Ardern Jacinda: Human Rights Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeArdern Jacinda: Human Rights Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 11 March 2015. Volume:703;Page:2191. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): It is my pleasure to take a call on the Human Rights Amendment Bill. I thank the Minister of Justice for her contribution but I do think it is important to really question when making these changes to fundamentally the way the Human Rights Commission works what has changed to lead us to the point where we are making such significant amendments to the way that the commission operates and to the way that the commissioners operate.I know that over the last 15 years there have been significant changes in the world of race relations for instance. I do not often begin a speech with anecdotes but in September 2001 which was 14 years ago now I was living in Arizona. I was on an exchange programme with Arizona State University. I was a student taking a foreign policy class at that university when September 11 happened and through all of the subsequent debate that followed in the days after. I was on a campus that was quite diverse and there were significant racial attacks on that campus in the days that followed September 11. I remember distinctly the day when I went to one of my classes and the lecturer at that class—it was a communications class—instigated a discussion with the students where he asked us to talk about our views on what had happened and our response to it. I remember feeling quite sheepish as a foreign student—even though I was from New Zealand—about taking part in those discussions because I remember being told on the day of September 11 that I was a foreigner and my view was not welcome in the United States at that time. So I did not say much in that class until one student said quite vocally and without much reaction that he could not now walk by an Arab student on campus without wondering about them. I remember that was the point when something inside me exploded a little and I started to question everything I was hearing around me.The point I want to make is that in the past several decades the world has changed. Our wars are not along single borders. They are not between single nations pitted for and against each other. They are not just simply about land and power. They are complex. With that level of complexity we run the risk of oversimplifying conflicts and of distilling them down into dangerously easy categories like race and religion. We have seen I think in very recent times—even in New Zealand in our response to terror attacks instigated by organisations like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria—the consequences that this has had on members of for instance the Muslim community and how unjustified that is. Now more than ever we should be entrenching the roles of those who protect our human rights of those who guard our human rights and of those who protect us against discrimination based on race or religion. To have before this House at this time a bill that has the ability to dilute the role of those individuals is very sad indeed.I want to come back to the statements that were made by my colleagues in their first reading speeches where they said wholeheartedly that of course we support the establishment of a disabilities commissioner—absolutely—to support those who are in the community living with a disability and who absolutely represent a significant number in the community and who deserve to have that representation. But it should not come at the price of losing potentially commissioners for equal employment opportunities and race relations. Indeed our minority report stipulates this very concisely: “Labour completely supports the establishment in this legislation of a Disabilities Commissioner as did 22 out of the 42 submitters on this bill. We support the establishment of a Disabilities Commissioner for exactly the same reasons that we support the retention of the other two designated roles of Equal Employment Opportunities and Race Relations Commissioners. People with disabilities suffer discrimination … and we are pleased that there will be a commissioner with specific responsibility for receiving and addressing complaints on behalf of those New Zealanders. However … ”—of course we said—“we cannot see the logic in disestablishing two specific commissioners in one breath and establishing another in the next.”As I said in the beginning of my speech what has changed in our environment in our society and in our communities to lead us to the view that we no longer need that specific designation? A little bit but not nearly enough. Even if we pluck out the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner—just looking at the facts will tell us that there is still a need for that role within the Human Rights Commission. Putting aside issues of gender representation in Parliament because we have the luxury of debating that reasonably often; what about simply gender diversity in governance?Someone by the name of Dianne McAteer has done a piece of work on this studying 10 years I believe of women’s roles in governance. It has been published on the Ministry of Women’s Affairs website. She points out this argument that there is just no room at the top of these positions because there is not enough turnover—she points out that where there has been 10 percent turnover of directorships women have replaced men in those roles only 7 percent of the time. And that of the 73 new board roles that have been created—not directorships but board roles—only 23 percent have been filled by females. Putting aside just simply the roles of those who are at the top of the governance tree there is simply the fact that we still have a 10 percent gender wage gap in New Zealand and that we seem to be depleting more and more the specific individual roles even of policy makers within the Ministry of Women’s Affairs to look at that issue. It was disestablished by this Government. And now we have this happening to the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner.So what has changed that has made the Government feel so comfortable that we can disestablish that formal role in legislation? What really has changed? The evidence suggests quite simply that not enough has been achieved. The Minister however went on to argue in her address that essentially the way that the legislation has set out these new roles they can still be effective and their role has not been diluted. But there have been other areas where we have seen this kind of consolidation and it has really undermined the work that has been done. When the Alcohol Advisory Council was merged into the Health Promotion Agency that was an example of that. What the bill actually does is it gives just too much discretion now to the Human Rights Commission to prioritise what work is done.If the Human Rights Commission had the kind of independence from Government that you would hope an entity like that would have maybe that might be something that could provide comfort to members on this side of the House. But the fact is that clause 6 inserts new subsection (1B) which states: “A Commissioner must lead the work of the Commission in any other priority area that is designated by the Chief Commissioner and the Chief Commissioner may designate an area of work as a priority area only in accordance with the strategic direction and the general nature of activities determined by the Commission under section 7(1) and after consultation with the Minister … ”—after consultation with the Minister.Of course our concern with this is that the Human Rights Commission has the role of for instance ensuring that we abide by UN conventions. There are cases where consecutive Governments from time to time have needed to be held to account on that. The more you tie your commission into consultation with a Minister and agreement around priorities the more you lessen that advocacy role. Indeed that is why Labour has supported the Children’s Commissioner in particular having their role strengthened. We heard only today that the Office of the Children’s Commissioner has come before the select committee and has said that there are several things that it is going to have to water down its work on because actually it is having to move resources from advocacy—which is one of its roles—to monitoring. It has the role of monitoring Child Youth and Family residences as one of its jobs and it does not have the resources to do that job properly so it is having to move resources from one area to another. So it is critically important that we give it that level of independence.Just to conclude I do not believe that we have made enough progress that we can say that New Zealand now no longer needs these designated roles and I would wager that the two National appointees in both of those roles would probably say the same thing. If any member on that side of the House would like to argue that we have reached the peak of equal employment opportunities and racial harmony I would welcome that contribution.