Turei Metiria: Disability (United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) Bill — First Reading 
Turei Metiria: Disability (United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:648;Page:17287] 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. The Green Party is very pleased to support this bill today to begin the process for the ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This convention along with the New Zealand Disability Strategy is a step towards the recognition of human rights as rights including all human beings. It is quite nice to see a new UN convention that does that. We are very impatient for such rights to be extended to indigenous peoples but we will not be holding our breath. I would like to give credit to Minister Dyson for her advocacy of the UN convention the New Zealand Disability Strategy and the issues around disabilities in New Zealand. 
This UN convention is the first human rights treaty to be adopted in the 21st century. It is the most rapidly negotiated human rights treaty in the history of international law. Although the convention does not include new rights for people with disabilities it spells out the rights that people with disabilities already possess alongside everyone else. I think that the expeditious ratification of this convention is another signal to people with disabilities that we recognise how important and overdue this is. 
The signing of the convention was the result of hard work by Government agencies and the disability sector. New Zealand consumer rights advocate Robert Martin a member of the delegation was the first person with an intellectual disability to speak before the UN General Assembly. Special thanks are due also to the Disabled Persons Assembly the Association of Blind Citizens of New Zealand IHC New Zealand IHC Advocacy CCS Disability Action the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind the New Zealand representatives of Disabled Peoples International and Inclusion International. They were very active and effective in negotiating this convention using the platform “Nothing about us without us”. 
One of the key issues identified by those with disabilities of course is the need to develop and have access to their own leadership. The Green Party believes that people living with impairments are entitled to take leadership roles and to have a powerful voice for effective change in their communities and services. In the disability field independent advocacy organisations like DPA (New Zealand) People First New Zealand and the Down Syndrome Association struggle to get the resources they need to be effective. If we were to nominate a percentage of funds allocated to services to go directly to these initiatives their share would increase automatically as the services grew. 
I am very pleased to announce that today the Green Party has released our disabilities policy Removing the Barriers. One key policy plank is that 3 percent of the disability services budget should be set aside to directly fund leadership training for people living with impairments and for independent advocacy organisations. These resources are critical especially for the advocacy and proper audit of disability services. People with impairments are entitled to take leadership roles in auditing services. Too often audits concern money and buildings but not the people whose lives are made either joyous or wretched by those services. Many of the tick-box audits are done by teams who lack the skills to evaluate whether the needs of tangata whenua and other groups are being met by a particular service. 
The Green Party policy says that people with impairments are entitled to take leadership roles in the evaluation and auditing of services and that tangata whenua must be involved in auditing all mainstream and kaupapa Maori services. We fully support the provision of services by Maori for Maori and we would also work with the sector to resource and implement improved pay conditions and training for disabilities service staff and caregivers. 
Also key to the disability sector is the provision of lifelong educational services. Despite the rhetoric parents constantly have to advocate so that school principals and trustees understand their obligations and work in positive non-discriminatory ways. Some teacher education still does not include a component on supporting children with diverse needs. Many children living with impairments are made to feel unwelcome when enrolling at their local school partly because of prejudice but mainly because the resources are not adequate to meet those families’ needs. With individual funding capped this means that children with moderate needs often miss out and then we sit in this House and wonder why there are so many behavioural issues in our schools. 
A recent report by the organisation See Here which focuses on supporting children with mild and moderate vision impairment has found that only 44 percent of Maori and 29 percent of Pacific Island children access vision screening programmes. Up to 20 percent of our children have mild to moderate vision impairment which if undiagnosed can greatly impact on their learning and confidence leading to learning difficulties and behavioural issues. Our policy supports the 2006 IHC Code for New Zealand Schools and we agree with DPA (New Zealand) that schools must be brought into the New Zealand Disability Strategy implementation and reporting process. All children have the absolute right to attend their local school and have the resources available to do this. Schools must be accountable for the way they use disability funding. Ongoing and Reviewable Resourcing Scheme funding must be doubled and the special education grant ring-fenced. 
CCS Disability Action’s recent campaign Early Family Support has highlighted the fact that if a whanau has proper access to community services their lives as a whanau can be significantly better simply because they have the support they need to lead an ordinary life. Our children’s policy supports an integrated framework to monitor the development of every child and young person through the coordinated assessments at key life stages and we look to increasing the child disability allowance given the extra financial needs that parents and caregivers have when raising a child with special needs. 
We know that quality education is key to accessing quality employment. People living with impairments are still overrepresented in low-paid occupations and amongst the unemployed and those on benefits. Only a few have access to supported employment. Many with impairments are setting up small businesses but with little support. Even the Government’s mainstream programme providing subsidies to Government departments employing people with impairments can be effective but it urgently needs expanding. People with impairments who are in employment must have the same employment rights as all other workers. Exemptions to employers to pay statutory minimum wages to workers who have impairments should be granted only on the basis of the individual’s productive capacity and as assessed by the Department of Labour. Employers should also have access to financial assistance for adaptations for equipment and personal support where they employ people with impairments. 
Many people living with impairments particularly those with intellectual impairments are subject to discriminatory treatment when it comes to sexual and reproductive rights. Currently some people with intellectual disabilities are subjected to compulsory sterilisation and/or chemical castration. The Green Party believes that people with impairments are entitled to the protection of their bodily integrity just as much as anyone else and should not be subjected to treatment or invasive processes that they would not otherwise be subjected to were it not for their impairment. The Green Party would ban all sterilisations and chemical castrations of individuals under the age of 18 years unless they are being performed as a lifesaving measure or as a medical emergency. Implicit in this is the recognition that individuals under the age of 18 cannot be expected to provide informed consent to sterilisation or chemical castration. 
The 2007 report from the Minister for Disability Issues on implementing the New Zealand Disability Strategy noted that three core Government agencies did not deliver on the obligation to report on progress. This highlights the need for advocacy and implementation and the Green Party would establish a Disability Issues Commission to provide the leadership needed to ensure that disability services become more responsive flexible and empowering. The commission would work with key sector leaders and families to develop a national strategy oversee and monitor its implementation and provide advice to the Minister. 
The Green Party fully supports individualised funding for all people living with impairments and their families who wish to choose this option and services available must be available based on the level of need and not on the cause of impairment. The Green Party would get rid of the discrimination in funding between the Accident Compensation Corporation and the Ministry of Health. 
Our new disabilities policy is very comprehensive. I simply cannot describe it all here in this 10-minute speech. So much still needs to be done and we have amazingly skilled advocates in the disabilities community ready to do that work. We want to speed this legislation through the House as quickly as possible so that we can refocus ourselves on the implementation of the details especially our own policy and so that we can truly make a difference to the lived lives of the hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders with impairments. Thank you.