisations had had the opportunity to make submissions, and to talk to them, as well.

I was particularly struck by the submission from the Human Rights Commission, which clearly had put a lot of thought into studying the convention. The Human Rights Commission was set up by the National Government in the 1990s. It says that the declaration is a set of principles designed to “promote and encourage respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion;”. Although the international instruments apply to every person, there is no explicit recognition of people with disabilities, except in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is so important to have this specific bill go through the House, so that the convention can be ratified and the agreement signed.

The commission also makes the note that ratification of an international treaty is a significant undertaking, and that when a State ratifies a treaty it accepts that it will be bound by its terms and accepts an obligation to deliver the rights in the treaty to its citizens. I think that this provision should not be underestimated in its importance. That was one of the reasons I was concerned there was not a greater opportunity for other people as well as for directly interested parties—such as the DPA, the IHC, and the Human Rights Commission—to participate in the submission process. This convention will undoubtedly raise expectations; it is very important that we have a realistic response in New Zealand, and that those expectations do not go unfulfilled. There has been a feeling that the New Zealand Disability Strategy, in many respects, has not been implemented at the pace or in the way that was originally envisaged, and that feeling certainly came out in the submissions to the select committee inquiry on disability services.

The Human Rights Commission went on to say that the commission shared the concerns about the adequacy of domestic legislation relating to the obligation to accommodate disabled people. It made the very important point that as the definition of discrimination on the basis of disability “includes all forms of discrimination, including denial of reasonable accommodation;”, the concept of reasonable accommodation is pivotal to the convention. This sort of thing actually happens quite often in everyday life. One of the examples we were given was that an airline had charged more for someone who needed some extra oxygen. One would have expected that any reasonable airline would accommodate a disabled person without having to go to that extra length of making them feel even more uncomfortable by charging them for the oxygen they needed.

The law around the concept of accommodation, as I understand it, has not been well developed in New Zealand, whereas in the United Kingdom quite a lot of work has been done on it. The commission cited the case of Baroness Hale of Richmond, in Mayor and Burgesses of the London Borough of Lewisham v Malcolm, where it was stated as follows: “But if the object of the disability discrimination legislation is to ‘level the playing field’, to enable disabled people to do things that they otherwise would not be able to do, then simply ignoring their disability and asking that they be treated in exactly the same way as non-disabled people will not do. A reasonable adjustment has to be made for the special difficulties which their disabilities present.”

One of the other areas that the Human Rights Commission was concerned about was the sustainable transport discussion paper that was brought out several years ago. The commission was very concerned that, in actuality, little progress had been made on improving the accessibility of public and land transport systems. I remember very clearly when a wheelchair-bound constituent came to me. He had gone down early one morning to the Pukekohe railway station but was left on the platform because the guard was not prepared to help him into the train. This is the sort of thing that apparently happens in practice in everyday New Zealand, and certainly we have to make every effort we can to redress it. Hopefully, it is the sort of discipline that the convention will impose upon us.

I do not think that the point I made earlier on about the cost to New Zealand of compliance with the Treaty should go unmentioned. It was of concern to me to see that the report from the Government considered that minimal financial costs would be incurred by New Zealand as a result of implementing the convention. I believe that that is unrealistic, which is one of the reasons that I felt it was important that we had realistic economic evaluations of the implications of the convention. In fact, the report went on to say that “the primary cost for departments will be in contributing to new reporting and accountability requirements every 4 years. It is considered that existing Government mechanisms will facilitate the new reporting requirement, and that it will operate similarly to the existing mechanisms for the other core United Nations human rights treaties. This process can be adapted for the purpose of reporting to the convention, thus any additional costs are expected to be able to be met through existing baselines.” Well, I think that this is one of the areas where the Government has worn slightly rose-tinted glasses.

Nevertheless, the signing of this convention will hopefully be a start on the discipline to ensure that we address much better accommodation in New Zealand—or much more reasonable accommodation—of disabled people than we have in the past. The National Party is very glad to support this bill in its second reading. Thank you.

