Naylor Jono: Human Rights Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNaylor Jono: Human Rights Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 11 March 2015. Volume:703;Page:2197. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JONO NAYLOR (National): It is a great privilege for me to be able to rise and take a call on this the Human Rights Amendment Bill at its second reading. I refer to New Zealand’s proud history in the area of human rights. I felt great privilege when I was at the seminar that was mentioned by the previous speaker Peeni Henare in Manila less than 2 weeks ago. It was a great trip I can tell you. It was very interesting to share the stage with those people. But I took great pride in being able to talk about New Zealand human rights issues and our history and the fact that we were in fact the first nation to give women the vote for example.In hearing some of the things that I have heard talked about here people have said that we should just sit on what we have got. People are saying: “Oh we’ve got a good Human Rights Commission. We have got this structure in place and this is very good. We should rest on our laurels perhaps and stay there.”I find that a little disturbing because I think if we are not going to continuously improve what we are doing and if we are not going to continue to amend our legislation to make it better to make it stronger and to deliver an even better human rights record in New Zealand than what we have that would be very sad. I cannot help but reflect on what would have happened if we had simply patted ourselves on the back in the fashion that I have heard so far this evening from the opposite side and said: “Well we’ve given women the vote; let’s just stop there.” I think that would be ridiculous. We have moved on so much further. We have been able to achieve so much more and that is why it is important that we have a Human Rights Amendment Bill—for us to do even more to further enhance the human rights of the people living in New Zealand.At the conference that I attended it was really interesting to be able to share the stage and share some time with many countries whose human rights record is not the same as our own. I found it rather ironic at times to be sitting next to people who for example had refugees leave their nation to come and live in my home town of Palmerston North. I thought that it seemed a little odd to be in that situation but it was a great opportunity for us to be able to share. My colleagues Peeni Henare and Marama Fox were also able to talk about some of the lessons that we learnt in terms of our indigenous people and what we have learnt in terms of the role of women within our society and addressing some of those issues.But my responsibility and the topic that I had been given was to talk about New Zealand’s response to the periodic review that is conducted every 4½ years by the United Nations. That periodic review highlights a bunch of recommendations. There were a significant number actually for New Zealand. We have heard people talking about how we can sort of stop where we are and we do not need to move forward when in fact there were 155 recommendations that those other nations had to suggest to us that we could move forward. We have picked up on about 120 of those and we are starting to incorporate some of those into the practice here. I am looking forward to the Human Rights Commission coming up with its action plan in July of this year.But it cannot stop there. We need to continue to move forward. Although those countries as the previous speaker said perhaps were in awe of what we had achieved over this recent time—they were envious in fact of our Human Rights Commission and we even had countries approaching us asking how they might be able to set one up in their own nation—I think those people would be somewhat disturbed if we said we have come as far as we can go we do not need to move on and we do not need to make further progress.So this amendment is about continuous improvement. It is about the establishment of a commissioner who is going to be sort of set aside in the work that they do in the role of disabilities. I know from my previous experience as a mayor of Palmerston North—the number of times when I would be confronted by people from our community who were facing issues around disability whether it be about access to public buildings or whether it be about all of the other issues that perhaps people in our communities are facing when they are discriminated against on the basis of disability—that it is critically important that our Human Rights Commission has an absolutely designated person involved to be able to work in that area with some specialist knowledge to assist those people in our community who need that assistance and to provide the advocacy that is required from somebody in that role.When I think about people who talk about being discriminated against they do not want to be defined necessarily all the time simply by their race by their age by their gender or by their disability. So it sort of seems ironic to me that in fact if we are going to have a Human Rights Commission that is trying to get away from discrimination we are actually going to have separate titles for people. They are the “EO Commissioner” they are the “Disability Commissioner” or they are the whatever-else-specific commissioner. Let us not reflect those in the titles. In terms of the work that they do it might be specific it might be specialised because it will take a certain amount of specialised knowledge but it does not mean that we necessarily have to keep using the titles. I cannot understand why everyone is so upset over titles because at the end of the day it is the function of the human rights commissioners it is the function of the work that they are doing to ensure that we have got those bases covered which is really what is important.The previous speaker alluded to the fact that around half of the people who submitted on this bill were opposed to it. It was sort of described as that being a significant number. If you are going to talk about half well actually the other half is just as significant. So half of the people agree with what was being proposed. In my experience it is usually the people who do come and make submissions whether it be to council plans or to bills who are the people who think there is something wrong with it. The people who think that it is OK tend not to speak up. Also at the end of the day we cannot simply base our decisions on the number of submissions that we receive either for or against any particular piece of legislation. We need to weigh it up on the basis of equality of what is presented.We need to give our Human Rights Commission some flexibility. Yes it is an independent body. It needs to be able to work in a way that reflects what it believes needs to be achieved. There has been a little bit of a talk about whether or not it is going to be told what to do by the Prime Minister or the relevant Minister. Well it makes sense to me that they have an ability to consult and to talk and to have a conversation. No one is talking about giving up the independence of the Human Rights Commission but we are talking about ensuring that we do have communication lines open and ensuring that those people who are responsible for making legislation that will affect this commission do have a direct line of communication. I think that is very important also.It is one of those things we could talk about really. There has been a lot of banter and discussion from people really nit-picking over some of the specific things whether it be job titles or otherwise. But in my mind it really has to be about whether we are going to have a Human Rights Commission that is going to be improving. Is it going to be delivering better results for New Zealanders? Is it going to ensure that it is flexible that it is adaptable and that it is able to meet the needs of New Zealanders? That is what this amendment is about. It is about us ensuring that those people who need the services of the Human Rights Commission will have those needs met in the most appropriate way.One of the things we were talking about a lot in Manila was the human rights conventions that are international conventions. This amendment absolutely wants to ensure that New Zealand is better equipped to meet those requirements that we voluntarily joined up with when we signed some of those various UN conventions. If we see an opportunity to enhance what we are doing if we see an opportunity to make sure that we comply in a better way with those UN conventions and ignore it well then that is a little bit like sort of looking at yourself in the mirror and then going away and forgetting what you look like. It is a little bit like I do not know really disregarding yourself and disregarding what you stand for.I think it is critical that when we see these opportunities we make the amendments to the legislation to ensure that we do fulfil those things that we say with the UN we will do. I think that by making these amendments to ensure that the Human Rights Commission is better equipped to deal with that when we ensure that our Human Rights Commission has the right kinds of roles in terms of best meeting the needs of New Zealanders then that is exactly what we need to do. So on that point I want to finish and commend this Human Rights Amendment Bill to the House. Thank you.