Roche Denise: Human Rights Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRoche Denise: Human Rights Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 24 May 2016. Volume:714;Page:11176. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENISE ROCHE (Green): I just want to clear something up: the Greens’ position on this bill has changed from time to time and with the introduction of Supplementary Order Paper 175 in the Minister’s name we have revised our positon. If that Supplementary Order Paper passes then we will be supporting the bill. The reason we are doing that is that we see it as an act of good faith. The reason we see it as an act of good faith is—if some people in this House cast their minds back they may remember—that in October 2010 the Greens had a member’s bill in the name of Catherine Delahunty pulled which was called the Human Rights (Disability Commissioner) Amendment Bill. That bill essentially set out that the Human Rights Commission would have a designated disability commissioner because we do not actually agree with the New Zealand First speaker who suggests that you can do everything. Generalisation means that specific attention wanders and that is what we need if we are to address some of the issues facing the disability community.As well as creating a designated disability commissioner Catherine Delahunty’s bill also spelt out the specific criteria for the appointment and an extensive list of the functions that that disability commissioner would undertake. It was developed in extensive consultation with the disability community. One of the things that the disability community said it really wanted from a disability commissioner was for that person to have experienced having a disability for them to actively engage with different communities or persons living with impediments—they needed to be an advocate for their interests rights and well-being and crucially they needed to assist the Government to work towards the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This was all part of a bill that was pulled from the ballot. When the Government said in 2010 that it was looking to introduce legislation that would enshrine in legislation the position of a disabilities commissioner we pulled that billin good faith. So you can imagine that we were very very disappointed when this bill came to the House and it was not actually at all like what we had hoped for. In fact it looked like it was set to disestablish the specific positions and to just have them covered by broad portfolio roles. That has been our major concern all the way through: that the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner and the Race Relations Commissioner and the work of disability would basically be portfolios rather than specific commission roles.The other thing that we found extremely difficult about the introduction of this bill as it was written when it went to the first reading was that it did look like it was restructuring the Human Rights Commission by stealth. We certainly believe that we still need designated commissioners working within the Human Rights Commission with the Chief Commissioner and that they are specifically addressing the issues of each of those areas. We still need an equal employment opportunities commissioner. We just have to look at the whole situation with the Kristine Bartlett equal pay case where the Crown is currently negotiating what the principles are in order to ensure that women’s work is valued at the same amount as traditionally male occupations. There is still a pay gap of between 11.8 percent and 14 percent for the average hourly rate for women workers. So we have not achieved pay equity yet. Women are still facing barriers to leadership in the workplace both in the public and private sectors with only around about 43 percent of women in senior positions at board level. How can we know these facts if we have not got someone keeping their eye on it? The role of these commissioners is to advocate in these areas. We would not necessarily know this information if we did not have someone set to do it.We also need a specific Race Relations Commissioner. The New Zealand Federation of Multicultural Councils rightly pointed out in its submission that the “genericisation” or “mainstreaming” of positions that are dedicated to race relations functions means that the functions are diminished and absorbed which is why it stated that it is therefore all the more important that the designation of Race Relations Commissioner itself not be disestablished. We know from its report which it released last year Our Multicultural Future that non-Pākehā New Zealanders still continue to face massive discrimination in New Zealand particularly in the areas of education and employment with people who have the requisite qualifications and experience facing difficulties finding commensurate employment and having their previous employment overseas recognised. The 2012 Statistics New Zealand report revealed that 187000 New Zealanders had experienced racial discrimination and that nearly one in five Asian New Zealanders has also reportedly experienced racism in the last 12 months. That harassment ranges from a variety of bad behaviour including workplace harassment street cat-calling applying for work or dealing with the police. So it is clear that New Zealanders have a lot more work to do and that a specific Race Relations Commissioner is part of that.We also support and we specifically need the Disability Rights Commissioner and that is the major reason we are supporting this bill because it creates that in legislationfor the first time. We need a Disability Rights Commissioner because of the shocking 60 percent unemployment rate among people with disabilities. Disabled people are also less likely to have a formal qualification with 67 percent holding a school or tertiary qualification compared with 85 percent of adults with no disabilities. Sixty-four percent of disabled adults have an annual gross income of $30000 or lower compared with 45 percent of the abled community. So overall it is clear that in this country we are not doing more to enable New Zealanders with disabilities to fully participate in everything that our country has to offer and that is why we need a Disability Rights Commissioner to advocate for that and to make it happen. Thank you.