Kedgley Sue: New Zealand Sign Language Bill — Third Reading 
Kedgley Sue: New Zealand Sign Language Bill — Third Reading 
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SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 Well this is a red-letter day in our Parliament—a day when the entire Parliament has come together and set aside all its usual political bickering to support almost unanimously this bill that will give formal recognition to New Zealand Sign Language for the first time in our history. There has been a long long struggle to make this bill a reality and I pay tribute to Ruth Dyson for spearheading that long struggle. 
There is no doubt that this legislation marks a significant step forward in the history of how society treats deaf people and other cultures and their history. In New Zealand as in other parts of the world there has been a long and difficult struggle to have sign language understood for what it is: a real and living language that is part of a culture with as much depth and validity as anyone else’s culture. In our country as in other countries overseas the mainstream hearing society has discouraged generations of deaf people from using sign language in the misguided belief that the only way they could survive was by using English. That attitude and belief led to low literacy levels misunderstanding between deaf and hearing people and a cycle of disenfranchisement that is still with us today. 
As the Deaf community has tried to tell the rest of us over and over again sign language is a language that is just as real as Maori English or any other spoken language around the world. Just as there is a gap in understanding and cultural awareness between people who cannot comprehend or speak each other’s language the same thing happens when our majority culture is unable to understand and communicate in sign language. As one person told the Justice and Electoral Committee—which I was not part of; my colleague Sue Bradford was—“Stop wanting to cure us; accept us as we are; deafness is part of our identity.” Sign language encapsulates and expresses that identity and the notion is almost incomprehensible now that those of us who are not deaf have denied those who are deaf the right to the full use of their language. 
Sign language is the native language of many deaf people and of their close family members and teachers. It not only helps to define the Deaf community; it allows members of that community better access to all parts of the education system and training—including the ability to learn other languages in schools—access to the justice system and so forth. Not only will this legislation allow New Zealand Sign Language to become an officially recognised language with people being able to use it in all court proceedings but the legislation also lays the way for the setting of new standards to guide Government departments on the use they should make of sign language. 
 Like New Zealand First the Green Party is also very interested in what the next steps will be after this bill becomes law particularly in areas like broadcasting education and health. The Green Party believes that a lot more needs to be done to ensure that all deaf people gain the ability to participate fully in our society. The Green Party hopes that the passage of the bill will pave the way for much greater recognition of and financial support for the provision of New Zealand Sign Language training for deaf children for deaf adults who are eager to study New Zealand Sign Language academically for deaf people who want to learn it for the first time and for teachers and other professionals who work with deaf children and adults. We hope that the mass media will become more responsible in the provision of translation and captioning so that deaf adults and children can enjoy and benefit from a much wider range of movies and television programmes. We also hope that the profession of sign language interpreting becomes recognised supported and resourced to a much greater extent than at present. 
The Green Party looks forward to the day when we see the first member of Parliament from the Deaf community being able to represent his or her sector to the rest of us in this House in sign language with the same linguistic ease as speakers of Maori and English. At the last election a member of the Deaf community was very high up on our list and we hope that that person will become a member of our Parliament in the future. 
In conclusion I reiterate the Green Party’s support for this bill. We acknowledge it could go a lot further and that it will take much more than a simple Act of Parliament to bring about all the changes that are needed but at least we are on the road to achieving official recognition. Indeed we now have official recognition and that is definitely something worthy of celebration.