Shearer David: Human Rights Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeShearer David: Human Rights Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 26 March 2015. Volume:704;Page:2696. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert): I would like to take a quick call on this bill which Labour opposes. The only two times that I can recall the Prime Minister actually mentioning human rights was the other day when he accused those who did not support his sending troops to Iraq as somehow not supporting human rights. I cannot quite understand how he came to that conclusion. It was the same week that it was revealed that he had asked President Rajapaksa—the man who was President of Sri Lanka and was responsible for not looking at why 50000 Tamils happened to die in Sri Lanka during the later stages of the war there—to New Zealand to watch the Cricket World Cup. He was not re-elected and so he is not coming.The second time he mentioned human rights was during the Government Communications Security Bureau bill when he told members of the Human Rights Commission that they needed to pull their socks up—that what they were saying did not agree with what he was saying. This is an independent organisation that is tasked to give independent advice and information and it was quite within its rights in that particular context to come to the conclusions that it did.That is part of what I believe this bill is doing which is eroding our standing in human rights. We are taking away two of the most important human rights commissioners: the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner—whom we need in this country because we can actually see the gender pay gap for example widening—and we are also taking away the Race Relations Commissioner in the person of Dame Susan Devoy. If there is one issue one human rights commissioner that is needed it is that—and that is the reason why the New Zealand Federation of Multicultural Councils came out in opposition to this bill. In Auckland where 50 percent of our population will be non-European in the next 10 years this is one area at least where people can have some solace and some confidence that we are standing up for them and we are taking that away.The third thing that I want to mention apart from the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner and the Race Relations Commissioner being removed is that under this legislation the Human Rights Commission will have to come up with a work plan—a work plan to put in front of the Minister of Justice to get the Minister’s sign-off in order for it to be able to go forward. That I believe violates the Paris principles on which this Human Rights Commission is founded. We should not allow our Human Rights Commission to have to go to a Minister to get permission in order for it to be able to have that work plan approved.This piece of legislation is touted by the Government as being a means of improving its efficiency as if it is some sort of market that needs to be more efficient. It is not a market but what we will be seeing is a lessening of the number of staff and a lessening of the ability for the commission to have real focus on the issues that really matter. It will reduce the visibility of the office from what it is today and it will reduce public confidence that they will be able to go to the Human Rights Commission and get real defence and backing for what they believe is discrimination across a number of areas. Instead we will have an amorphous group of people understaffed and unable to carry out the functions that they have been able to carry out up to now.This is not something that is broken. It is not broken; we do not need to fix it. We need to get behind it. We need to make sure that it does conform to the Paris principles that it is fully independent and that it can discharge its duties as it should do with regard to race relations. That is so important in places like Auckland where I am. We need to make sure that it does stand up for equal opportunities that it is not eroded by the lessening of the number of staff and that it does its job properly. This legislation will not allow it to do its job properly. This will simply weaken what we have today and not stand up for what we need in this country. Thank you.