LYNNE PILLAY (Labour—Waitakere) : I am very proud as the chair of the Justice and Electoral Committee to speak in support of the Disability (United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) Bill. I speak in support of the bill not because we did a great amount of work on it but because we made a conscious decision—well, the majority of us did—that this bill needed to turn around in the select committee very, very quickly. We did that because we knew that New Zealand had taken a real leadership role in terms of rights for disabled people, and it was really important in terms of the very tight time frame that this bill went through.

I was really proud that when the bill came to the committee a decision was made by a majority of the committee that we would not go through the usual submission process but that we would progress the bill as quickly as possible. We did that because we were confident that all that work had gone in beforehand. Sadly, that position was not supported by the National Party, but fortunately Labour and the Greens had enough members on the committee to make that happen. I am really proud that that happened.

I also want to say, in respect of the submissions process, that we asked people to come and give submissions within something like a week. People did that, and they gave the most compelling, fantastic submissions so that we ended up with unanimous support for the bill to go forward. Why? So that when the time was right, which was very, very close—we are talking about next month, are we not, Minister, in terms of the United Nations?

Hon Ruth Dyson: Yes.

LYNNE PILLAY: So when the time was right New Zealand would be there playing its full part, it would be taking a leadership role, and it would be able to participate fully, so that ratification could take place and the bill would be able to go through. One could say we took a punt, but we did not. We knew that we had the support in the sector of every person who had put so many years into this work, and we knew that that was the right thing to do. So the turn-round was very quick.

I note from the select committee report—and I heard Dr Hutchison talk about it just now—that there were views that a realistic appraisal of the financial implications of this bill was not considered. I say that is absolute nonsense. The Disability (United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) Bill sits alongside and builds on what this Government holds dear, and that is the right for disabled people in this country to participate fully. It was never about financial implications. The good, sound advice we were given was that there would not be detrimental financial implications. It was good, sound advice. It was not just a whim or an emotional thing; it was good advice for doing the right thing.

I note from the Justice and Electoral Committee’s report, and this is the reason I talk about the National Party’s minority view—which is a strange thing, perhaps, for a Government member to do—that it acknowledges those people who did the work. When the National Party members talked about the financial implications they had concerns about, their final words in their minority report were: “Despite these shortcomings, National is moved by the sincerity and strong calls by the disability sector that supporting this bill will help their lives and others elsewhere around the globe.”

I say in this House that I am really pleased and proud that we had a truncated process and that the bill went through, but I think the full tribute should be paid to the members of the sector for their courage and for their sheer hard work, which moved us to a position where we had a unanimous decision from the select committee. I am very proud to commend this bill to the House.

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National) : I will acknowledge particularly, through you, Mr Deputy Speaker, the people who are gathered here in the gallery this evening. I say to my friends up there, who have been bravely sitting throughout the evening, that they are now right up with the play with biofuel technology, having listened to the debates. They have heard all about the recent amendments to the Commerce Act, and they did not even look bored. They have been waiting for their time and, through you Mr Deputy Speaker, I wish to give them a verbal salute: tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. This is their time, for the purpose of the Disability (United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) Bill is to amend legislative provisions that are inconsistent with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and to amend the Human Rights Act 1993 to clarify the scope of its provisions and thereby enable a person with a disability to be accommodated in certain areas of activity.

This is an area of social as well as physical consequence. According to UN figures, 10 percent of the world’s population have to live with a disability. I have to say the closest I have ever had to a physical disability is when I broke my Achilles tendon, and it gave me a considerable shock, because that was the first time I had had any sort of incapacity. That gave me a sharp personal understanding of what for others is a daily situation. Nineteen percent of less-educated people suffer disability, compared with 11 percent amongst those with access to good education. This is a huge area of human stereotyping, conveying all sorts of myths such as the assumption that people with a disability are, in some way, not the same as other people when it comes to work and daily life.

The sincerity of the submissions received by the Justice and Electoral Committee was very, very moving. It was very, very sincere. The most sincere thing, the most poignant part of all, was that the submitters each asked that, as members of the committee, we listen to them. That was all they asked we should do, that we let them be listened to. It was a privilege and a pleasure to do so, because New Zealand needs to be up front and to front up to being a land of equal opportunity—more than just a part of a Labour Government’s rhetoric.

