Hutchison Paul: Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care and Rehabilitation) Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Hutchison Paul: Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care and Rehabilitation) Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:612;Page:9571] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 I am speaking to the title of the Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care) Bill now to be known as the Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care and Rehabilitation) Bill. I must say that for slightly different reasons this addition to the Supplementary Order Paper of the term “Rehabilitation” needs to be approached. 
Let us have a look at the “Intellectual Disability” part of the title which was the nub and one of the most important definitions to get right. When we think of that as being the important part of the title we look to the Supplementary Order Paper where there is a change in the definition of “Intellectual Disability”. I go back to the commentary of the Health Committee whose members went to huge efforts to ensure that the meaning of intellectual disability was defined. 
So we need the opportunity of having the Minister in the chair willing to explain the meaning of intellectual disability and why the committee has changed it. It is very important that she does so. The select committee said on the one hand that it had concerns regarding the standard of testing to be used specifically given the narrowness of the definition of intelligence quotient—originally set at 70 or so—but on the other hand it said further that it had considered submissions and that it would be very important effectively to have a margin of error of 5 which would mean a cut-off at an IQ of 75. We go to the Supplementary Order Paper which is highly relevant to the title and we see a change. So it will be important that the Minister does indeed give the Committee an explanation why the select committee has made this fundamentally important change. 
 After all this bill is about being able to define diagnose and care for those with intellectual disabilities which is absolutely related to the title. This is nub of it. The difficulty is that we have a Supplementary Order Paper that has amended the title and that has also amended the definition of “intellectual disability”. 
With regard to the addition of “and rehabilitation” and the amendment to the amendment by Heather Roy of the ACT party I think that in many respects if we go back to what the select committee said about the emphasis on rehabilitation then on the one hand there is no need to have “rehabilitation” in the title—and I agree in that respect—but on the other hand it would be a little churlish of me not to recognise the importance that the select committee placed on rehabilitation. The select committee said there should be explicit recognition of the importance of rehabilitation where possible to ensure that people do not receive custodial care only. 
We have a slight dilemma there. On the one hand we have the Labour Government adding a Supplementary Order Paper under urgency to a bill that has been around for 4 years. Not only has the Government changed the definition of the key words “intellectual disability” in the Supplementary Order Paper but it has also added in the term “and rehabilitation”—quite redundantly and quite unnecessarily because the emphasis has been placed on that in the select committee commentary which points out how absolutely fundamental that is. 
Speaking on the real nub of the title which happens to be the question of the definition of “intellectual disability” I have grave concerns as to the process followed by the Labour Government in bringing in the Supplementary Order Paper without consultation under urgency and changing something that is so fundamentally important. Over many decades there has been a huge debate as to how to accurately define “intellectual disability”.