Stewart Barbara: Disability (United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) Bill — First Reading 
Stewart Barbara: Disability (United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:648;Page:17286] 
BARBARA STEWART (NZ First) 
: 
 On behalf of New Zealand First I rise to support the Disability (United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) Bill going to a select committee. We will be very interested to read the submissions from the interested parties because we do not have a member on that particular select committee. We must publicly say that we appreciate the efforts of the Minister to ensure that we have been fully informed of all aspects of the legislation and we congratulate her on the work that she has done in this area to ensure that New Zealand performs well on the international stage. To win an award is a fantastic achievement in itself. 
New Zealand First has a few concerns about the way that the process around conventions is carried out in this Parliament. Traditionally we always amend the legislation after the convention has actually been signed. We believe that the process should be the other way round: legislation is amended and then we sign the convention. It has happened on many occasions and we will be interested to find out why it has to happen like this. 
New Zealand First recognises the right of every New Zealander to equality of opportunity. We have come a long way with the recognition of equal rights for all people but we realise that there is still quite some way to go. Today I received an email from a deaf person who is experiencing some challenges with the lack of sign interpreters being trained at this point in time. We have to be fair and say that although the New Zealand Sign Language Act is not old legislation—it was only relatively recently passed—we expected that the training of sign interpreters would have shifted a little further south than just having one college up in Auckland. So we know that this group of people in particular are hindered by the lack of progress being made in this area. 
New Zealand First is only too aware that 20 percent of New Zealanders have a long-term impairment which is a significant number. In many cases the real handicap to full participation in society by people with disabilities is not the disability itself but the environmental barriers ill-informed attitudes and inadequate support services that we have here in New Zealand. I was very interested to hear from the previous speaker Jackie Blue that this includes people with learning difficulties from those attending SPELD to those with more complex learning difficulties. Autism is another area that we really do have some challenges with in New Zealand. New Zealand First believes that the New Zealand Disability Strategy needs to be fully implemented. This needs to be done by both local and regional government and it needs to be monitored continuously in order to ensure that changes are actually made. 
I was interested to read in the commentary on this bill that a large number of minor amendments are affected by this bill. I was also interested to read in the bill that section 16AA of the Juries Act allows a judge to discharge the jury summons of a person with a physical disability. One of the grounds on which a person is not capable of acting effectively as a juror is physical disability. I found that quite surprising. This does need to be reviewed; it is important. Section 19(6)(b) of the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act of 2001 gives the chief executive a discretion to pay a lower rate of superannuation to hospital patients “having regard to the patient’s capacity to appreciate the payments.” I found that to be of extreme concern. I believe that it does need to be reviewed; it is very surprising. 
These amendments being made have to be made in other Acts as well and there is quite a long list in the bill of some of the Acts that do need to be amended. I was interested to read that even the Human Rights Act needs some amendment. I thought that this Act in particular would already have worked through this particular issue. Obviously these examples all need input from affected parties who were quite pleased to see that quite a lot of work has already been done in this particular bill. New Zealand First supports this legislation going to the select committee. We will be looking forward to the work the select committee will do and to hearing back from it. Thank you.