Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): E Te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. It's a pleasure to rise on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand in support of this amazing piece of legislation and I just want to applaud the Opposition for—as has been mentioned by other colleagues in this House—the humbling process that it takes to come into the Chamber and admit that there has been a change of mind. I think that oftentimes in this very bizarre sound bite - media environment we have this perversity of thinking whereby if we are to change our mind when we come up against new evidence or new information it's characterised as flip-flopping and that's somehow seen as a bad thing—that you evolve and that you change your mind. But I don't think it is in any other part of our everyday lives so it definitely shouldn't be seen as a bad thing that our feelings change here in this House. So I want to applaud the National Party for at the very least coming on board at this first stage of this bill. That's not to say that there shouldn't be a process of accountability or otherwise and I want to applaud them as well for stating that they did—hopefully. I haven't heard that they did the wrong thing but they are acknowledging that they did enact these changes in 2013. So the first question is: how did we get here? What are we actually doing with this piece of legislation? I think that it has been outlined quite fully and freely by other members of this Government in their contributions but essentially what we have in the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act is a framework that enables those who are looking after people with severe disabilities the ability to get funding to provide that care and those services. However in 2013 under urgency the former National Government moved an amendment to that legislation to block carers who happened to have a familial connection to those people with disabilities to whom they were providing care. At that point in time it was raised by a number of us across this House and it's been raised by other members of this Government in their contributions—it was both the Greens the Labour Party and New Zealand First who opposed those changes but none the less it was rammed through in a matter of less than 24 hours. It happens to be the case that this is a situation that I bring up regularly when talking about my hobby horse across the country which my colleague the honourable Minister James Shaw will be quite familiar with—that being my personal feeling about the need for a supreme codified constitution because what we saw with the inclusion of Part 4A under the National Government in those amendments in 2013 was against the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Section 4 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 obviously says that if there is any legislation which is inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act it is presumed that the will of Parliament overrides our New Zealand Bill of Rights—anyway. So that's how we got here. I want to acknowledge the incredible work that has been done by former Green Party MPs in championing a revocation of these changes that were implemented under the previous Government—the likes of Kevin Hague particularly; the incredible work of Catherine Delahunty; and also our former deaf MP Mojo Mathers. Just this morning I was meeting with an awesome disability advocate someone who is really keen on making sure that we have more accessible cities and he was talking to me about the Election Access Fund Bill which is Mojo Mathers' legacy piece of legislation that I'm fortunate to be moving through the House—thankfully also with the unanimous support of all parties in Parliament. He said It's all very well and good for us to be talking about things like greater representation for deaf and disabled people within the House of Representatives but at the end of the day I just want to be able to cross the street safely." So that's the kind of basic fundamental stuff that we're talking about here. I also just finally really want to acknowledge the work that has been undertaken not by those parliamentary champions not by those within NGOs not by those who work in the legal sector or those who have a voice within the commentariat and our media but I want to particularly acknowledge the disability community those who have day in and day out attempted to articulate the challenges that they face in a society that was consciously constructed without them in mind and their work across the community in bringing forward a petition which now I believe has been in front of the Health Committee. Today is a great day and it hopefully marks unanimous support for the first reading. The Green Party is very happy to be supporting this piece of legislation and looks forward to the submissions from the public at the select committee stage."