Ghahraman GolrizGOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. It is with great pleasure that I rise to speak in support of the implementation and accession of this treaty especially in the context of consensus in this House. The Marrakesh Treaty as has been said now six times is vital to New Zealand's compliance with our obligations to the disabled community in particular the community of New Zealanders some 168000 strong who suffer from some form of print-reading impairment from blindness to all sorts of other types of perceptual impairment. I was astounded to find that only 10 percent of printed material caters to this group. As we all know this restricts their right to access employment education and recreational opportunities and for children who suffer this type of impairment to be able to read the same books as their friends—to form friendships based on reading is such a great pleasure that I think we all probably remember from childhood—to engage in school learning that's the same as other children and later on to engage in public discourse from political activism to all sorts of cultural engagement. I remember once asking my mother what the hardest part of moving countries and changing her whole life was and she said that it was that she couldn't share the pleasure of reading with new friends that she made because she couldn't always read the same books. They weren't available in Farsi and English. She was a stranger in a strange land but to think that visually impaired New Zealanders are suffering the same hardship what she found to be the gravest hardship about her move across the world is incredible. This is an initiative that actually affects the very basic rights for print-impaired New Zealanders. It affects our compliance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child our compliance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and I would say also our compliance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights because as we know the rights to access basic education and information are basic human rights. This is a multinational treaty initiated by the World Intellectual Property Organization. It essentially takes away what hinders copyright sharing of printed material that can be printed or produced in ways that can be accessed by visually impaired persons. The exception to that type of copyright law will apply to non-profit organisations like libraries or other educational institutions that have thus far tried to facilitate access for blind New Zealanders or visually impaired New Zealanders in their own ways but have been hindered by copyright rules that don't recognise the limitations placed on that community.The legislation supporting this treaty will affect the current section 69 of the Copyright Act 1994 which does provide for exceptions to copyright infringement allowing prescribed bodies to print or to produce material in accessible form but we know now that that exception is far too limited. It applies to a very small number of organisations with very limited resources that are providing accessible-format copies to a small subset of the persons we're talking about today. So the treaty and in turn the legislation that will be introduced in this House to implement it will aim to change that and to broaden the scope of the exceptions to the copyright rules to allow for a far larger body of organisations to provide for all visually impaired New Zealanders who are affected by accessibility issues when it comes to printed material.Inclusion and equality fall squarely within the kaupapa of the Green Party and I'm reminded of the incredible work of former Green MP Catherine Delahunty on inclusive education in all its forms. So this treaty and eventual implementation legislation fall within that important kaupapa and I am proud to stand here and see this come through for New Zealand so that we might better comply with our human rights obligations and we might move closer to becoming a more inclusive and equal society. Thank you.