Henderson EmilyDr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): It's an absolute pleasure to rise in support of this bill as a member of the Justice Committee. I want to tautoko all of the speeches of firstly the proposer of this bill Anahila Kanongata'a-Suisuiki our chair Ginny Andersen and our two National Party colleagues. Simon—blessed are the peacemakers I think is also something we might want to consider for they shall inherit the earth. But I do believe that it is Mr Simeon Brown whose speech takes the muffin this evening. Simeon Brown: No mine's the icing on the muffin. Dr EMILY HENDERSON: Oh that's the icing on the muffin Simon. This is a wonderful bill. It's a small bill but it's very significant and it is part of this Government's commitment to—Hon Simon Bridges: It's like Simeon Brown. Dr EMILY HENDERSON: Like Simeon Brown—maybe. It is part of our commitment to make this country a place that does not disable people with impairments. The statistics are as my colleagues have already said quite staggering: 1 million to 1.2 million Kiwis are estimated to live with disabilities. That has profound implications for the way they live. People living with disabilities are much more likely to be unemployed: 45 percent in employment as opposed to 72 percent of the non-disabled population. They are much more likely to have lower education: 30 percent of women living with disability have no educational qualifications as opposed to 15 percent of non-disabled women. Disabled children are much less likely to play sport or participate in other social activity. These are matters that are relevant to this bill because this bill is about preserving people's means of participation and inclusion in society. There are two matters that we specifically have done in this bill and I want to deal with them in turn. The first is to change the definition of disability" and this is the major change from the first reading. This has been mentioned before but I really think it's well worth taking a little bit of time because what has happened on the recommendation of a number of submitters—in particular I would like to mention Kāpō Māori Aotearoa and Blind Low Vision New Zealand in their joint submission. It is also tautoko-ed by the Office for Disability Issues. What we've done in this is replace a fairly standard definition of "disability" with the definition in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This is significant. New Zealand ratified the convention in September 2008 without reservation. This bill thus takes us further down the path of fulfilling our obligations under that convention. It fulfils some of our obligations under article 4 to take into account protect and promote the human rights of people with disabilities in all policies and programmes. It also furthers our obligation to recognise in article 3 the dignity autonomy participation and inclusion of people living with disabilities and in articles 19 and 20 to regard living independently and personal mobility as objectives. It is an important little bit of legislation that we are bringing to this House this afternoon. It is particularly important because while it may seem simply to repeat language there's a serious purpose behind the language. My colleague Ginny Andersen has already quoted it but the substance of it is a philosophic change from what's known as the medical model of disability where it's something to be treated and got rid of through to a model that sees disability on a social—it's called the social model. It sees it as something where you may have an impairment that is a medical condition—for example if I take off my glasses you're all a blur because I'm quite short-sighted. But the point at which an impairment like my poor sight becomes a disability is when society fails to accommodate and enable me to live a normal life by doing this and putting my glasses on. That's the difference. I'm not disabled. I live my life because I'm able to use my glasses. That's the social model of disability. That's the model we're seeking to bring in here. It is the model that says "You may be impaired but we will facilitate you to live a life that is not disabled by the way in which we treat you in our society." We are an inclusive we are a facilitative society. The second part of this legislation that we've brought in—and I pause here so that we can all take in the importance of the UN convention having been brought into law. We can all tautoko the idea of the social model of disability and we can all tautoko the inclusion of that definition because it is very significant and in that moment I would actually just like to recognise we are in Sign Language Week. I would like to actually acknowledge the work of people like my constituent Kim Robinson in his work to bring sign language interpretation to Parliament and to all significant events in New Zealand. I would also like to acknowledge my debt to the Tiaho Trust in my home district of Whangārei and the work of people like Jonny Wilkinson the great disability advocate who has spent time with me and talked about the social model as opposed to the medicalisation of disability. Thank you Jonny and thank you Kim for the work you both do. The next part of the legislation that needs talking about is the extension of the definition of who is a debtor under this legislation. One significant thing that was brought to our attention by a number of submitters—especially Age Concern and the Auckland Disability Law group—is the need not to stop at the person who actually is disabled or person living with a disability because that person may not be the legal owner of the equipment that is necessary to enable their participation and inclusion in society. For example we've already discussed the mobility vehicle as a possible thing. Often it is the parent who owns the mobility vehicle. I've already spoken about how children living with disabilities are often much more limited in the activities they're able to participate in in society and as a mum and as parents in this House we know how important those sporting and social opportunities are for our kids. Mobility and the access to a mobility vehicle for the parents of those children to facilitate them to grow up and have good lives is a really crucial extension and that is why we are really proud that we took the advice of our submitters. We extended the definition of "debtor" to include not only the person who is disabled but the person who owns the equipment that is necessary to the disabled person—to the principal caregiver for a disabled person. The final thing that we talked about as previous speakers have spoken about was that we did this bill hard I think it's fair to say. We did not leave a stone unturned in the consideration of it. It may be that there is some bearing on the fact that some of us were in our first bill. This was in fact I think my first bill ever to work on. So we made sure we considered every aspect of this and that is reflected in the discussion that we had on section 167 in clause 4 of this bill. There was some discussion as to where we should leave the definition of items that are protected property. At the moment it says "any item … necessary for the care support or independence … to promote the inclusion and participation" of the person—e.g. mobility vehicles. We considered whether that needed to be widened to include technology such as communication devices. We feel at this point that that definition is wide enough to enable bailiffs to take proper consideration of the needs of debtors and their dependants. We note with pleasure that the Ministry of Justice has stated that they will undertake education of bailiffs which will get them up to speed in using this Act. On that basis I am really happy to commend this bill to the House."