Pugh MaureenHUMAN RIGHTS (DISABILITY ASSIST DOGS NON-DISCRIMINATION) AMENDMENT BILLThird ReadingDebate resumed.MAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. It's been a very interesting exciting and memorable day in the House and I'd like to get us back to business by standing to talk in this third and final reading of the Human Rights (Disability Assist Dogs Non-Discrimination) Amendment Bill tonight. I thought I would just begin by explaining that actually this is a very simple bill. It brings about a minor change to the legislation and it simply adjusts the wording in the Human Rights Act and replaces the reference that is in that Act from guide dogs" to "disability assist dogs"—"DADs" as I referred to them in the second reading. The genesis of this bill actually goes back to 2015 when it started to be drafted and then it gained some more prominence when Mojo Mathers was involved in this. In February 2016 there was an incident that I guess made us aware of the issue around the discrimination against people who have disability assist dogs. That case revolved around a man called Murray Whittington and his assist dog called Frodo. After 10 years being a tenant in a property the property was up for sale so he was asked to move out so the house could be sold. Unfortunately for Mr Whittington he was unable to secure another rental property because the advertisements without exception said "No dogs." It was "No dogs." full stop and did not take account of the fact that some people with disabilities relied on their assist dogs for their life actually—their quality of life. And so to give Mojo Mathers her credit she has developed this bill to get us to this point. Mr Whittington had quite some time getting himself another rental property. Basically he was—pardon the pun—hounded out of the rental market. To my view that was poor form. There are several examples that I can use of people who have benefited to an extreme extent including a young woman who relies on her disability assist dog to help her with her training. We expect her to be in the 2024 Paralympics and she has got her dog Paddy with her assisting in an amazing way. I think that is a fabulous example of why we need to ensure that people with dogs are not shut out of access to buildings businesses and activities. I'd just like to finish my contribution by voicing my concern and my sincere disappointment that my colleague Penny Simmonds was unable to get her Supplementary Order Paper 145 accepted by the Government. I thought about it when Simon Bridges was giving his valedictory speech. He said that select committees in the process of Parliament should not be rubber-stamping activities and that that should be the place where there is real debate. As we work our way through legislation in this House and we get to the point of the committee of the whole House stage that is the last chance we get to make amendments to any piece of legislation and that is the point where Penny introduced her Supplementary Order Paper. Very sadly it was voted down. It was so simple and it would have futureproofed this piece of legislation because it would have taken out of the legislation the names of the eight organisations who are responsible for the training of these dogs. It would have opened it up for other trainers to be able to train dogs so that they can enter the market place and they can become disability assist dogs. The process would have been far swifter. Instead of rearing a puppy through and taking two years to train it that could have sped it up into several months. I think this was a lost opportunity. And as has been mentioned earlier by my colleague Ian McKelvie by putting the names of organisations in the legislation if for any reason one of those organisations closes down—if it changes its name if it ceases to exist in any way—in the way it's written in the legislation the legislation is then out of date. I think there could have been other ways of managing that by putting a schedule to this bill. But unfortunately it failed and we have a piece of legislation that I don't doubt will be back to be amended again. But I do hope that when it does come back we can insert something that gives it a lot more futureproofing. With that I commend the bill to the House."