Simmonds PennyPENNY SIMMONDS (National—Invercargill): Thank you Madam Speaker. I'm very pleased to be rising and speaking in support of the Human Rights (Disability Assist Dogs Non-Discrimination) Amendment Bill at this its third reading. I also want to congratulate and thank Ricardo Menéndez March for the work he has done on this. He has been tireless in ensuring that this progresses through but I've also been delighted with how generous he has been in his acknowledgment of Mojo Mathers and all the work that she did on it. Lovely that she has this enduring legacy of now two bills that have gone through since she has left Parliament. So thank you for acknowledging her so generously.The bill is a small bill but it will make some significant improvements for our people living with disabilities who use an assist dog. The simple change first of prohibiting grounds of discrimination with a disability assist dog are incredibly important. But the other amendment—which I would have to say I am so incredibly disappointed that the MPs of the Government were so ideologically driven that they could not work collaboratively on a small change which would have broadened out this bill and made a huge difference. If there was ever a bill that could have had collaboration it should have been this one. So shame on those members that they were not prepared to make this an even better bill for those with disabilities.What we know is that the demand routinely exceeds supply. There are extensive waiting-lists for every existing recognised agency that trains assist dogs—and the MP who spoke before me Angie Warren-Clark read out that list—and so they are not able to meet the needs of all those who could benefit from and who want our support want the support of a dog trained to mitigate their disabilities. It defies belief that the Government could think that it was appropriate to enforce that supply being able to be so constrained. Several agencies require the applicants to personally fundraise sums ranging from $5000 to $20000 before they can receive a training dog.Most recognised agencies work only with specific types of disability—for example visually impaired or loss-of-auditory impairment or loss of mobility. Some are restricted geographically meaning individuals with rare or multiple types of impairment have no way to access a dog trained to meet their individual needs. Again shame on those Government members who chose to vote against making that more enabling.A disability dog that could have been trained by other than the organisations stated would have meant that our legislation would have aligned with best practice disability assist dog legislation which exists in the US in Canada in Australia and in the UK. All of these have a definition which enables the disability assist dog to be defined by its role not by its training entity. Surely that is the key factor here: that the dog should be defined by the work that they are able to do not by the training entity. That is in no way any criticism of the training entities that are listed; it is just saying that they should not have been constrained by who trained them.It would have opened the door to empowering people with disabilities by giving them freedom of choice and a range of options which would best suit their needs and lifestyles instead of one-size-fits-all. Is that not so typical of this Government that they will tell people what they need; not allowing them the choice of what suits them best? I acknowledge that it was incredibly important to have consistency of training to ensure that public confidence could always be there that the assist dogs were genuinely well trained to assist those living with a disability.But what this would have done would have enabled us to get the balance right of increasing the number of dogs that could have been available trying to meet some of that unmet demand and also given people better choice. But again shame on this Government that voted against a more enabling piece of legislation. It's true that this will improve the lot of those that are finding that they have been discriminated against by having a disability assist dog. So we are of course delighted to be part of that change but incredibly disappointed that we could not have made it even better for even more people who are having to live with those access issues and not having the assistance of a support assist dog.For many of us it was a revelation as to the sort of discrimination that occurs out in society for those living with a disability. So we would want to do anything that we possibly could to remove that discrimination from their lives. This will go some way—Angie Warren-Clark: Cheer up!PENNY SIMMONDS: But my discussions with people over the last while have been that the current situation—the current living crisis—is causing such a lot of difficulty for our people with disabilities.I know that the other side called out Cheer up!" Well that was a pretty insensitive thing to say very similar to a previous speaker who said "We've got to look after the little people." "The little people" Labour is worried about. Well talk about virtue signalling. That is an incredibly arrogant thing to say when the people that are suffering the most from this cost of living crisis are those living with a disability those who are having their lifestyle curbed and constrained by not being able to either afford to get out or have the accessibility to get out. So these sort of glib comments coming from the other side of the House will do nothing to give confidence to our disabled people who would like to think that this Government is about trying to make their life better.So congratulations again to Ricardo Menéndez March. Well done on shepherding this through the process of Parliament despite the very unkind support given by the Government. National is proud to be associated with making life a little better for some of our people that are living with disabilities out in society. Thank you Madam Speaker."