Bennett GlenGLEN BENNETT (Labour—New Plymouth): Kia ora Madam Speaker. The Labour Party supports the empowerment of all people. And I'm actually really disappointed this afternoon because I thought this member's afternoon was actually going to be collegial was going to be us together—Hon Member: Oh get over yourself.GLEN BENNETT: —as it has been—I will get over myself and I am happy to because all the way through we worked together across the House on this piece of legislation. Unfortunately Penny Simmonds shame on you" are the words that kept coming through. I wouldn't want to say that because I'm not that kind of person but I think you should reflect on the fact that you dropped Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 145 very late.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! Order! There's too much noise coming from especially this side of the House. We shall listen to the speech that's being given. Thank you.GLEN BENNETT: Kia ora Madam Speaker. For me it really was because we worked together all the way through and we did not have time to consider the SOP because it was dropped very late in the piece. It would have been lovely and we may have considered it if it was in the select committee process but unfortunately that wasn't the case. And this afternoon I feel a bit embarrassed because I don't want to politicise this—Hon Members: Ha ha!GLEN BENNETT: —because this is actually—no—about people with disabilities today and so I actually felt a little bit embarrassed in the previous speech and I want to apologise for that because we're here today to celebrate. We're here today to empower. We are here today to support all our whānau particularly our disability whānau in terms of them having better access to services better access to housing better access to transport and better access to their living arrangements and their travel arrangements. I want to go right back to Mojo Mathers back in December 2015 when she presented this bill into the ballot and she said "We have a long way to go to make New Zealand a fully inclusive accessible country where people who have disabilities can live free from discrimination. … This sort of discrimination should not be happening in a 21st century New Zealand." I and we as a Labour Party and as a Labour Government 100 percent agree with that. And so we're grateful—thank you to Ricardo Menéndez March—to them for bringing this piece of legislation continuing in the legacy of Mojo Mathers. But also as you talked about in the first speech thank you for reminding us of Murray Whittington who brought his struggle around finding housing because he had a disability assist dog and he was unable to find a place to live because there was a no pets requirement. So it's been a long journey and like I say most of the way it's been a collegial journey until this afternoon. But I just want to celebrate the fact that we are ensuring that we are living in the 21st century. There's a few things I guess to add to that. As a Government we are obviously a big supporter of our disability community; in fact we're establishing of course the Ministry for Disabled People this year. We're in the process of doing that right now in terms of making sure that we derive better outcomes for our disabled people that we lead and coordinate cross-Government strategic disability policy that we work to deliver and transform our disability support services and we progress work on the broader transformation of the wider disability system and of our sector. This fits into that and my hope may have been that if this ministry had been established years earlier this probably would have been passed a long long time ago. But it's here now and I look forward to the new ministry in terms of championing the causes of one in four New Zealanders who have a disability. Now I was curious as we went through the process and as the deputy chair of the Social Services and Community Committee it was a real privilege to have a simple but effective piece of legislation that makes real change. To be part of the first reading to be in select committee to come to the second reading and the committee of the whole House and now to be on the third reading it has been an honour just to follow and track with those who use or those who support or those who champion the causes of those particularly with disability assist dogs. I want to go back to my first speech on this and reflect on a good friend of mine who was a past editor of the Taranaki Daily News was a district councillor for the New Plymouth District Council and has now retired: Lance Girling-Butcher who has a guide dog. He told me many many stories about the doors that were open for him because he had a guide dog because he was blind everything from flying with Air New Zealand getting taxis and accessing this building through to staying at hotels and moving his way around Aotearoa. He was grateful and he talked to me about how grateful he was in terms of his accessibility with his guide dog in being able to access the services that we have around New Zealand. I'm really excited that this afternoon we can pass this piece of legislation into law which means not only Lance Girling-Butcher has the opportunity and the ability to move freely around our nation but the others have that accessibility as well and we add disability assist dogs. Now of course there's guide dogs as I just mentioned. There's also hearing dogs obviously acting as people's ears. There's mobility dogs that help a handler with limited mobility. There's epilepsy dogs that help a handler who has epilepsy. There's assistance dogs that work with handlers with a variety of different conditions. And the list goes on.Now I'm grateful that we have registered services and providers and trainers in New Zealand organisations that are able to provide a service that ensures that these dogs are trained to their premium to care for to work with to protect and to be the eyes the ears the hands and the support for people within our community. Now as previous speakers have spoken about this piece of legislation just shifts a few words around or removes some words. So taking "guide dog" out and adding "disability assist dog" in. It is simple but as I said it is something that is important that is effective. I want to thank all of our submitters who participated in the experience and Mr March this morning even in our select committee. We were talking about accessibility again and what can we do as the Social Services and Communities Committee to ensure that every single committee in this House every single piece of work that goes on in this House ensures that all people—whether they be young whether they be old or whether they have a disability—have access to this the House of Representatives that we hear all voices within our community. So watch this space. We'll continue to work together to ensure that this House is the most accessible in the world. So to our submitters for many at times I felt a bit clunky and struggled because we didn't quite have it right. But I hope that on the next piece of legislation we'll do better; please please bear with us. To our disability communities out there who are paying attention and want change probably often faster than we can do it thank you for walking alongside us. Thank you for pushing us. Thank you for making sure that your legacy is that we have disability assist dogs in all parts of our community and workplaces. I also want to say thank you to those who train disability assist dogs and to those families who volunteer and—I'm not sure if the word "foster" is right—who take on disability assist dogs to prepare them and to socialise them in terms of being in the community. I know it's a voluntary role for many and so we say thank you to those who serve and can ensure that these dogs are ready to go when their handlers step in. So finally I just want to say thank you to this House. Thank you to all sides of the House for almost all of the time being as one in terms of ensuring that this piece of legislation passes into law. I look forward to seeing more of our furry four-legged friends—there's one in the House today. Let's hope that come next week next month next year we see more of those amazing and wonderful assistants who can ensure that everyone in Aotearoa in the 21st century has access to all parts of our community. I commend this bill to the House."