Delahunty Catherine: New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDelahunty Catherine: 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:10123. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koutou katoa. I would just like to acknowledge the families. Thank you all of the families who have worked with me on this issue. Thank you all of the families who could get no help from any other MP on this issue. Thank you for coming to Parliament last term when I held a forum to talk about this and no MP except the Greens would come to the forum. I do not feel like my head should be down today but I think everyone else’s should be because complex or not this is a job. This is whom we are here to represent. These are the vulnerable people in our society who look to us for leadership and after 12 years of going to court to prove discrimination what has happened is that a bill the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill (No 2) has been brought forward that will discriminate legally. I will take you through how; I have a lot to say.No. 1 this legislation discriminates against family carers who are allowed to be paid lower rates for the same work. The principle of theMinistry of Health v Atkinson court case was recognising that it was discrimination and now this bill entrenches the fact that they can be paid less for doing the same work as other people. That is a new discrimination. It discriminates against carers of family members who are eligible for disability support in categories 1 2 and 3—i.e. mild to moderate needs. It denies those disabled people choices over their carer and is contrary to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Disability Strategy. It legitimises discrimination against family members under 18 and against spouses.Ian McKelvie: It does not.CATHERINE DELAHUNTY: It literally says that spouses cannot be included even if they are doing the same work as other family members. And when we are talking about work this is 24/7 work. I am a friend of Cliff Robinson in the Coromandel and he has two adult children he cares for 24/7. I know all the people in the court case and I know the people who are not in the court case who will be excluded in this bill and they are absolutely disgusted with this outcome.It also discriminates against 45 people who complained to the Human Rights Commission but whose cases have not yet been accepted. Now they cannot be accepted because the Government has locked them out of any form of complaint any form of remedy. People’s future access to courts and the Human Rights Review Tribunal has been locked out. They cannot even challenge beyond a declaration that the Act is a breach. The Government does not want to ever have to justify its discrimination in front of a court again. This is vengeance because it failed in court after court after court for 12 years. This is vindictive and unfair and what is more it is setting up a new level of complexity and these people have been through enough. Sometimes people’s hopes are broken by life and sometimes by legislation and this is one of those times. The Government has lost in several courts of law so now it is making sure it limits the opportunity of whom disabled people can choose to be cared by. It has done it becauseit was beaten in the Human Rights Review Tribunal in the Court of Appeal and in the High Court. Now it is making a law that is actually as the Attorney-General said a breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and it discriminates right back at them.Of course you would think that these are the greedy who are trying to get lots of money for doing that easy job of looking after a seriously disabled family member 24/7. But in fact what happens is that these people are already doing the 24/7 job and we have managed to exploit them for years. It is a cheap option and this law is a cheap option because it is capped; I will go into that in a minute. But I do not know that people understand what happens in these homes. Unskilled carers on low wages who can now be paid more than these people come to the home and the family member has to teach them how to care for the family member whom they are caring for for nothing. This is an endless series of discriminations against the people with disabilities and their families who want to be respected. These parents cannot go to work because they are so busy teaching the carers how to care for a severely disabled family member and now there is a big cap on who can actually get remunerated. The Government has said quite clearly and blatantly in the bill: “We don’t like this. We don’t want to do it. We think families should naturally want to give up their lives 24/7 for severely disabled members. We think that’s fine. That’s not discrimination.” But hey the Government lost so it has to do something and this is how it makes sure it protects itself from spending too much money.The bill explicitly states that no one can complain on the grounds of discrimination. What other bill does that? No one can complain to the Human Rights Review Tribunal or the courts on the basis of being discriminated against. So if they miss out on the $92000 over 3 years which is highly likely for a number of families they have no redress—none whatsoever. The Budget provides $92000 over 3 years so that 1600 families might if they can prove it to the Ministry of Health get a family member to be paid to care for a disabled family member. This amounts to $14375 per year. Is that a wage? It is a pittance. It is less than what carers get but that was always the plan. The plan was when the ministry lost in court—they kept throwing public money at the case and lost many times—the Government was going to make sure that whoever got paid got paid a small amount which is $14000 a year for the 1600 families who are lucky enough to get into the scheme. You cannot—sorry not you Mr Assistant Speaker although I am sure you would have a view—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I hope so.CATHERINE DELAHUNTY: It cannot be called—it cannot be called—a resolution or a solution.Let us summarise what is wrong with the bill. It is discriminatory against people who complain to the Human Rights Commission. It entrenches the concept that family members who do the care work are not working. Twenty-five years ago Marilyn Waring wrote a book calledCounting for Nothing. It was about the work that does not get valued in our society—the backs of the people we run off. That is what she was talking about 25 years ago and this is what is being entrenched in law today: that these people are not working. The adult mother in Christchurch who has an adult son who is violent who has to wash his bottom—she tells me these stories on a regular basis—cannot be paid. She is in dire poverty and nobody except me has ever talked to her about this. She said that she cannot be paid and that her carers who come in because her son is violent will now be paid more than her if she can prove that she has got a right to be paid at all. It is outrageous as Sue Kedgley once used to say on a regular basis.However it gives all the power to the Ministry of Health and the district health board rather than setting up a newer and fairer framework to negotiate a payment. We have always said this was a complex issue and we have always said we should not walkaway and that there should be a cross-party approach. That is why I held the forum. I was hoping that some people would take an interest in this and that some people would have the guts and the courage in this House to actually engage with these families—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! Order!CATHERINE DELAHUNTY: Sorry—would have the stomach puku. Is that better? Courage might be a word. Courage fortitude anything—I think the families would accept any of those words. That is whom I am trying to speak for here today.The bill caps the fund so that those people who are not accepted by the district health board or the ministry will not get it. Once they have spent that $14000 per family everyone else will miss out. It is a rubbish process. The consultation from the start was awful and the options that were put up were absolutely awful and the idea that “natural care” could be defined in the way Governments have always defined it is awful and the idea that millions of families and millions of individuals want to apply for this money is ludicrous. It is a hard job. You talk to Cliff. You talk to Vicky. You talk to Gillian. You talk to the families. Is it an easy job? I could not do it. I actually could not do it. I really could not. It is a really tough job.So let us have a look at the bill in detail. It has got lots of interesting words in it lots of doublespeak but it is based on the fundamental tenet that the Government’s primary role is to support families and it will not acknowledge the way in which those families actually live. It will not acknowledge that. The real agenda is in the next line which says “We must protect ourselves from unmanageable fiscal costs.” and the Government has certainly done that. It has done a very very good job of protecting itself but I thought we were here to protect the people the most vulnerable people in our society. The definition of a civilised society is one that protects the most vulnerable. These people have been to court for 12 years on behalf of others who are now in a very very difficult position because if they have not lodged and if they do not get accepted there will be no right of redress. There will be no right to complain.So I think we are seeing a very sad day in the House today—a very sad day—because I know that at a select committee many families would have told their stories and I am sure that people would have listened. I am sure that people on all sides of the House would have been interested. I have more to say. We do not support this bill.