Hipkins Chris; Tisch Lindsay; Williams PotoROYAL NEW ZEALAND FOUNDATION OF THE BLIND ACT REPEAL BILLIn CommitteeCHRIS HIPKINS (Senior Whip—Labour): I seek leave of the Committee for all of the clauses in the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind Act Repeal Bill to be taken as one debate and voted on separately at the end of that debate.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is no objection.Preamble and clauses 1 to 4POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): In the absence of any other takers—Tim Macindoe: You were up so quickly.POTO WILLIAMS: Yes I know. I rise to take a call on the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind Act Repeal Bill. I refer to the four clauses of the bill and the importance of each of these clauses to ensuring that the Foundation of the Blind—or as it is now known the Blind Foundation—can continue to meet the purpose for which it has been designed. What is important about the title clause clause 1 is that it gives the Blind Foundation the ability to now ensure that its legal structure and its status within the community is fit for purpose for the work that it needs to do. The title of the bill is the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind Act Repeal Bill and what it will in effect do is repeal the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind Act 2002 because of the need for the foundation to become an incorporated society. The need for the foundation to become an incorporated society is for the status and the conditions that sit around incorporated societies which means they act for members. It is a membership organisation and that is really important to the Blind Foundation because it is an organisation that is not only for members but actually has a governance structure that is completely staffed by people who are either blind or have low vision. It is an organisation that is completely based on the needs of people who are blind and have low vision including its governance structure so everything it does as an organisation is for people who are blind and have low vision. It is a completely inclusive organisation. It actually demonstrates some of the best elements of that phrase that is often quoted in the disability sector: Nothing about us without us." This is an organisation that is completely inclusive completely membership based and knows what needs to be in place for members of our community who are blind and have low vision. Why is that important? It is about being able to design facilities and services for people who are blind and have low vision because you know exactly what you need. It is about being completely member-driven knowing exactly what members need. It is what we would like to be as a society—completely inclusive for people who are blind and have low vision. The foundation has been set up to ensure that a couple of things happen: that people who find themselves in a situation where they become blind or are born with the condition are able to access appropriate services and have the type of equipment that people use. We all know about guide dogs and we are all completely supportive of fund-raising efforts by the Blind Foundation to ensure that it continues to have those resources to provide services to its members. It is also about communication and ensuring that what we might take for granted—the ability not only to communicate with each other but to communicate effectively with members outside of the blind community—is in place. That includes things like access to Braille and it also includes things like access to audio descriptors. I know that many of our free-to-air television shows have audio descriptors as part of the programming for people with low vision but all of our pay TV and many of those things that we take for granted—like being able to access and see the Olympics or the top rugby games—do not have audio descriptors attached to them. So just in the passage of this bill I want to advocate on behalf of the Blind Foundation. There is a way for us to go for people with low vision and with issues around blindness to actually have access to the kinds of things that we take for granted and audio description of television programmes is just one of those things. Clause 4 talks about the consequential amendment to the Copyright (General Matters) Regulations—in particular regulation 5. That is around ensuring that the names of the associations with access to any of the publications that are produced in Braille are within the purview of that particular regulation. But in that regard I also want to make a plea around the Government's response to the Marrakesh VIP Treaty. What that will do is allow greater access for publications that are in Braille to be imported into New Zealand and for the blind community to have access to those publications. I understand that the Government is willing; I just want to ensure that we just gently encourage it to do that. I also want to encourage the Government to seek out the two—at least two I believe—other nations that need to sign up to this treaty for it to become something that we will ratify so I would really encourage this Government to think about that. It is a small but very significant matter particularly for the Blind Foundation. It has been advocating for a long time for the ratification of this particular treaty. I think as we are passing this bill through the Committee it is an appropriate time for us to discuss the issues that will make communication for people with low vision and with issues of blindness a little easier for them. I thank the Minister for bringing this bill to the House. I want to thank the Blind Foundation for all of its hard work for its service to the community and also for raising matters in the wider disability context. I look forward to ensuring that this bill passes its third reading. Thank you."