We all have a right to self-determination, to enjoy full and equal entitlement of all human rights and fundamental individual freedoms, intellectual and physical. I remember getting an excellent lesson in how to be of assistance to people who suffered a disability. It was from a guy called George Phiskie.

I was very young at the time. It was in the 1970s and he was up in Waipū. He had been totally blind since he was 11 and he ran his own dairy farm. As a fully sighted person I rushed to help. He said: “The best help you can give me is to let me put my hand on your shoulder as we walk along. You can be my eyes.” He explained to me—and he trained a lot of people—about how to assist blind people. Instead of trying to take their arm and help them, let them take your arm and decide for themselves.

There are a number of ways in which we can assist each other in life. There are very many ways in which some people try to erode the dignity and the rights of individuals, even in this House, even in this Chamber, and even in the presentation of this bill. There are those who are so insecure in themselves that they seek every opportunity to denigrate the reputation and work of others. I take no pleasure in that particular aspect of this House. [Interruption] I say to the member opposite that, no, I am not joking at all. It is sad, but we live with it. Imagine what it is like then to have a disability and to encounter someone with a negative mental attitude towards others. We still have a way to go in our lives in educating the public towards losing their stereotypes. We cannot do that in a hurry but what we can do in this House is make sure that the legislation reflects a level playing field and a fair attitude towards others.

This UN convention was signed on 30 March 2007. Minister Ruth Dyson spoke fulsomely about bringing this “into force as quickly as possible”, yet legislation was not introduced into Parliament until 8 July. I am sorry for that. I am sorry for that delay. Why do we now have to have a rushed series of submissions? It has been decorated and painted up as trying to do things quickly, with a short period between the opening and closure of the opportunity to make submissions. I do not know why that was. The bill is now being hurtled through in urgency. It was urgent way back in 2007. Actually this is not a good look, no matter how it is painted by members opposite, but it is in keeping with what those of us on this side of the House have become used to over the past 3 years.

National supports the excellent submissions on this bill from the disability sector. We agree there are advantages to having the covenant ratified in an expeditious manner. The provision of reasonable accommodation is agreed with, but it needs to be more than just a phrase of convenience, and to make it work it has to have a wide level of shared understanding between those who are and who are not disabled. To be meaningful, the financial implications of this bill have yet to be made—again, in spite of the rhetoric and the objections from Government members.

Lynne Pillay: It’s always about money.

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: I have just been told that it is all about money. To be disabled on one’s own is bad enough; to be disabled and financially unsupported is not much better; and to try to be supported by legislation that is not underpinned with financial consequences does not quite have the same meaning. To be meaningful, the financial implications of the bill have yet to be made clear. This should be a responsibility of the Government, and without it an important mechanism is missing. We need to be careful that we are not just being heavy on rhetoric and light on action. Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

BARBARA STEWART (NZ First) : On behalf of New Zealand First, I am absolutely delighted to support the second reading of the Disability (United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) Bill. It is a very positive bill. I must say that we in New Zealand First are very sorry that we did not have a member on the Justice and Electoral Committee. Obviously, we would have enjoyed hearing the submissions from the submitters. New Zealand First has to say that the efforts of the Minister for Disability Issues in this very important area, and all of the work she has done to ensure that we are leaders on the world stage, have to be acknowledged. Importantly, the Minister has shown that she has consulted extensively with the disability sector in so much of her work in this particular area. We applaud her efforts. The winning of the prestigious Roosevelt award truly is recognition of the steps New Zealand has made. They are very important steps.

The New Zealand Disability Strategy has been in place since 2001. We have to acknowledge the sector for all of the work it has done to ensure that the voices of people in the sector are heard in the decision-making process. That is a very big step forward, and is very, very necessary, so I say thanks. We as politicians have been to many forums over the past few weeks to discuss our party policies in this particular area, and we congratulate the sector on the work it has done to raise the awareness of all of us here in this House, in order to ensure that its priorities are listened to and its needs are on the agenda of every political party in this House. I see many people from the sector up in the gallery, and I thank them very much for that. It is very rare for a bill to receive unanimous support in this House. In addition, the report from the select committee states that the bill was strongly supported by all of the submitters, as well, and that is very, very positive.

