Connell Brian: New Zealand Sign Language Bill — In Committee 
Connell Brian: New Zealand Sign Language Bill — In Committee 
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BRIAN CONNELL (National—Rakaia) 
: 
 Thank you for the call on the New Zealand Sign Language Bill. Members know that they have reached the pinnacle of their careers when their whips call them up at short notice and ask them to take a call on such important legislation. I will probably be accused of being a little insensitive because—[ 
Interruption 
]; did some member call out and make a contribution to that—my first response when I was asked to take a call was to question why Parliament is being asked to spend its time on this legislation. I will need a little convincing that it is in fact necessary. That does not mean to say that I do not care about people who are deaf. I also care about lots of people though who have other impairments and I wonder why deaf people in particular have been singled out. 
Why I am bothered and why I have taken the time to raise my concern at the outset is that I look at what is being proposed here within the purpose of the legislation in clause 3 and see that we will now declare New Zealand Sign Language to be an official language of New Zealand and that the bill will provide for the use of New Zealand Sign Language in legal proceedings. That latter part is the part I am most concerned about. I wonder whether those who proposed this bill actually did a costing of what this move will impose on taxpayers in this country. How many people actually come before our courts who are so profoundly deaf—there is no other way they can be communicated with—that we have to go to the bother of legislating to have someone interpreting in New Zealand Sign Language in our courts 24 hours a day 7 days a week when those courts are in action? I suggest that the number is very few indeed. I just wonder why we have had to go to all this difficulty and bother to single out that one area of impairment. 
The other reason I am concerned is that this language I am told is unique to New Zealand. That is all well and good but I would have thought that if we were imposing an official language on New Zealand we might have had a language that had some universal connection. Why will this language be understood only by New Zealanders? Why is it not a language that can be used and understood around the rest of the globe? So those were a couple of concerns I raised in the first instance. 
I have said that I did not mean to say I did not care—because I do. My own father in fact is now profoundly deaf and I have seen him over the years retreat into his own world because he cannot communicate. He feels and we feel that he has been diminished somewhat as a response to that situation but that does not mean to say that I should have come to Parliament wanting to put in place legislation specifically for him. What I did with the rest of my family was to endeavour to get him really good help to overcome his impairment so that he can participate. But I had to do that by putting my hand in my own pocket. Rather than making it a problem for the taxpayers of New Zealand I took some personal responsibility and fixed the issue. Now my father can communicate and he is taking an active role in family life and in social life once again. He is just one example but that aspect of the bill bothers me. 
I am also bothered by the fact that we are told this language will not have any official standing other than in our courts—and my addition to that statement is: yet. I am told that the guiding principles will be distributed to Government departments but that those departments will have no compulsion to use them. I say that that is how these things start and then become bigger than  
Ben Hur 
. I believe that we are going down the track of creating something that will in time be a rod for our own backs. I think that the legislation could have been thought through and a better solution arrived at. 
Having said that I tell the Committee that National’s view as a caucus is that of course we will support this legislation but I have voiced some concerns I would like members to be cognisant of through the Committee stage. I think that we as a country and we as legislators in particular are falling into this trap all the time: when something seems socially acceptable we take the easy option and start legislating. Sign language is one of those things that in its own right will endure because there is a need for it. But legislating for it will not make it any better or any worse—and of course that is my point. I think it is unnecessary that the Parliament of New Zealand has had to be bothered with becoming involved in something that will endure in its own right. That is the point I wanted to make but I do not want to be recorded as being unsympathetic; I was just trying to introduce a touch of reality to these proceedings.