Moroney Sue: New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMoroney Sue: New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 16 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10166. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SUE MORONEY (Labour): Thank you Mr Chair for the ability to take a call on the commencement clause of the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill (No 2). I think it is right and proper that the Opposition’s spokesperson on women’s affairs gets to comment on this bill as it does have quite a disproportionate impact on women.There are two primary issues that I wish to canvass in debating the commencement clause of this bill. The first one is an issue that some other colleagues made reference to when they were debating the title of this bill but it is actually a commencement issue and it is the fact that one of the impacts of this bill has already commenced. It has already commenced. It commenced yesterday actually and it is the part of the bill that takes away people’s right to go to the Human Rights Commission to get their case heard in terms of their human rights and in terms of whether they are being regarded in terms of their ability to look after their loved ones with disabilities and to be paid for that. That right was taken away by this Government yesterday.Here we are today debating when this bill is going to come into effect. What the Government says is that even though it took away the right for people to actually lodge their case with the Human Rights Commission yesterday the payment part of this bill will not commence until some other date yet to be determined—the date on which it isgoing to be given Royal assent. We do not know when that date will be but it will not be yesterday—it will not be yesterday. So here we have a situation where the payment part of the bill the part that those seven families fought so long for will not commence until a date yet to be determined. Can I just take a minute to acknowledge those families and congratulate them on their tenacity. It is certainly something I want to celebrate. New Zealanders actually do not lie down easily around this type of thing and those seven families are certainly in that category.So for 20 years this issue has been under debate and the commencement is a date yet to be determined—it will be the date on which the Royal assent is given but we do not know when that might be. The point I am trying to make here is that it seems that the payment part of it comes in some time after many many families have had their right taken away. It is a right that even the Hon Christopher Finlayson one of the Government Ministers says should not happen under this bill. He has concerns about it because it is a fundamental right to go to the Human Rights Commission that is being taken away from families who are looking after loved ones with disabilities. That right was extinguished yesterday by this bill. That is the first point I want to make.The second point I wish to make is that I want to speak in favour of the Hon Ruth Dyson’s amendment. Ruth Dyson is a very wise and experienced member of Parliament and she has put forward an amendment that would ensure that there was a select committee process and that this bill could not commence until the public had had their right to be heard on it. And there is no stronger reason for that than what we have got sitting in front of us—the regulatory impact statement.I am holding up the regulatory impact statement and for those who may be watching this debate on the television I am not holding up a piece of abstract art. It looks like it might be but it is actually supposed to be one of the pages of a document that is supposed to inform this Parliament about the impact of the law that we are debating right now. It tells us nothing. That is another reason not just the main reason why the select committee process is so important in this regard—we have had all of this information withheld from this debate.I believe that the only way we will get to the bottom of what this information might be is to hear from the families concerned not only the families who will be the recipients of the payment brought in by this bill but also those families who have been deliberately left out by this Government. In this paper we do read that the Government had several options and it decided to go for a very narrow targeting with this bill. So we do need the bill to go to a select committee and that is why the Labour Party through the Hon Ruth Dyson is insisting that the commencement date is not held until we actually get to the bottom of this. The page that I just held up might tell us what the impact is on women. We do not know. There is supposed to be a gender-impact analysis done on all of this.