Davidson Marama: Human Rights Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDavidson Marama: Human Rights Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 09 June 2016. Volume:714;Page:11888. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MARAMA DAVIDSON (Green):Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I am very happy to rise and take a short call on behalf of the Green Party to support the Human Rights Amendment Bill. As we all know human rights are an important part of any functioning civil society. I speak fondly actually to this legislation having had a career of 10-plus years at the Human Rights Commission from I think 2003 to the end of 2013. I want to acknowledge my colleague Louisa Wall also who was a contemporary of mine while I was at the Human Rights Commission. It does mean I got to see firsthand not just the importance of the work of the commission but in particular the importance of having distinguishable titles that could separate out the actual difference of the work between the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner the Disability Rights Commissioner and the Race Relations Commissioner for example.I just call fondly on my time at the commission and remember the time this bill originally came up for this discussion and I understand there were strong feelings from within the commission from us as staff but also from the commission as a whole as to the importance of ensuring those distinguished titles maintained their special focus and maintained their special weight. So although I have been an MP for only 6 or 7 months or so and I am new to this legislation I can recall at the original time the bill came up how important it was for us who were working at the Human Rights Commission.I do want to acknowledge my colleague Catherine Delahunty for her role in taking on board the concerns of the disability community because at that time she was our spokesperson for disability issues. I will also welcome my colleague Mojo Mathers our current spokesperson—to focus more on this issue—but I do just want to acknowledge Catherine Delahunty for receiving from the sector the concern and the desire to have a specific disability focus and for working through that. She put a member’s bill into the ballot that was to establish the Disability Rights Commissioner andin working with—and here I acknowledge the Māori Party—the Māori Party on this bill she was able to get changes so that the Green Party can confidently support this bill now. So I do acknowledge Catherine Delahunty the disability community the Māori Party and all of us for supporting this bill.There was one other particular issue I thought I would also pick up. Please I actually cannot see it in the bill myself and I am happy to be corrected on this—after all this is just debate. One part—I could not say for sure—in the Human Rights Commission’s submission on this bill in its conclusion asked that there would be consideration given to adding the promotion of indigenous rights to the primary functions of the commission. I have not been able to find in the legislation whether that has actually happened but I would have strongly supported that and I did want to put that on the Hansard record. My background in the Human Rights Commission also focused on indigenous rights and being able to give our country some weight and some focus on indigenous rights I think would have been a fantastic amendment to this bill if that has not already been done—and I am happy to be corrected.The Human Rights Commission did in particular raise the fact that we did sign the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and for that I do acknowledge the Government of the time. We did sign that it was adopted in 2007 and unlike many of the other treaty and human rights obligations there is no particular place where that monitoring fits and is given some formal weight. I did just want to go through the international groups—in conversation—that supported the Human Rights Commission in bringing that into focus and requiring and suggesting that that also be an amendment in this bill.The international meeting of experts in Bangkok in December 2009 included the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people representatives of the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. They addressed the role of national human rights institutions in promoting the implementation of the UN declaration. If we signed the declaration why did we sign it? None of our treaty obligations were ever supposed to just be purely a document that sits there. We are supposed to proactively monitor protect and uphold those obligations in each of the treaties that we sign. So that international meeting of experts in Bangkok did conclude that national human rights institutions do have a critical role to play in protecting and promoting the rights of indigenous peoples at the national and local level.Just finally the reason for that—the importance of that—is that when we uphold the rights of particular minority groups marginalised groups or groups that we acknowledge have less power in the power relationships we actually create a more sustainable society for all of us. If we do not uphold these rights we all end up paying anyway and doing a fix-up job some way down the track. The issue the Human Rights Commission raised in its submission would have I think made a great amendment. If it has been made then I stand here to support it and talk about why and if it has not been made then I stand here to put on to the record that that would have been fantastic legislation.We are supporting this bill in this third reading in light of the good changes that were included and the good work that happened across the parties. Thank you again for this opportunity. Thank you.