Wagner NickyHon NICKY WAGNER (National): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. I'm delighted to support this Marrakesh Treaty a treaty that will facilitate access to published works for persons who are blind visually impaired or otherwise print disabled because it will break down barriers for these people and it will open up opportunities—opportunities for them to independently access information and knowledge. As we've already heard it's an important international framework and it will enable the reproduction and distribution of books and other literary works in the accessible format without breaking copyright laws and that's the key issue—without breaking copyright laws.I'm particularly pleased to be part of this debate today because the decision to progress the treaty was made in 2017 when I was the Minister for Disability Issues. There was a lot of discussion within the sector and strong support to progress that and I did that when I was working with the former Minister of Commerce the Hon Jacqui Dean. The Commerce Committee then began the parliamentary treaty examination process which has now been completed and thus we are debating its report.New Zealand has already been able to produce accessible-format materials through the dispensation of section 69 of the Copyright Act 1994 but what this does is give access to accessible-format materials in other countries—obviously access to a huge amount of material that hasn't been available previously. There are two organisations in New Zealand the University of Auckland and the Blind Foundation who are authorised entities to produce accessible-format materials and they do that well. But they have limited capacity they have limited resource it's a very expensive exercise and the worst thing is that they're often duplicating work that has already been done internationally. So becoming part of this treaty will give New Zealanders—these New Zealanders who have a print disability—much easier access to a whole variety of accessible works. It also will help New Zealand adhere to our international responsibilities and obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and also to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children.Of course National supports this Marrakesh Treaty because it absolutely will improve the life of people who are blind visually impaired or have a type—any type actually—of print disability. There's a large number of New Zealanders in that circumstance. We've heard already in the House somewhere up to 200000 New Zealanders—168000 and counting—and also it covers a wide range of materials: Braille materials large-print materials and also audio format. At the moment a huge majority of materials—up to 90 percent—are not available in accessible formats so this treaty will make a huge difference and it will make a huge difference to a wide range of people.It is expected to have significant long-term social impacts for people with a print disability and I just want to give a couple of examples of that. For example people with a print disability—many of them discontinue their education and studies because they can't get the material to study; there's no accessible material available for them. In fact 40 percent of the students in this situation say they felt it impacted their results and you can see this in the stats. At the moment only 33 percent of working-age people with a print disability have a tertiary education whereas that can be compared to 41 percent of the wider population. This difference continues into the employment figures: only 54 percent of people with a print disability have a job compared to 69 percent of the general population. Of course by not being part of the workforce this affects incomes but also these people lose the intangible benefits of being part of work teams of the social interaction and of the ability to use their skills. There are other benefits of having more accessible formats particularly through international access. It will give disabled people more opportunity to be independent more opportunity to have choice and control in their lives more opportunity to be better informed about every part of how they want to live their lives. It will also give them greater access to works in foreign languages which is useful and also we think with an expectation of the international established libraries. There are huge libraries of accessible material around the world particularly in developed countries and that will be available to New Zealand but also to less-developed countries and that will make a huge difference to their people. We also feel that because New Zealand won't have to print some of the standard texts we'll be able to print more New Zealand material including Māori and Pasifika works.So in conclusion implementing this Marrakesh Treaty is a significant step forward. It's been strongly supported by stakeholders strongly supported by the disability sector and strongly supported by the National Party and we see it as an important milestone to step up to the vision that we have in the 2016 New Zealand Disability Strategy. That's a vision of a non-disabling society—of a truly non-disabling society—and I think that's a very important part for New Zealand. Kia ora.