Henare Peeni: Human Rights Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHenare Peeni: Human Rights Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 24 May 2016. Volume:714;Page:11168. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PEENI HENARE (Labour—Tāmaki Makaurau): You are spoilt for choice Mr Chairperson. I rise to make a contribution in this stage on the Human Rights Amendment Bill. I want to preface my contribution by mentioning that just recently approximately a month ago I attended the Ethnic Communities’ Engagement Summit hostedby Auckland University of Technology. They did a great job of bringing together a broad range of ethnic communities to discuss human rights of all things.We had present at that particular forum the current Race Relations Commissioner Dame Susan Devoy who heard from all of the ethnic communities that were represented there just how stretched the resources of the Human Rights Commission are from their perspective as people within the communities who are looking towards the Human Rights Commission to look after some of these issues that they are faced with every day. They were very clear in their dissatisfaction with the service they received and are afraid that that is going to get worse under this particular amendment bill.I think my colleague Jacinda Ardern has covered off quite well the aspects of the bill that we do not agree with that are forcing us to not support this bill. In particular I want to have a look at clause 5 “Functions of Commission” in particular where it says: “Section 5(2) is amended by inserting the following paragraphs after paragraph (k) that section 5(2) is amended by inserting the following paragraphs after paragraph K: ‘(ka) to report to either or both of the Prime Minister and the Minister responsible on any existing or proposed legislation (including subordinate legislation) administrative provision or policy of the Government that the Commission considers may affect human rights:’ ”Some of that I get. That is pretty straightforward. I think there should be a good relationship there between the relevant Minister and of course the commission in the important work that it does. But I take the contribution made by my colleague Dr Clark on the previous matter before the House where this seems like another process in licking your finger and putting it in the air and just wondering which way the wind blows. I am rather confident that there is no crystal ball in existence that allows that kind of a prescribed work agenda to be set to allow the Human Rights Commission to really do its job and do it well. What this tells me is that once it has put its finger in the air it has said to itself that there clearly is not a need for some of these roles—that we will not need an advocate for important matters such as equal employment opportunities.We have had particular pieces of legislation come through this House recently where it has actually been highlighted that we do these types of roles to make sure that there are people there to represent the views of a wider community that are disaffected by these matters. Also in terms of the disestablishment of the Race Relations Commissioner role I would have thought at this particular point in time—as I said at the beginning of my contribution about the ethnic communities’ summit and the realities that they face—we know that there is an increasing number of people entering and flooding into our country. Some of them find their feet but many of them do not.I want to just digress very briefly Mr Chair with your indulgence about one of the points made by a lot of the ethnic communities there. One of the panels that I spoke on was about the relationship between the Treaty of Waitangi and ethnic communities. They wondered whether there was any provision or any sort of plan by this Government and those who set the test for citizenship to allow ethnic communities and those who come into the country to be afforded some sort of training in the Treaty of Waitangi and a bit of history around the Treaty of Waitangi. But I will leave that on the floor for consideration.So it is important then that the disestablishment of the Race Relations Commissioner as a full-time appointment is of huge concern to us. It is of huge concern to us in Tāmaki-makau-rau where most of the large ethnic communities find a home. A lot of them struggle. A lot of them do not know where they can go to. I am afraid that sadly by disestablishing these full-time appointments we are going to find a group in our society who will not know where to go and who will not have the confidence to approach the office of the Human Rights Commission to express their views so that their views are heard and so that the role of the commission can be fulfilled in advising this Government or producing the types of evidence and reports that are required to assist this Government in making a good policy plan moving forward on how we help to establish the many ethnic communities that find a home here in Aotearoa New Zealand.I want to just go back briefly to the section that I talked about with regard to the provision “to report to either or both of the Prime Minister and the Minister responsible”. We have some concerns with regard to this as we feel that the role of the commission is actually to be somewhat of an independent lens upon many of the issues that are brought to its office from across the country. Sadly we feel that by having that kind of a relationship where work schedules are set and where policy directions are forced upon the Human Rights Commission we are afraid that a lot of the actual work that was done by the commission—the good work—is going to be lost. There will be no consideration in the future for a lot of the priority needs of the communities that seek the assistance of the Human Rights Commission.Just in conclusion one of the big concerns and this is my contribution this evening is the reduction in the number of commissioners. We have debated many times in this House about the huge workload and the programme being placed on institutions such as the Human Rights Commission and our public sector yet we question whether or not the support is in place for them to fulfil their job properly and we question whether or not they have the resources and the capacity to actually fulfil their job and do it well. Recently I have talked about the Māori Land Court and some of the shortcomings there and I am afraid that this amendment being proposed to the Human Rights Commission is just going to put more stress on it.I want to finish by quoting—which I have done before in this Chamber and others have—the expression of Meri Ngāroto from the far north who said “He aha te mea nui o tēnei ao māku e kī atu he tangata he tangata he tangata!” and I can say that he tangata come in many shapes and forms. We are afraid that the proposed amendment that we are debating this evening is going to remove the rights and the assistance and the services for those many people in our community who make up that expression “he tangata he tangata he tangata!”. Kia ora tātou.