SpeechHon CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Kia orana Mr Speaker. Can I first of all just actually acknowledge Gareth Hughes for the work that he's done over the last gosh 11 years in this House on copyright reform and the importance of bringing our Parliament into the modern era around how we as representatives of New Zealanders look at information and accessibility to the public while acknowledging the absolute importance of the content creators and valuing them—our New Zealand content creators which is where our first principles should derive from. This bill—it's absolutely fantastic can I just say actually having unanimity around a copyright issue in the New Zealand Parliament. I feel quite proud of that and proud of all the people that have worked on this. The phraseology that comes to mind is the From little things big things grow". People look at a bill like this bill the Copyright (Marrakesh Treaty Implementation) Amendment Bill as being something small and inconsequential—but often the apparent small and inconsequential bills actually have within them the nuggets of real importance in terms of cultural change and the acknowledgement of equality of access and the values actually that upon which New Zealand should and does rest when we all work together. I really also want to say to the Hon Tracey Martin that I watched her speech up in my office and actually had a bit of a tear because seriously if we can't—Chris Penk: It wasn't that bad. Hon CLARE CURRAN: Don't make fun guys—start from the beginning of life where we provide equality of access to information which is a hallmark of democracy in this country an absolute hallmark of democracy then where are we as a country? Thankfully we're all speaking as one tonight and that's a great thing. Various speakers in the House and I think the Minister Kris Faafoi said that this will have an impact for around 160000 New Zealanders. I actually wonder whether it will be even more than that because I went and had a look on the Blind Foundation's website as I had a figure in my head of even more than that in terms of people who have blindness and low vision in New Zealand. I know we're talking of equality of access to printed works; equality of access also includes broadcast information. That's not just for the visually impaired it's for the—we have a lot more work to do in this country and as a Parliament for people who have disabilities of any kind whether they are hearing impaired visually impaired or impaired in any other way where their ability to access information access services is impaired. So I know that's taking it a bit broader than the bill but that is a challenge for us. In terms of the visually impaired—the 30000 individuals who are affected by blindness and low vision—we also have other conditions that affect the ability to see in this country. The age-related macular degeneration—projected by 2030 352000 Kiwis will have that at the moment it's around 207000. Around 330000 Kiwis have diabetes; diabetic retinopathy is the leading cause of blindness and sight loss in New Zealanders under 50. Glaucoma—anyone in this House who has a history of glaucoma please make sure you get your eye tests every year and your glaucoma tests it's absolutely important because it is treatable—for 70000 Kiwis it's the second most common cause of blindness and low vision in New Zealanders over 65. Then we have cataracts there are 370000 people estimated to have cataracts in this country and in 95 percent of cases surgery is successful. Obviously from a health perspective that is treatable as well but if you add it all up—I don't have the actual figure and some people have more than one condition. It's a major issue. So this bill makes a difference—makes a real difference to a lot of New Zealanders in terms of their access to print-capable information. I absolutely support this bill."