Wall LouisaLOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Tēnā koutou katoa. It is my pleasure to contribute to the debate on the International treaty examination of the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled. I actually want to start with a quote from a man called Dan Burke who was 52 years old. He was a blind man—he'd become blind through retinal disease—from Montana. I quote Information is what we want. Information is the power to become economically viable members of society. This is a world in which if you don't have money you usually don't have access." The reason I chose to start with that quote is because the quote came from an article dated 12 November 2009 and it was titled "Copyright Owners Fight Plan to Release E-Books for the Blind". I really wanted to put this treaty within a context of the community that has been fighting and had been fighting for so many years to get the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to create this treaty. On 16 November 2009 there was a meeting in Geneva to consider the WIPO treaty for sharing accessible formats of copyright works for persons who are blind or have other reading disabilities. It was proposed by Brazil Ecuador and Paraguay but what I want to highlight was that it was fought against by the US Chamber of Commerce representing 3 million businesses. In fact there was only one American organisation who supported this treaty and I think it's worth noting—that was Google. Google and their chief copyright officer at the time William Palfrey said that this treaty was about a group that needs and deserves protections of the international community. So I have chosen to highlight what I think was the beginning of a process that enabled the treaty that we are debating today to be assented to including by New Zealand. Just as a bit of a background there are millions of books published worldwide and between 1 and 7 percent are provided in a format that 285 million persons in the world who are blind or visually impaired have access to. In New Zealand that's 10 percent of books and it affects 168000 New Zealanders. And 90 percent of the people who will be affected by this treaty live in low-income settings and developing countries. So that's the context of the treaty. It was also framed within a context of a global book famine. It's only in this treaty that human rights principles outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities have been enshrined so this is the first copyright treaty to include a clear and transparent human rights perspective.The treaty is really simple. The treaty looks at who the beneficiaries of the treaty are—so the blind and visually impaired. It looks at what can be made accessible and it also looks at which formats the works can be adapted or translated or modified to to become accessible. Our obligations as a country or as a party to the treaty are twofold: firstly to provide for a limitation or an exception to copyright which will allow the beneficiaries—those who are blind and visually impaired—through authorised entities to reformat and adapt the work to then make it accessible. It also allows for the exchange of those accessible materials across borders. Herein lies I think our obligation as a leader within the Pacific. I believe that through this piece of legislation and the need to create formats that address Pacific Samoan Tongan other Pacific speakers there is an opportunity for us to contribute to ensuring that our Pacific Islands Forum member country partners are also beneficiaries to this treaty.So the benefits generally are increased access to books and magazines for the world's populations of persons with print disabilities. It's also about increasing the awareness of the challenges faced by the print-disabled community and persons with disabilities. I just want to linger on that for a moment because at the end of the day treaties such as this and discussions that we're having in the House are about priorities and it is an important opportunity for us to say that this treaty and the legislation that we eventually introduce into our Parliament says to our disabled community our blind and visually impaired community that "Actually you're incredibly valuable and important and that's why we are doing what we are doing." And we're doing what we're doing to ensure that there's increased access to education. So we know that through education you learn—well knowledge is imparted and that knowledge then provides an opportunity for people to study in concentrated areas. It's also really important for enhanced social integration and cultural participation. Lest we forget how important it is to understand for example some of the things that are happening in our community that we get through newspapers and that we get through other modes which really do communicate what is happening in society. So I think that developing opportunities to learn to participate to engage in social inclusion or inclusiveness conversations and also to get a good education to get a good job can't be underestimated. In fact that is probably the last area I want to focus on. It is the one about poverty alleviation and how through the transmission of the knowledge in the books in formats and in ways that ensure our blind and visually impaired whānau can then build on a learning regime that enables them to be contributing constructive self-sufficient members of society which is something that we all should take incredibly seriously but also we should all be incredibly proud that we're part of.When this treaty was assented to on 30 September 2016 20 countries automatically provided for the treaty. I do think it's an interesting mix of countries and I would like to indulge the House by reading them out. The first countries were India El Salvador United Arab Emirates Mali Uruguay Paraguay Singapore Argentina Mexico Mongolia the Republic of Korea Australia Brazil Peru Democratic Republic of Korea Israel Chile Ecuador Guatemala and Canada. In understanding I think the relevance of this treaty to developing countries it's heartening to see the mix of developing and developed countries that have ensured and will ensure the implementation of this treaty. From my perspective and the perspective of the House I think that it's incredibly important that we do thank the Commerce Committee for the evidence that they've provided to this House for us as a country to assent to this treaty. I do look forward to the progress of the bill through the House which will enable us to contribute to translating 90 percent of our books into mediums and modes that allow our blind and visually impaired fellow citizens to fully participate in our society. At the end of the day information is knowledge and if we go right back to what Mr Burke said if we want our disabled community to have the means to be self-sufficient then it's actually treaties such as this that will give them the tools for that to become a reality. Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. Motion agreed to."