The report from the select committee states that the financial cost of implementing the convention that we have heard so much about tonight will be minimal, and that any necessary increases in funding will be met by increases in the baseline funding of agencies already working to implement the New Zealand Disability Strategy. That is how it should be—a solid platform on which to build. In New Zealand First we are certain that, with the level of support from all parties and the disability sector, this bill is as right as it can be. Like the select committee, we regard the UN convention as a very important step forward. The convention will complement the outcomes-oriented objectives of the New Zealand Disability Strategy by providing some much-needed practical advice on removing the barriers that prevent disabled people from enjoying rights on an equal basis with others.

I was interested to read in the report that for New Zealand to participate in the first conference of party States, the convention must be ratified by 3 October 2008—hence the need for urgency on this particular bill. We applaud the fact that this date will be met. I was also interested to read—and this is for the edification of the previous speaker—that the Justice and Electoral Committee urged the House to pass the bill as soon as possible, thereby enabling ratification of the convention. So it was a move that had to be carried out.

New Zealand First recognises the right of every New Zealander to equality of opportunity. The view of the disability sector that this bill ensures that this equality is recognised in law means that the support of New Zealand First for it is absolutely essential. Many of the previous provisions in the law were outdated, and I must say that I was totally amazed at the discrimination in some of our laws. I read out some of those in my first reading speech. Those laws needed to be changed urgently, and at last they will be changed.

In conclusion, New Zealand First supports this bill. We are pleased to see it proceeding rapidly through the House.

METIRIA TUREI (Green) : The Green Party is also very proud to be supporting the bill tonight in its second reading, and through the rest of its stages. We are very pleased to have supported the Justice and Electoral Committee’s expediting the bill going through that process. It is very unusual for the Greens to do such a thing. There is no doubt that the community as a whole supported this legislation, so there was simply no need to delay it any further. I think the Minister for Disability Issues has done a very good job in bringing this bill to the House in good time. Other members of the select committee and other members of political parties that support disabilities issues, particularly the MMP parties of New Zealand First, United Future, and the Māori Party, have done a great job in supporting the sector and this bill. I do not see any reason to make a meal out of it at this late hour. I am very pleased that people from the disability sector are in the gallery tonight to oversee our behaviour and hear our views on this bill, but I know there are still more stages of the bill to proceed. I am very pleased that the bill is at this stage in the House. Kia ora.

Hon TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Māori Party) : Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. First of all, I acknowledge the members of the Disabled Persons Assembly who are in the gallery—kia ora. I also acknowledge the Minister, Ruth Dyson, for bringing the Disability (United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) Bill before the House tonight. The Māori Party has been happy to support this bill throughout its stages in the House. It amends a number of Acts in order to make them consistent with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and as such it receives our full support. As a party we are utterly committed to addressing discrimination and social inclusion, and barriers to employment, education, and access to services; the various amendments in the legislation will enable that.

Our belief is to ensure that disabled persons and their whānau are able to access support in order to have a life of their own and to achieve that vital sense of purpose that we all need. Many Māori are missing out on entitlements to health and disability support. We in the Māori Party are calling for a review of income support, to ensure full participation in family and community life. The Māori Party believes that information and communication that is tailored to the needs of Māori could be highly useful. We would also advocate for the development of a media campaign to address social stigmas around disabilities and impairment. We are committed towards addressing barriers in education, employment, and access to services, to ensure that people with disabilities have the same employment rights as any other people. The Disabled Persons Assembly urged the House to ensure that no barriers were erected to delay prompt gratification of the United Nations convention, and the convention allows disabled people to “confidently claim our human rights that other New Zealanders have …”—again, we wholeheartedly support that.

I am pleased to rise in this debate also to bring a very important challenge to the fore. A fortnight ago I was stopped by a woman in a shopping mall in Hamilton. That led us to discover a whole new pathway of thought regarding the relationships of health and disability providers, including Māori with our hauā—our disabled persons. That woman happened to be the indigenous persons’ representative on the United Nations International Disability Caucus steering committee, a solicitor and human rights consultant, Dr Hūhana Hickey. I could not help but be struck by the anomaly that although in the passage of this legislation we are supporting the United Nations Convention, this woman, the indigenous people’s representative on a United Nations international disability association, remains unacknowledged and unfunded by New Zealand. Hūhana has expanded our knowledge of indigenous disability identity issues through the work she has done, based on models of disabilities on indigenous well-being. She challenges us in this legislation to recognise how well this convention will take into account the issues of whānau, whakawhanaungatanga—family relationships—interdependence within the community, and collectivity identities. These concepts, she argues, are central to indigenous thinking, yet are largely ignored by law and policy.

