Hon Christopher Finlayson

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) : I will take just a brief call, because other members have really said it all. The aim of the Disability (United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) Bill, as we know, is to make amendments to certain New Zealand enactments, including statutes and regulations, and this will enable New Zealand to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

As the Minister said, New Zealand signed the convention at the United Nations on 30 March 2007, along with 80 other States. Since then 129 States have signed the convention and 28 States have ratified it. The convention came into force in May 2008, when the convention received its 20th ratification by a State party.

Part 1, which we will come to in a few minutes, deals with certain amendments to Part 2 of the Human Rights Act 1993, which deals with unlawful discrimination. Part 2 deals with disqualification from certain public or fiduciary offices, commonly on the grounds of the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act 1993. As the previous speaker, Judy Turner, observed, when one goes through the bill one sees that there is a very interesting miscellany of statutes, like the Juries Act 1981, the Taranaki Scholarships Trust Board Act 1957, and the River Boards Act 1908. Finally, Part 3 deals with some amendments to certain regulations, like the Child Support Rules 1992.

I congratulate the officials on the work they have done. It must have been a very exacting task to trawl through the statute book to identify the statutes in Part 2 and to make the consequential amendments, but it is an important task if the job is to be done properly. Much of the legislation needing change—and I refer to the statutes in Part 2—are older enactments that have not been amended for some time and that carry over wording from the past. An example is the River Boards Act 1908. I refer to section 29, which provides that certain persons may not be members of river boards. The bill refers to section 29(1)(b), where a person is detained in a hospital under the Mental Health Act 1969. I observe in passing that this legislation was last amended in 1986, and it could be that it should have been amended in 1993, when the statute to which I referred was passed—that is, the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act 1993. But it is that kind of reference that needs to be dealt with if we are to have legislation that complies with the convention.

What the convention does not do is create new rights for disabled people; rather, it builds on conventional understandings of what is required to implement existing human rights as they relate to disabled people.

National supports the first reading and we will support the bill through all its stages. The sooner it is the law the better. I observe that in March 2007, when signing the convention, the Minister Ruth Dyson stated: “It is important to bring the Convention into force as quickly as possible, so as to fill the gaps that exist without it and to redress some of the discrimination and injustices that persons with disabilities have faced over many years.” However, legislation was introduced to this Parliament only in July 2008. With those comments I say that National will support the legislation, and we can take a closer look at Parts 1, 2, and 3 in the Committee stage.