Roy Heather: Disabled Persons Employment Promotion (Repeal and Related Matters) Bill — First Reading 
Roy Heather: Disabled Persons Employment Promotion (Repeal and Related Matters) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:617;Page:13374] 
HEATHER ROY (ACT) 
: 
 It gives me pleasure to rise and speak to the first reading of the Disabled Persons Employment Promotion (Repeal and Related Matters) Bill. ACT New Zealand will not be supporting this bill for a number of reasons. 
But I would first like to touch on some things that the previous speaker Sue Bradford said. The workshops that she has visited or perhaps has not visited are very different from the numerous workshops that I visited in my previous profession as a physiotherapist. As a physiotherapist I was often responsible for visiting these workshops to treat people and was able to see them first hand at their jobs at their work which they were very happy and proud to show me. For many years these workshops have presented disabled workers with a sense of purpose. These people get up in the morning and go off to work like many other people in New Zealand. Fortunately unlike some people they are happy while they are at work and they often get some educative benefit too from the workshops. But the thing that struck me most when I visited these workshops was the pride that these people expressed in their daily lives and in the fact that they had a job. 
Dianne Yates 
: Like they have got a disease. 
HEATHER ROY 
: I ask Ms Yates whether she would like to stand and take a call instead of shouting across the House. 
We know that in the past some of these workers have been exploited but certainly my experience in the more recent past has been that they are not exploited. We know that some workers earn well above the minimum hourly wage but most are paid $50 on top of their invalids benefit for 33 to 35 hours of work a week. They are allowed to earn up to that sum without being taxed or up to $80 before their benefit is reduced. That is part of the problem. The fact is if they earn over $80 they are penalised for working and that of course provides no incentive for any sheltered workshop employer or any other employer to pay them more. 
Disabled workers who work in sheltered workshops have been setting many New Zealanders an excellent example. They often undertake 33 to 35 hours of work a week which is a lot more than can be said of the many New Zealanders who are on the unemployment benefit. ACT New Zealand would like to see a good deal of welfare reform and part of that would be to ensure that anybody who is on the unemployment benefit contributes to New Zealand society in a productive way. Such people would do that by having to undertake training before they received their unemployment benefit or to undertake on-the-job training—employment of sorts. Certainly nobody should be left to sit at home and be dished out money by the Government for doing nothing at all. In this respect disabled workers many of whom are intellectually disabled have been showing many many New Zealanders a very fine example for a long period of time. So ACT New Zealand is very much opposed to the introduction of this bill. 
It is interesting to note and I think the National Party member said this how many bills are being put forward at the moment that do not come into effect for quite some time. This one does not come into effect until 2007. I refer to the Holidays Act which provides for 4 weeks’ annual leave and other bills that have been introduced recently. This Government’s intention it seems is to put all these matters on the agenda but not undertake the cost of them because of course it will not be in Government after the next election. The Government is introducing these bills so that it can try to win a few extra votes—votes that it badly needs at the moment. If we look at the polls we see that Labour was down to 37 percent in the TV1 poll at the weekend. Labour is having to put these bills in place now. This bill has been rushed on to the Order Paper ahead of many other bills that should have come before it. The reason for that is very clear. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: Labour’s lost its nerve. 
HEATHER ROY 
: That is right—Labour has lost its nerve. This bill which repeals the Disabled Persons Employment Promotion Act shows a certain amount of arrogance. I refer again to the comments made by the Green Party member immediately before I spoke. She spoke of people doing repetitive and demeaning work. That has certainly not been my experience of sheltered workshops. The work may be repetitive but it is certainly not demeaning. Work is not demeaning. Sitting at home doing nothing and being paid by the Government to do so is demeaning. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: That’s the Green Party. 
HEATHER ROY 
: That is right—and the Labour Party. The sheer arrogance of the comment that work might be demeaning is itself demeaning. Disabled workshops have contributed very productively to New Zealand society over the years. They have given those people who may not have been able to undertake any other type of work a real sense of purpose. 
It is interesting to look back at what has happened since 1999 when the Labour Government came to power. In 1993 there were 52700 people on invalids benefits and 32800 on sickness benefits. Today the number of people receiving those benefits has hugely increased. Today there are 41947 people receiving the sickness benefit and 7904 of those people have partners and are receiving the sickness benefit at the married rate—so that is a total of about 50000 people. The numbers of people receiving the invalids benefit have increased hugely from 52000 to 71390. If we include the partners of those on the married rate there is another 11990 people which makes a total of 83000 adults. If we add up the number of sickness beneficiaries and invalids beneficiaries plus their partners who are also dependent on Government money the total is 133000 adults who are supported by sickness and invalids benefits. 
