Yule LawrenceLAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): It's a pleasure to take a call on this bill. I found this whole process quite fascinating really because before I came to this House I'd really never given this issue any consideration. I do know though that if you can't read and you can't read what's written it becomes quite difficult. As I get older I find that if I leave my glasses behind or if I've got a speech prepared—I've moved up to 18 font because otherwise I have—Hon Maggie Barry: I'm on 22.LAWRENCE YULE: You're on 22. Well it's a progressive thing. I don't wish to belittle what we're trying to do here but it does show me that actually how you communicate and what you read is really important. So this Marrakesh Treaty is a really good thing for this Parliament to move through the system and for us to adopt—which the National Party had started—because there are 168000 people with print disabilities in New Zealand and that's projected to grow as the population of people such as myself get older. These people actually deserve the right and have a right to full access to the resources that are available in comparative countries such as Australia Canada Chile and Singapore who have already signed up. An estimated 90 percent of all the written material in the world is not published in accessible forms such as Braille audio or large print. It is a massive amount of the material. I know computers have helped that because you can make the screen bigger and you can extend things but in a written form it's really difficult for people as they get older.The Marrakesh Treaty will make it easier to share copyright. It was concluded on 28 June 2013 and entered into force on 30 September 2016 and is now coming before this House to be signed off. It will make a real difference to people's lives for those who use the resources and I acknowledge the work of Gareth Hughes the previous speaker on the select committee who gave a very pragmatic view as to how things should be changed. We heard key organisations such as the Blind Foundation and Copyright Licensing New Zealand. They are working with the Government on initiatives to improve accessible forms of material for people with visual disabilities particularly. It's worthwhile noting that just this year the United Nations' first ever World Braille Day was held on 4 January which is another significant achievement in the concept that this is really important.This bill replaces the current concept of prescribed body with a new concept called an authorised entity. It explicitly provides for the import and export of accessible format copies from and to the authorised entities in other Marrakesh Treaty countries. It extends the definition of the works covered by the copyright exemption to include artistic works.I do wish to talk about the removal of the commercial availability test. Once again I acknowledge Gareth Hughes for leading us through that in the select committee. There was a debate about that as to whether that would make a real difference but on balance we believe it does. I note that most other Marrakesh Treaty countries do not have a commercial availability test and it's not actually a requirement; it's an option. So the only countries that have it are Australia Singapore Canada and Japan. It seemed sensible for us at the select committee and it's carrying through in the legislation that given the relatively high cost of producing accessible format copies there is actually a strong incentive for those that are producing the material to consider commercially available options to copy that. It is not easily available. It is not a real form and it's not a real possibility actually to transfer vast amounts of existing material into a format that's available in either Braille or large print. It can be done but it's expensive time-consuming and as the previous speaker said in a whole lot of university material in courses often that material is not available.So because this is a cheaper option going forward it's my hope that a lot of this material as it's produced will now make its way into Braille large format - type form at the time of production. This is going to take a while to work through the system but it is my view that this is a very worthwhile thing for us to do—and I'm not trying to look after my future when I'm 90 and need something like this. But for the people who are suffering now from visual disabilities this will make a real difference. It's not costing us anything; it's providing a regulatory framework across the globe and I'm happy to support this bill.