Collective rights and individual human rights are inter-relational and interchangeable with one another. Within the Māori Party we share that concern. We believe there is a need to review the current organisations within the health and disability sector to assess their effectiveness in relation to Māori clients. It is about valuing the concept of self-determination, of a collective wanting to determine their own rights as groups, not just as individuals. As an example of such thinking, we believe there needs to be integration of disabilities funding as opposed to the current silo approach, and an integration of solutions to address issues faced by whānau with disabilities. The question we must then address is whether there is appropriate acknowledgment and recognition in this United Nations convention of the role and status of indigenous peoples. I think it is extremely relevant to bring to the debate the concept that as recently as August 2006 the United Nations International Disability Caucus working group was still debating the rights of women and girls not to be sterilised on the grounds of disabilities. If the issues of identity and whakapapa—or genealogy—are still so current in the international debate, that reminds us all to be wary of areas we would not want to compromise on in our own domestic scene. New Zealand’s compliance with the United Nations convention will ensure that any discrimination against a person’s disability is prohibited. What we in the Māori Party want to be assured of is whether the unique and specific issues of indigenous peoples with disabilities are also fully considered.

In our own land the Disability Strategy has many strengths and positives that might give us a steer as to the international context. However, Māori whānau with disabilities want to be able to create their own solutions and to be self-determining. But providers have told us that Māori whānau with disabilities did not have enough input to produce a strategy specific to the needs of Māori. In their view the result is a generalist strategy whose implementation fails to address Māori-specific issues, particularly kaupapa Māori services and access to Te Ao Māori, including marae. Further, providers have said that specific funding for Māori whānau with disabilities is quite inadequate. I heard that the Te Roopu Waiora Trust came to the Justice and Electoral Committee with precise detail as to how the issues of discrimination and marginalisation, already identified around indigenous peoples, are even more marked in the context of disability.

We believe that it is essential that whānau Māori determine solutions to address the following issues: one, indigenous deprivation, including a lack of access to Māori language and knowledge, particularly as residents of institutions such as deaf schools, blind institutions, and residential facilities for people with intellectual disability; two, barriers to Government services, including the fact that inadequate policies and rigid service menus have not included Māori-specific needs or input in community services, both cultural and non-cultural; three, lack of access to service and resource knowledge, including health and disability supports; four, processes that assume comprehension, sight, hearing, and literacy at levels beyond many Māori disability communities; five, physical access restrictions to public facilities, both internally and externally; six, attitudinal discrimination and institutional racism; and, seven, under-utilisation by Māori of advocacy and grievance processes. Fortunately, we come armed with some solutions as well. We believe the solutions lie in working with whānau, hapū, and iwi, and also with the Māori-specific expertise available across this community, including groups such as Tamaki Ngāti Kapo, the Māori community of vision impaired/blind members and whānau; Mana Tangata Turi, the Māori deaf community; the National Steering Group of Māori Disability Services; the Aotearoa Whānau Carers Network; and the Taikura Trust.

In the conclusion to her doctoral thesis, Hūhana Hickey recommended that one of the aspects of providing full autonomy for those with disabilities was to ensure that Māori with disabilities are at the centre of the decisions around their resourcing. Understanding that disability representation is not only about impairment but also about the representation of all the diverse identities within the disabilities world is key to participation by those groups who have been traditionally under-represented. We must be able to place the choices and direction of life back into the hands of whānau with disabilities. We must ensure that service delivery is whānau-friendly, minimising the number of agencies traipsing through their lives. We seek to build the strength of whānau capability and reduce the reliance on formal and specialist support structures. We want to extend the knowledge and strategies whānau can access, to give them greater resilience in times of stress. Finally, we look to encourage relationships of trust between both services and whānau, and between services and the State. Kia ora.

• Debate interrupted.