My main fear with this bill is that many of the people who work in sheltered workshops will find it very difficult to get any sort of work in the current work market. They are being assessed for redundancies as we speak because we know that this bill will progress— 
Darren Hughes 
: Give one example of that. 
HEATHER ROY 
: I say to Mr Hughes that there are examples in Auckland which I will come to in a minute. Redundancies will be provided and the workers are being told that they must improve their productivity to keep their jobs. As one worker at a disabled workshop in Auckland said—Workforce Industries I say to Mr Hughes; it is only one of a number of workshops that are experiencing this problem—“It is pretty hard to increase productivity if you only have one arm or can’t see past the end of your nose or maybe don’t even know what day it is.” As much as the Labour Government might want to include these people in everyday society we have to acknowledge the fact that not everybody is the same. There are some people who are capable of being lawyers; there are some people—not many on the Government side—who are capable of being good parliamentarians; there are some people who are capable of doing all sorts of things; and there are other people less fortunate than ourselves in this world who have every right to undertake work. If those people are best suited to working in a sheltered workshop then so be it—they should have that opportunity. 
But this bill should not be called the Disabled Persons Employment Promotion (Repeal and Related Matters) Bill. It should be called the “Let’s Close Down All Sheltered Workshops Bill” because that is what this bill will do. For those reasons and very good reasons they are too ACT New Zealand will not be supporting this bill. 
PAUL ADAMS (United Future) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of United Future which will be supporting this bill in its first reading. When dealing with the Disabled Persons Employment Promotion (Repeal and Related Matters) Bill we are dealing with a bill concerning probably the least-understood group in this nation. I for one am thankful every day when I wake up for the abilities I have. I went through a season just a few weeks ago when I lost the hearing in one ear. It is amazing what a difference it makes. 
When we deal with the disabled we are dealing with a wide-ranging group of people. They are often in a situation not through any choice of their own. Yet they are still human beings just like you and me and they deserve the respect of society. They deserve to be cared for by society and a person who has worked alongside them finds that it makes him or her a bigger person on the inside. That is so much so that each year my children have been sent to assist at disabled camps. If we are honest those of us who have all of our abilities sometimes are uncomfortable or even awkward alongside those who are seriously disabled. Every disabled person is normally also part of a family. 
So I agree that when we are dealing with sheltered workshops we cannot come to just a blanket set of rules that says “one size fits all”. As the bill goes through the select committee process I will also be watching to ensure that those who do not have an ability to produce even a mediocre amount of goods—their productivity may even be zero—can still go to a sheltered workshop each day to a place where they are welcomed and where they feel the support of others who also have disabilities Even if they do not accept one cent their going there is worthwhile not only for their own self-esteem but also for the self-preservation of those who care for them. I would be greatly concerned if we came to a blanket “one wage for all” because the sheltered workshops also need to compete for the work they attract. If there is a system by which people are paid equally on production I would not have a problem with that although one person might produce 5000 articles per day and another person might produce one article per week. 
So I see challenges in this legislation. One thing I would not like to see concerns the very institutions that have been set up and that labour long and hard with these people. If regulations are passed that require them to pay unrealistic wages and if that means they are not able to obtain work then the bill would become a very negative bill and would achieve exactly the contrary result to what we are wanting to achieve. 
United Future is very supportive of this legislation but we want to look at it in a clear practical common-sense manner understanding the differences in disabilities and understanding how important it is for each person on this planet to recognise that somebody cares for loves and is interested in him or her rather than in what he or she can earn—as important as that is if people are to be on a fair level ground. We will support the bill. We have also been to the sheltered workshops and heard their concerns and can see there are challenges to face. 
I also hope that many other organisations such as many voluntary community organisations may be able to take on some of the disabled to do work on their premises. Those people may not necessarily achieve a large payment of money but it would do their self-esteem an incredible amount of good. 
We are pleased to support this bill in its first reading and to support its going to the select committee. Yes we see some of the concerns that have been raised by those parties that are in opposition to this bill but we have a heart for the disabled. I know that many of them who have been trained and would like to go into the workforce have tremendous difficulty in their transition into the workforce. I believe that is another area separate from this bill but it also needs to be looked at. We support this bill in its first reading.