Radhakrishnan PriyancaHon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you Mr Speaker. Given that the issue that we're discussing during the special debate today is one that disproportionately impacts our disability communities I just want to take a moment to also recognise and acknowledge the fact that today is in fact World Down Syndrome Day—the 2024 theme is to end the stereotypes and that is incredibly relevant also to the issue that we are discussing here today.Of course also this is a week that has seen a fair bit of debate in this House already around disability issues in Parliament. Unfortunately most of it has been rather negative and in opposition to some of the sudden changes that were brought about on Monday announced and implemented that take away flexibility of funding for many within our disability communities. And that is relevant to this debate because one of the main issues that I heard about as the former Minister for Disability Issues was that of barriers. This is a community that is incredibly resilient and incredibly strong just because they've had to be. They've had to advocate and fight for a number of barriers to be removed. The ones that we're discussing in this special debate today of course are around mobility parking. And I do want to just take a moment to acknowledge Claire Dale and to thank her for bringing this petition to the notice of the House and also to acknowledge the work of the former Petitions Committee in terms of the very thorough and thoughtful I'd say examination of this issue and the various stakeholders they have spoken to about this as well.The crux of the issue or the matter here today is that the petition was calling for legislation to substantially increase fines nationally for misusing any mobility parking spaces including on privately owned land that is used publicly and also to urge the Government to run an education campaign. I am heartened to hear quite emphatically from the member who just resumed his seat Greg Fleming that the Government will indeed move on all of those because I was listening intently to the contribution by the current Minister for Disability Issues the Hon Penny Simmonds that was unfortunately incredibly lacklustre and I thought didn't really commit to any of those recommendations except probably increasing fines. There was no mention from her about the need for a public education campaign which would remove some of the stereotypes that many within the disability community unfortunately are marginalised as a result of.In fact that was something that Whaikaha supported as well in terms of both stricter enforcement measures and also an education campaign that could help to reduce the misuse of mobility parks. And this is actually an issue that I do feel pretty strongly about. I remember just recently probably at the end of last year or early this year taking a bit of a holiday in Raglan sitting outside their bakery eating a pie as one does occasionally and for the 20 or 25 minutes that I was sitting outside right in front of the mobility park I saw about five people without a mobility permit parking in that park just to pop into the bakery. So I feel that it is something that is misused. There is in the report back from the Petitions Committee a point made by one of the stakeholders that it is reducing—there isn't a huge amount of evidence I think it was the supermarkets that mentioned there aren't often complaints about it but people don't complain when they can't actually park and get out and go about their business that they are there for. It's hardly likely that they're going to be complaining about it.The other quick point that I wanted to make on that that I realised from the report of this committee is that one can actually report it to 105. It could be looked into if police have the ability at the point to do so but there's also an access app that people can use to report the misuse of mobility parks. So just in in closing what I'll say is that this is an issue that impacts the ability for disabled people and also our ageing population to have the dignity of being able to go about their daily business by being able to park somewhere easily and conduct said business. So this is something that should be taken seriously. I'm pleased to hear the Government's going to act on pretty much all of those recommendations and I'll be looking out to ensure that they do. Thank you.