Bishop Chris: Human Rights Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBishop Chris: Human Rights Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 09 June 2016. Volume:714;Page:11890. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS BISHOP (National): Unfortunately this is the first contribution I have been able to make on this useful piece of legislation. It seems to be a classic Thursday afternoon piece of legislation. It is something that has been kicking around the Order Paper for a while and it is worth passing it into law.The bill was first introduced in October 2011 so that is well into the term of the 50th Parliament and it has been before the House for not quite 5 years but approaching 5 years. In fact it had its second reading I think even before the last election as well. It is not quite up there with the Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill which I know exercised Ms Dyson and Ms Curran for a very long time in the length of time it took to pass that bill but it is certainly up there. It is good to see it passing into law. I think it is a useful bill.In particular I am very pleased about the permanent recognition of disability rights and having a Disability Rights Commissioner. I think that is something that is overdue and I agree with the remarks of my colleague Marama Davidson before. It is fair to say that before I came to the Parliament disability rights and dealing with people with disabilities was not something I had a huge amount of familiarity with. Certainly in my time as an MP so far since the election in 2014 it is something I have really enjoyed learning more about. You are always learning in this job and I have really enjoyed that.I note this is one of those international treaties people get very worked up about from time to time—sorry I should not say this is an international treaty. This bill is part of the Government’s giving effect to an international treaty which of course is the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities which New Zealand ratified way back in September 2008. At various times people in this House get very worked up about whether or not international treaties are a breach of New Zealand’s sovereignty and whether or not New Zealand’s committing on the international stage to give effect to a particular treaty is something that affects our sovereignty. Various members in this House have made allegations about treaties that New Zealand has signed up to. But I just note for the record of the House this bill does give effect to one of those conventions one of those treaties that we are subject to in order to follow international law.As I mentioned that is the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. That obliges New Zealand through article 33 to “maintain strengthen designate or establish within the State Party a framework including … independent mechanisms … to promote protect and monitor implementation of the present Convention.” of course in terms of disabilities. The New Zealand Government’s response to that is to give the Human Rights Commission a broad role in promoting protecting and monitoring the implementation of the convention.Of course giving statutory power to a particular commissioner with responsibility for disability rights is part of that and I think that is a good step forward.I think to be fair the rest of the bill makes useful changes. It is not a wholesale reform of the Human Rights Commission but I think the changes around the flexibility to do with commissioners and part-time commissioners are all sensible things. Actually there has been a bit of debate between the select committee stage and the second reading and the Committee of the whole House as to the various structures of the commission but I think we have landed as a House in the right space where I think all parties are supporting the bill as they did the Evidence Amendment Bill before this. It is important I think in the area of human rights to have widespread unanimity when it comes to these things.The Human Rights Commission has a long history. It was first established in 1977. A lot of people think it came into existence only in 1993 but actually it goes all the way back to 1977. It is part of that broad sweep—that proliferation really—of human rights civil and political rights and also economic social and cultural rights in that post-war era. Of course it was really given teeth by the Human Rights Act 1993 and potentially you could argue the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 as well. I think this is probably an incremental step forward on the Human Rights Commission’s journey and it is a useful one. I commend the bill to the House.