Faafoi Kris: New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFaafoi Kris: New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 16 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10169. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): Thank you very much for letting me take a call on clause 3 which sets out the principal Act that this bill before us amends and that is the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act 2000. The amendments that are set out in this bill the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill are significant changes to the principal Act and that is why on this side of the Chamber we would have preferred that this bill did not go through this House under urgency. This bill should have gone through the select committee process and should have been referred to the Health Committee because it is a significant change to the principal Act.As was said in the debate on the previous clause the commencement of this bill may be when the bill receives the Royal assent but the effective change of the bill took place yesterday on 16 May. That is significant because of the number of people who would have wanted to make submissions on this bill and who have been robbed of that opportunity because this Government has decided to rush this piece of legislation through this House under urgency with no select committee scrutiny at all. This does amend that principal Act. There would have been a lot of interest because this law change stems from a Human Rights Review Tribunal case. It is a case that also went through the High Court and I understand the Court of Appeal. So there has been significant public interest and a significant amount of time in the justice sector taken up by the events that took place to lead to this change in the law.In terms of the changes that are being made in this bill to that principal Act we would have preferred that there be the opportunity for select committee scrutiny. It would have given members of the public the opportunity to come and make submissions as Chris Hipkins has said in the debate around clause 2. It would have given the Health Committee the potential opportunity to listen to those submissions and improve the bill and improve the amendments that we are making to the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act 2000. We are rushing through this piece of legislationand we are opening ourselves up to the risk of making a huge mistake in the way that we are changing the principal Act. It would have been much better for the time of this House for us to go away and do a proper job of changing this principal Act for us to go out there and listen to the opinions of those people who are looking after family members with disabilities those in the organisations that are also looking after those with disabilities and those with legal backgrounds who know the ins and outs of this area and to give them a chance to talk and give their opinions and their concerns and make some amendments to try to improve the amendments that we are making to the principal Act.These are significant changes to the principal Act and the select committee process would give us the opportunity to look through some of the things and some of the impacts that would have been part of this legislation. It is in black and white here in the regulatory impact statement what it all means—it is in black and white here what this means. No one knows! Maybe that is a question I can put to the Minister in chair the Minister of Health: what is actually in here that you have blacked out?Hon Tau Henare: Well you could read between the lines.KRIS FAAFOI: It has kept it all secret—I can read between the lines. This is the kind of bedtime reading that Tau Henare likes. Nice and easy in black and white—nice and easy and in black in white.But going back to the principal Act though this is a serious issue that affects thousands of Kiwi families who have been robbed of that chance to make some submissions to the principal Act—Hon Tau Henare: What time are you going home tonight?KRIS FAAFOI: Whenever you are ready. The changes to this principal Act because of their significance should have gone through due process. That due process would have been as someone has said before for this bill to be introduced to the House. I am sure the Minister in the chair would then have referred it to the Health Committee chaired by the very able and well-respected Dr Paul Hutchison—and in that select committee process many many people would come in because of the significance of the changes to the principal Act and give their submissions and those amendments would be tabled in this Committee.There are some serious changes to the way in which people can launch an appeal if they feel they are hard done by by the fact that the Government says it can pay those family members who are caring for family with disabilities. There are significant changes that the Government has put in this bill around the way in which they are paid the level they are paid at and one very—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! It is the principal Act not the contents of what is in the amendments. It is the principal Act.KRIS FAAFOI: Sorry Mr Chairperson. But there is an amendment to the principal Act within this bill that allows those carers to be paid a much lower rate than those who are doing a similar job who are being paid as employees and who are not necessarily family members. That kind of change to the principal Act I think would be one of the issues that should have got very very focused scrutiny by a select committee. I am sure that my friends in the press gallery or in the media would have loved the opportunity to listen to some of the submissions at a select committee hearing given the significance of the amendments to the principal Act that we are talking about here.I do want to stress again that this process does not seem right. This is a significant piece of principal legislation that we are changing. I just want to show you this regulatory impact statement again. We need to have a better process when we are changing major legislation rather than just getting a complete page of blanked-out notes that show us—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order!KRIS FAAFOI: —some of the changes to the principal Act. The principal Act is a major piece of legislation. We are looking for a select committee process. We are not sure whether we are going to get it but maybe that is what the Government should have done.