Adams Amy: Human Rights Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeAdams Amy: Human Rights Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 24 May 2016. Volume:714;Page:11173. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister of Justice): I will take a call this evening on the Human Rights Amendment Bill and address a number of the issues that I have heard discussed around the Committee this evening. Firstly it is not entirely clear to me that Mr Shearer who has just resumed his seat and Mr Henare I think it was who spoke earlier in the debate are aware of the Government’s Supplementary Order Paper 175—which I will talk to in a minute—which makes it very clear that far from disestablishing any positions they are absolutely being maintained in name and in function.What I want to take the Committee through is that the point of the bill was to address the fact that at the moment the structure of the Human Rights Commission limits the ability of the Commission to act as effectively as it could so at the moment the Commission can only act with three full-time members and a number of part-time members. It might interest the Committee to know that actually at the moment the commission has the equivalent of 4.7 commissioners so we have three full-time and a number of part-time commissioners who make up 4.7 full-time slots if you take them out to a full-time equivalent. What we have found in talking with the commission is that actually for those part-time commissioners although they have done some excellent work it has really impinged upon their ability to take full part in the life of the commission as what they are first and foremost which is human rights commissioners.The change of the structure of the commission is an important one and one that the commission supports which is to say that actually to have four or five full-time commissioners absolutely preserves the resourcing of the commission and that is the point I wanted to make very clearly. We are not reducing the total number of commissioners. Four to five full-time commissioners is the same as is available at the moment and slightly more if needed but it means that each one of those commissioners is a full-time human rights commissioner and is not finding that they are losing a large part of their working day on administrative matters.I have spent a number of my working years in part-time roles. I can tell you that when you are in a part-time role you spend a huge amount of your time doing the administrative meetings that everyone has to do and that leaves you very little time to do your job and that is certainly what our part-time commissioners were finding. So by making them all full-time commissioners we expect and the commission expects that they will be far more able to take an active role in the life of the commission.I want to come back to this point around this alleged disestablishment of the roles. I want to read what the bill said initially which made it very clear that there must be a commissioner other than the Chief Human Rights Commissioner who will lead the work of the commission in respect of disability rights—which is of course the new commissioner position—equal employment opportunities including pay equity; and race relations. All the way through the bill has been extremely clear that there has to be a full-time commissioner appointed to lead the work in each of those roles.Talking with my colleagues in the Māori Party they felt very strongly that the title itself had to be provided in statute and look I was very open to that. So we have put up the Supplementary Order Paper which makes it clear that after each of those lines it now goes on to say “(the Disability Rights Commissioner)” “(the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner)” and “(the Race Relations Commissioner)”. The roles were always in the legislation the roles have never been disestablished and now with the Supplementary Order Paper we are making it very clear that the title also remains. If the title gives this Committee some comfort then that is wonderful; I am very happy to support that. The roles were always there. They were there in substance and they remain there. So to stand in this Chamber and suggest that the roles are being disestablished is completely misleading and I would say somewhat disingenuous. From the day this bill was introduced it has been absolutely clear in statute that there would always be a requirement for commissioners to be leading each one of those pieces of work and in fact as I have said now we have made it very clear that the titles are also not being removed and I would argue that there was no requirement they ever would be. But as I said if it gives the Committee some comfort we are very happy to do that.The other allegation that has been made is one that somehow the bill removes the independence of the chief commissioner. Again I dispute that. The bill makes it very clear that the chief commissioner has the right to determine other priority areas. One of the things I like about the structure of this bill is that although we have created the new Disability Rights Commissioner and we have protected the statutory roles of the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner and the Race Relations Commissioner we have also made it very clear that we have provided the capability for the chief commissioner to identify other priority areas.Human rights are not a static beast. We are living in a period of incredible change with the advent of the digital economy and the way we live our lives is changing. It is absolutely clear to me that in the period that this legislation is current there will be the need to have human rights commissioners focused on other pieces of work. We wanted to make sure that the chief commissioner absolutely had the capability and the legislative scope to do that. Under the bill the chief commissioner has the absolute right to determine any of those other priority areas. Yes there is an obligation to consult with the other commissioners as there is an obligation to consult with the Minister but the Minister does not control it the Minister does not dictate it and the Minister cannot veto it. You would expect any chief commissioner working under the responsible Minister to at least advise and seek the views of the Government. That chief commissioner can ignore them if he or she chooses and that is very clear in the bill—it is only an obligation to consult. I would suggest that to not do that would be absolutely poor practice and I would not think anyone would support that. But it cannot be said that somehow the Government has the control or that that independence is in any way being diminished.The last comment I wanted to pick up on was again Mr Shearer’s suggestion that somehow this bill was being looked down on by the international community and we were being criticised or it degrades us. In actual fact I was at the UN—Jacinda Ardern: We were. The UN criticised us. That’s why you changed the bill.Hon AMY ADAMS: —no—Human Rights Council in Geneva this year and it was very clear—in fact it encouraged the Government to pass this bill without delay. So I would just say to the Labour Party which is opposing it that the Human Rights Council of the UN urged the Government to pass this legislation without delay. That is what we are doing and I think the Labour Party has to look at itself to ask why it is opposing legislation that the UN Human Rights Council has urged this Government to pass without delay that the Human Rights Commission is anxious to get under way with that creates the new role of Disability Rights Commissioner that provides the scope and capability for the chief commissioner to develop other priority areas and that ensures that they have the full resourcing to do that.It is an excellent bill. I look forward to this House passing it.