Williams Poto: Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind Act Repeal Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWilliams Poto: Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind Act Repeal Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 02 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9344. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): I too take pleasure in the first reading of the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind Act Repeal Bill. I want to spend a few moments just going over some of the heritage brought to this country by what we now know as the Blind Foundation.We know that the Blind Foundation began in 1890 and that it was actually called the Jubilee Institute for the Blind. It provided services for people who were blind or had low vision. As the previous speaker Tim Macindoe has already said it has enjoyed 126 years of connecting Kiwis who are blind or who have low vision to expert services often delivered by their peers so that they can gain training tips and abilities to deal with their blindness and achieve their potential. That is a very worthwhile aim. The first formal service of the foundation was actually a school in a residence in Parnell—and we all are familiar with the Parnell facility. At that time it delivered sheltered employment workshops and residential programmes but over the course of time as the desire to give greater integration into the community has imposed different sets of values this has of course meant that the workshops the hostels and the other institutional activities have been gradually withdrawn.Of course the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind Act 2002 brought another turning point for the foundation and it was finally able to formally recognise itself as an organisation accountable to those people living with blindness and low vision. The board is elected from people who are impacted by blindness or low vision.Why did it take the step of becoming an incorporated society as it did on 12 January 2012? Well primarily because it delivers services to its members and the services that it delivers to its members include such things as adaptive daily living and adaptive communications and technology. It delivers peer support counselling and employment opportunities. There is no doubt that we all know the service that it provides in supporting accessibility through its guide dogs. We also know that it offers some very specialised services—for example for children and young people and for people who are deaf and blind. It does particularly good work with Māori and Pacific communities I know—I have a cousin who is blind who has received some particularly good support through the Blind Foundation.But there is another reason of course to become an incorporated society and that is because it is membership based: it provides accountability and equity of accountability across the membership. Becoming an incorporated society is a convenient way whereby groups of people of similar interests—whether it be as in this case or sporting interests or particular leisure pastimes or professional groups—can group together and have shared values and vision. It also means that the properties the assets and whatever may be the ongoing development—it could be of a proprietary nature—remain the property of the society so there is some longevity and some futureproofing built in to the society so that it can retain its assets. And of course being a member you are subject to member fees.I just want to add a note of caution: there are also some aspects of being an organisation like this that could cause some challenges. One of the challenges I want to talk about through the wider community sector could be the pressure that is imposed upon some organisations when it comes to advocating on behalf of the people and the causes that it serves. Sometimes that can impact on their ability to gain Government contracts and funding. There are quite high levels of accountability that are required in reporting and that is a good thing but there is also a level of resource that is required to ensure that the organisations can meet those higher standards of accountability in reporting.There is also a very competitive nature when it comes to tendering for contracts and for funding. The requirements of outcome-based measurements and reporting again are a good thing in terms of being able to be very clear about the types of results that you are achieving with your funding dollar but again as I said they are resource-intensive. It can sometimes be hard to attract the type of calibre of person to sit on your governance boards that you require. With the Blind Foundation being very clear that its leadership will come from within its own membership group it does require some support around building capacity into that group.This bill will ensure that the Act which is now defunct is removed from the statutes because the foundation is no longer a statutory body. The repeal of the Act means that the foundation itself can be completely independent from Parliament and the foundation can see that its members will take the final step to that full-member governance and self-determination that it requires.There is also one other aspect of this bill that is of importance and that is around copyright when it comes to the matter of Braille. Under certain conditions published material can be copied into Braille for use by people with vision impairment without infringing the copyright and that is as it should be and I am pleased that that is a provision within this bill.There is not much more to say on this bill. It does complete a circle I guess in a sense for the Blind Foundation. It is necessary to tidy up its status and ensure that we do not have statutes on the book that are no longer fit for purpose. In that regard I commend the bill to the House. Thank you.