Henderson EmilyDr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. I rise to support this bill but I would like to break slightly with tradition in my opening remarks because today is a special day not only for the disability community of New Zealand and for our colleague across the House—Mr Menéndez March—but it's also the birthday of a young man called Eli Buck in Whangārei. Eli is turning 12 today. Eli is turning 12 today under quite trying circumstances. For the second year running he is locked in his house because of COVID. His mum has contacted me to say last year she had enough warning that she was able to organise a drive-by of his friends so that they could wave to him on his birthday. This year things have come very fast; she has been unable to do that.So I would like to offer this somewhat unusual birthday gift to Eli of Whangārei because I first met Eli last Saturday when he came to the Multicultural Whangārei forum. So this is a young man with a real interest in politics and I thought that given that Ricardo Menéndez March is in a sense—having come from Mexico—a member of our multi-ethnic and diverse New Zealand the fact that Mr Menéndez March has brought this member's bill—and here it is being debated in New Zealand Parliament—might be of particular interest to Eli. I also know from his mum that Eli is a real fan of dogs. So I am hoping that this little foray into politics—if you're watching Eli this one's for you.This is about the expansion of the right to use dogs for assistance for people with disabilities. So with that I would like the opportunity just to explain to our watchers at home—in particular to Mr Eli Buck turning 12 today in Whangārei under trying circumstances without the party that he was hoping for I would like to explain to him what this bill is.Under the Human Rights Act as we have it now discriminating against people on the basis of having a disability is of course illegal. One of the ways the Human Rights Act defines disability"—speaking now to Eli of course—one of the ways that that is defined is by needing a guide dog. Now that's great but the problem is: our assistance that we can get from dogs goes far far beyond a guide dog for the blind.Dogs—as Eli knows as I know and as many people in this House know—are extraordinary in what they can do when they are as highly trained as they can be. And so we have a range of disability dogs now available to the disability community; they include dogs that can assist people with mobility issues to pick things up or to help them navigate difficult environments. We have dogs who can help people who are hearing impaired to notice when things are happening—like phones or fire alarms or people knocking on the door. We have dogs that can anticipate some forms of medical emergencies like a heart attack or epilepsy attack and if they happen they can then give assistance to the person. That is absolutely crucial to enabling disabled people to live their best lives just as the rest of us have the chance to.But the community often doesn't recognise the legitimacy of an assistance dog as opposed to the normal guide dog we're used to for the blind person. So what Mr Menéndez March has done is he has brought this member's bill to expand the definition of a "disability dog" beyond the "guide dog" into the "disability assistance dog". Now we're lucky in this in that the Dog Control Act already defines a "disability assistance dog"—so we can just borrow the definition from that. Now—speaking for Eli—this is something we like doing in the law because it gives us a consistency. We don't need to try and reinvent the wheel here; there's already a definition of "disability assistance dog" we can use. That enables us to make sure that this Act is going to go into law smoothly and it's not going to create unintended consequences.Now had Eli been listening a little while earlier he would have heard our colleague across the House—Ms Kuriger—who made the comment that—Angela Roberts: Penny Simmonds.Dr EMILY HENDERSON: I am sorry—Penny Simmonds. You see she didn't show at our meetings very often so I'm afraid I had difficulty recognising her. That is the problem. You see—speaking to Eli—Ms Simmonds wanted to bring a change to the Act; she wanted to put a little amendment in which would allow a broader range of training organisations to train the assistance dogs. In fact one of the problems with that is she kind of didn't define it and we have to keep these dogs pretty well trained—we need to make sure the organisations are good ones. So that was problem number one. But the basic problem is she didn't participate in the normal democratic process by which we test whether changes to a proposed bill are good changes. We first found out about Ms Simmonds' proposal to change this bill in the committee stage which is a very very very very late stage to be proposing quite major changes—at a point where you just can't test them.So Eli it's part of the process and it's something that my colleague Mr Glen Bennett was referring to a little earlier. It's part of the process that we really do put bills through a lot of scrutiny; we take this seriously. And we want to hear from the community; we want to give the community every opportunity to comment because it is the community who understand where the fish-hooks and difficulties and unanticipated problems that are going to come out of bills really exist. And that's why we want all the proposed changes to be out on the Table in time for them to be discussed by the community in the process of submissions which is the select committee process. I hope that one day Eli will put in some submissions to give his lived experience.As I said earlier this bill is one which aligns with the Labour Party policy of enabling disabled people to live good lives. And that is clear in the fact that we are starting up a ministry for disability to coordinate this important work. It's also clear in the significant appropriations of money that we put toward providing the support for disabled people in the last Budget. There's one particular appropriation that I want to touch on because that was the appropriation to enable disabled candidates to stand for local and central government elections and to support them to do so. From now on that will be with a disability assistance dog who will be able to go into any forum in this country thank heavens—a great bill.As someone who has recently mostly recovered from a temporary disability with a broken leg I do want to say how difficult this environment in Parliament is to negotiate. I hate to think how difficult it would be if you were permanently impaired. I for that reason want to read out the names of the only eight people—eight people in the history of this Parliament since 1854—who have come to this House with disabilities. Clutha Mackenzie John A. Lee William Downie Stewart—all veterans of the First World War who were maimed in it. Then we have the Second World War vets: Geoffrey Sim Leon Götz Norman Jones. And then the more recent ones: Margaret Wilson and the mother of this bill as acknowledged by our colleague across the aisle Mojo Mathers. How good will it be when this parliamentary community is fully representative of our full community including the one in four Kiwis who are disabled? Not only will we have—and I hope it will be on this side of the House to lead it—the biggest rainbow caucus the most women the most diverse community here but we will also have people who can bring their lived experience of disability to this House. And I hope when they do it we will see and continue to make the accommodations that this House will need to make be it a few more self-opening doors—because those things are impossible if you are mobility impaired—better seating perhaps; and the ongoing changes and accommodations that we in the Social Services and Community Committee made sure we had for the benefit of our submitters. I commend this excellent bill to the House."