Logie Jan: New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLogie Jan: New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 16 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10212. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAN LOGIE (Green): I would like to start my final speech on this New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill (No 2) tonight by acknowledging the fourth respondent Laurence Carter and the first respondent Susan Atkinson who have both died in the process of this coming to Parliament. I want also to acknowledge those of you out there who have been fighting for your family and your home and also for the rights of so many others in this country. Your work is something that we should respect and I share my colleague Catherine Delahunty’s sense of disappointment and shame in our system for not having acknowledged your need and acknowledged your rights under the law which made you have to go through the Human Rights Review Tribunal the High Court and then the Court of Appeal to have it acknowledged that actually you had the right—you had the right—in our law to be paid and acknowledged for the caring work that you are doing which is saving all of us in our society and is benefiting every one of us. I want to deeply acknowledge you here tonight in the face of this terrible bill which is actually undermining that right that was existing in law.This Government has stood up and told us that we should be proud of this bill and that we are the third country in the world to do this. Actually no. Our law our courts told us we were doing that. Our law gave that right. Our policy was out of step with the law because that right existed in the law and the legislation that is in front of this House tonight repeals those rights. There is nothing to be proud of in this piece of legislation.This bill in its intent confirms that people will not generally be paid to provide health services and disability support to their families. That is what this bill does. Further it goes on to say that the families who have lodged complaints to the Human Rights Review Tribunal already who have those cases lodged with the Human Rights ReviewTribunal can now get only an acknowledgment. The only remedy that they will be entitled to for the discrimination they have experienced through policy is a declaration that the policy is inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. That is extraordinary. And the families who have not taken a case are now no longer able to take a case. Basically we are saying that there is no right of redress in this country for this discrimination. That is a shameful shameful act towards the people who are making so much difference and towards the people living with the disabilities who are fighting such barriers to get their ability to participate in this society—and that requires care for some people. The right to have choice over who is going to provide that care is surely a fundamental right.In response to this legislation I have heard on Facebook from people with disabilities who are feeling devastated by this and who are feeling as if they are losing hope because they had the convention we had a sense of progress as a country in a commitment to human rights for people with disabilities and we now have a disability commissioner. And now along comes this piece of legislation that undermines that very right and that tells them that actually our Government thinks its current accounts or its books matter more than their ability. The Government says this is too expensive but those families cannot afford this burden. We as a country can. Those families cannot afford to carry this burden any longer and they should not have to. It takes us nothing as a country to do it.