Henderson EmilyDr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): What a joy to rise in a House so much of one heart and mind tonight—may that long continue. I rise to take the final call tonight—the final call with great joy—to welcome to the world I hope a bill that was one of the first ones that I worked on as a baby parliamentarian. It was a bill that was well worked over I think my colleague and my friend Anahila Kanongata'a-Suisuiki will consider. It was so well worked over in fact—so often did she attend our Justice Committee—that I began to confuse the Justice Committee and the Social Services and Community Committee on which I sit with the member because we were so often together. To now rise to speak and have not only the chair of Justice have spoken but also the chair of the Social Services and Community Committee increases my confusion but it also increases my joy because this bill has been a fascinating piece of work. It has been a large part of my pre-parliamentary work to look at ways for people living with disabilities to access the courts and that was the background against which I came to this. I think the other thing we need to think about—and it's something that's been referred to a number of times by different speakers—is the experience of living with a disability. It was about 17 years ago that as the result of a birth injury I ended up on crutches for six weeks. It was an extraordinary experience to suddenly discover how my mobility was hampered. Fifteen years later that baby suffered a major accident. My whānau have had over the last three years the experience of living with a child with a major physical impairment. Now we are lucky. We are lucky that our son has recovered his full mobility. But we are also lucky because we were in good strong financial circumstances. We were able to cope with the need to take time off to care for our child. We were able to cope with the difficulties physically and we were able to ameliorate the difficulties alongside the truly wonderful ACC regime that we are lucky enough to have in this country.But when my colleague and friend Ms Warren-Clark referred to the 1.1 million New Zealanders who identify themselves as living with a disability and the 14 percent of those who identify themselves as living with a physical disability there are further statistics that we should take into account and they're ones that directly were brought home to me in my experience as the mother of a child who was suffering a physical impairment. The costs of caregiving for a child with disabilities are such that families often end up under severe financial strain. There is a significant percentage of children with disabilities who end up living in families who have a median wage under $30000. That is to do with the costs of raising a disabled child. The cost of living with a disability in a society that does not fully accommodate disability at present is also that those children go on to have constraints on their lives as adults. So we are in a situation where 45 percent of disabled adults have no employment as opposed to the 75 percent of non-disabled adults who are in employment. Thirty percent of disabled women have no educational qualifications as opposed to 15 percent of non-disabled women. People living with disabilities are more likely to end up with mental health issues. They are more likely to be victimised through the criminal justice system—all of which is to say that while this is a small—and perfectly formed—bill it is one which addresses a real inequity and it's an inequity that affects a considerable number of disabled people in the sense that they are more at risk of being socio-economically disadvantaged and ending up in a situation where they may in fact have debts they cannot repay.The cost of having your vehicle for example seized is significant. When you look for example at the cost on children whose family own a vehicle that is repossessed we see in fact that they are then limited in their ability to participate in sport in ordinary extra-curricular activities and in education. Those things all contribute to the problems that I've already outlined and the ongoing socio-economic economic and educational problems that many people with disabilities cope with. So it is fantastic that the member Anahila Kanongata'a-Suisuiki has seen through the normal tendency of us all to ignore what we do not experience and has brought this bill to the House to rectify a small but significant problem. I want as a member of the committee that considered this bill to just dwell on a few things if I may. The first is to thank those submitters. We had 21 of whom 18 were in support or strong support. Their contributions were thoughtful they were extremely well put together and they were extremely useful. They were so useful in fact that we made two significant changes to this bill that I think everyone agrees have made it stronger and better. The first of those was to address the situation of the child who is disabled and whose caregivers own the property. So we amended the definition of debtor to include the caregivers of someone with a disability. Given the limitations that children living with disabilities face this is extremely significant.But the final one is I think the most significant aspect of what we did. I take the point from the member before that lawyers do tend to believe that the law is the most important thing and we do tend to believe that our insights are significant. She made the point about noticing the difference between the definition of disability in the Human Rights Act as opposed to this one. She made the point that the Human Rights Act definition looks superficially wider than that in this bill. What I would say is that that is not so. The definition that we adopted—and it was brought to us by submitters and I am profoundly grateful that they did bring this to our attention—the definition we have included now is that in the UN convention on the rights of people living with disabilities. The importance of that is that it changes the definition it changes the model of disability we're dealing with under the Act.Hon Simon Bridges: I want to pass Anahila Suisuiki's bill.Dr EMILY HENDERSON: I'm sorry Mr Bridges that you don't find this as fascinating as I do. But really it is. Just listen for a minute. The social model of disability is what they call the UN convention's version of this definition. It is a definition that focuses not on medical problems not on disability as something to be treated something to be fixed; it focuses on the idea that people with disabilities can live good lives provided we facilitate.Mr Speaker you referred earlier in the House to the fact that you have a hearing aid. As is fairly blatant—SPEAKER: Two hearing aids.Dr EMILY HENDERSON: Two hearing aids. I stand corrected. I as is fairly obvious wear glasses. Were I to take them off—as I said I think in my first speech—I would be fairly blind. I might even have difficulty leaving the Chamber—something which Mr Bridges will clearly feel was a great loss to all of us. But with my glasses I'm a fully functioning member of society. This model this definition is about changing our view from one that medicalises disability to one that sees it as simply something to be overcome so that people with disability can participate in society to the fullest extent. I fully fully fully commend it to the House. Thank you Mr Speaker.Motion agreed to.Bill read a third time.