Curran Clare: Human Rights Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Curran Clare: Human Rights Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 29 November 2012. Volume:686;Page:6990. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South) 
: 
 Labour will support the referral of this bill the Human Rights Amendment Bill to the Justice and Electoral Committee but we have serious reservations and concerns about it which I am going to outline to the House today. Despite what the Minister of Justice has just said—and in having the bill go to the select committee we will be able to tease these issues out—we do have a number of serious concerns. It should be the intention of the Government to have the agreement of the whole House on human rights legislation and I think that is a very important matter to raise up front. So our support post the select committee will depend utterly on what we hear from the submitters. 
This bill as we read it does two things. It enables the full-time establishment of the Disability Rights Commissioner within the Human Rights Commission and it purports to make changes to the role and structure of the commission to “strengthen its performance.” In essence the current number of three full-time commissioners—i.e. the Chief Human Rights Commissioner and the two other commissioners—and up to five part-time commissioners will be changed to a number of no more than five commissioners including the chief commissioner. Our contention is that although formalising the role of the Disability Rights Commissioner is a good thing the rest of what the bill does or seems to do is very worrying on the face of it. The first significant warning sign can be noted in the regulatory impact statement which noted that “consideration of complex substantive human rights issues … was outside the scope”. In other words the actual role and work of the Disability Rights Commissioner and the position of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities—or the call for a disability Act which some believe is required for the role of the Disability Rights Commissioner to be effective—could not be taken into account because this bill changes the structures to be more “efficient”. Our fear is that in doing that the actual work of these important commissioners will be watered down and weakened and that is our major problem with this bill. 
The next warning sign came from the Human Rights Commission’s media release when the bill was first introduced. While welcoming the bill the Chief Human Rights Commissioner David Rutherford noted that “While the proposed changes will not affect the leadership role the Commission has protecting and promoting race relations and equal employment opportunities … the Commission will need to ensure that the proposed abolition of the specific titles of these specialised commissioners does not lead to a lessening of those roles or the particular character and visibility of these human rights areas.” Commenting on the increase to four full-time commissioners Mr Rutherford went on to say: “However as there will be fewer commissioners those who appoint Commissioners will need to ensure those in key roles reflect the diversity of New Zealand.” In other words there is deep concern that people with generic skills and not specific skills may end up in these roles which will affect their ability to perform their functions and there are issues around how they may be appointed. 
Some disability sector groups sounded alarm bells at the time including the IHC. Ethnic organisations and some minority groups also spoke up about the weakening of the Race Relations Commissioner role and the absorbing of the function within the Human Rights Commission. This amendment effectively removes the three designated specialist commissioners and their functions in preference for the ability of the Chief Human Rights Commissioner to delegate all or part of these functions to one or more commissioners. So we lose the race relations brand which was the first human rights position in New Zealand and has been very well accepted by the public. New Zealand society sought and seeks confirmation through this role the race relations brand that the focus will always be on positive race relations and that there is a person they can identify with to represent this focus. The same could be said about the roles of the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner and the Disability Rights Commissioner. 
If the problem is the relationship between these commissioners and the chief commissioner then we should have no problems with clarifying in this bill the responsibility relationship of these commissioners to the chief commissioner. The regulatory impact statement’s articulation of the problem being addressed was to do with the inefficiency and lack of effectiveness of the part-time commissioner positions the inflexibility of the way the specialised commissioner roles were provided for in the Act and the sometimes unclear and incomplete description of the functions of the Human Rights Commission in the Act. We think that that was what the Human Rights Commission sought but we fear that the ministry and the Minister in writing the amendment have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. 
This seems to be an attempt to strengthen the hand of the chief commissioner by neutralising to some extent the respect that these specialist commissioners command amongst sections of the public. The Australian Human Rights Commission maintains specialist commissioners. Our fear is that by scrapping the individual officers such as the Race Relations Commissioner and by having the commissioners appointed as Human Rights Commissioners first and foremost and then appointed a lead portfolio with the commissioners appointed to the priority areas of disability rights equal employment opportunities and race relations this waters down those specialist functions. 
These appointments will be made by the chief commissioner and commissioners will report back to him not to the Governor-General. The regulatory impact statement notes that a potential disadvantage of having the commissioners as Human Rights Commissioners first and foremost is that those with specialised skills and experience in certain areas such as disability or race relations may be deterred from applying and that only generalist human rights experts may apply. So technically this may also mean that the Disability Rights Commissioner could be a generalist appointed to the job could have more than one portfolio and could be working only part time as the Disability Rights Commissioner. If that is the case then we do have some serious issues. 
Another serious concern is the potential for limiting the scope on what the commissioners can comment on. I listened carefully to what the Minister said in her speech before and we have a number of questions that we will want addressed around this in the select committee. Under this bill which is amending the Human Rights Act clause 5(3) amends section 5(2) by inserting “(ca) to make public statements promoting an understanding of and compliance with this Act or the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990”. This has the potential to limit what the Human Rights Commission and its commissioners can comment on. Clause 5(3) also removes the legislative function “to make public statements in relation to any matter that may affect … human rights” restricting it to the amended Act or the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. So my question is whether that function of the Disability Rights Commissioner will be wide enough to tackle the important work that must be done in this area. And just to be very clear what the bill says in theory means that the commissioners can comment only on matters relating to two Acts rather than what has been wider in the past. For instance I note that the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is not referenced in this bill so potentially the Human Rights Commission and the lead commissioner on disability issues might not be able to comment on this if a narrow reading of this clause is taken. 
Debate interrupted.