Human Rights (Disability Assist Dogs Non-Discrimination) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Human Rights (Disability Assist Dogs Non-Discrimination) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

Sorry, first time doing this bit of the legislative process. Kia ora, Madam Speaker. It’s a real privilege to get a chance to speak on this bill. For those who missed out on the first reading speech, I’ll just summarise what this bill intends to do, which is to amend the Human Rights Act of 1993 to make it clear that any discrimination against someone because they have a disability assist dog would be considered discrimination on the basis of disability. It is important to recognise that we do have a definition of a disability assist dog in the Dog Control Act of 1996.

Since the first reading, we’ve heard from people with lived experiences, organisations, and allies who broadly spoke in support. We had 75 submissions who were overwhelmingly in favour, and that was really pleasing to see—and I’ll get on to that.

One of the submissions that I want to lean on, in terms of speaking to the whakapapa of this bill, is the submission by Deaf Action New Zealand, who rightfully talk about my former colleague Mojo Mathers’ involvement in drafting this bill. All the way back in 2015, when Murray Whittington was struggling to have access to housing, Deaf Action New Zealand did advocacy for the late Murray. Mojo took on that advocacy and drafted this bill in recognition that disabled people were being prevented from fully participating in their communities because, effectively, their dogs were being prevented from participating in things like housing, transport, and other essential public services.

Deaf Action talks about the broader discrimination that people have faced. They cite another example of Anne Wyrill, who was close to the point of being homeless with two young children because landlords would not view her hearing dog as an assistance dog; they viewed the dog as a pet. It was only by sheer hard work by an agent that she found a home.

This was a theme that we saw throughout the submissions, where people reminded us that disability assist dogs are not pets. They do critical work that enables disabled people to participate in the community. On top of supporting the intent of the bill to stop discrimination, they also talked about the need to raise awareness of this issue. A lot of the submitters were really clear that perhaps one may want to consider a communication campaign to explain the rights of disabled people with disability assist dogs.

We’ve had several other submitters with lived experience, including members of our own Inclusive Greens network. I want to pay tribute to Joe Boon who spoke to our committee and talked about the challenges that he faced, but more importantly about why this legislation was really important. I want to mihi the many Green members of the Inclusive Greens who put together a collective submission.

We also had people like Raewyn Chaplow who herself spoke of her experience of being left embarrassed and frustrated when asked to leave premises because she had a service dog. She also spoke about being a puppy-raiser. She said, “I can only imagine how much worse it must be for people who rely on that precious, fully-trained dog for independence, confidence, and safety. These are not pets.”

There are also other people like Claudia who talked about having a mobility dog and how important it was that people realise there’s a variety of dogs that do work to help people with things like seizures and other medical conditions. Once again, she reiterated that these dogs are not just pets, but rather a work companion that enables them to participate in their community.

Victoria Beesley herself was advocating for a friend in her submissions, and I think that was a really lovely thing to see, because submissions themselves can often present a barrier for members of the community. It was really nice to see people who participate in the legislative process advocating for their family and friends in the form of allyship.

We also had organisations who themselves either are made up of members of the disabled community or who train dogs. One of the submissions I was really pleased to see was from the New Zealand Nurses Organisation who I think understood the role of people having access to premises in order for their wellbeing to be upheld, and it was nice to see that level of organisational solidarity and seeing a broader range of groups being reflected in the submission process.

One of the reflections that came through the submission process, too, was how inaccessible the process can often be for people. I was really pleased to see my select committee colleagues undertake a collective effort alongside the committee staff to make the submission process more accessible. I’m going to list out some of the interventions that were taken to make the process a little bit more accessible, and I hope that, actually, this is reflected in broader select committee processes; perhaps not just in those that are very specifically addressing the needs of disabled people, because ultimately what we want is a democracy that works for everyone.

Some of the things that were done was to give more time for people to submit, and I think particularly this is something that, as a first time MP, I’ve reflected on how those precious five minutes to speak to MPs can often become a nerve-wracking and often inaccessible process. There were also attempts to encourage people to submit by creating a video and understanding that the video format presents another method for people to engage with. All of the oral submissions were also translated into sign language, and these submissions were also captioned and transcribed live. There was also a full transcript of submissions being made available after all submissions were completed.

I reflect as I say this, and particularly as I talk about sign language interpretation, how we haven’t yet got into a place where even this space, in the second reading, is fully accessible and that there is far more work to be done. For me, the reflection that I am taking from submitters is the need not to just improve legislation so that people can fully participate in their communities but what can we make as legislators to make this whole process better for our communities.

I’d like to extend my thanks to my committee members, including from all sides of the House, who have been broadly supportive of this bill, which is great to see. I think this is the second bill since Mojo left Parliament, a few years ago, under her name that has gotten support across the House. That just shows her amazing work and legacy in creating members bills which are discrete, effective, and that reflect the desires of the community.

I also want to thank the Ministry of Justice staff, Office for Disability Issues, and the Department of Internal Affairs for providing really sensible advice. As part of that process and advice we received, one of their recommendations that is coming out of this is actually to review the statutory uses of the terms “guide dog”, “companion dog”, and “hearing ear dog” and consider whether they should be updated, because one of the things we heard throughout the process is just the broad range of definitions. We do want to make sure that there is consistency with the Dog Control Act and so making sure that these definitions are up to date is really important.

Lastly, I would like to challenge one of the few dissenting voices in our submission process, which was basically stating that their concern was that perhaps we’ll see more dogs in public. I want to say to people who may have felt that way that actually what this bill do is enable disabled people to participate and their concerns around perhaps seeing more dogs in public should not outweigh the benefits that this bill will ultimately have. Kia ora.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a great pleasure to stand and speak on this bill, the Human Rights (Disability Assist Dogs Non-Discrimination) Amendment Bill. It was a mouthful, but it was a real joy to have cross-party support and to work our way through this legislation.

I too want to acknowledge our officials from the Ministry of Justice who supported us, but I also want to have a particular shout-out to the Office of the Clerk here in Parliament, and that is because—and my colleague Ricardo Menéndez March has mentioned this—they worked very, very carefully to try and ensure accessibility for our disability community. Now, they worked with the Office for Disability Issues quite closely to enable some processes.

The member Ricardo Menéndez March I must commend for having this bill pulled out of the ballot, and also for his gracious sharing and acknowledgment of Mojo Mathers’ work in this space. I think it speaks of your values, so I want to acknowledge you for that, and for enabling this space for Mojo to also come and speak to this bill and for being very respectful of the legacy that she brings. So I want to acknowledge you and also congratulate you. I’m a little bit jealous that you’ve got a bill pulled out of the ballot.

So just to very quickly go through: as the member has outlined, we did do a number of things in order to try and support the accessibility, and we call on all select committees in this House to try and put in place some of these things as well. The member has mentioned additional time. Now, additional time is important when members from the disability community are submitting, particularly in the instance where we had interpreters come with us and some members were communicating by sign language. It was appropriate that we, as a select committee, had some assistance ourselves around how we would appropriately approach and engage, perhaps the speed of how we spoke—those kinds of things as well.

The Office for Disability Issues came and helped and supported us with advice and the clerks helped us as well, and we had a couple of training sessions around how to work in an appropriate way. I think that that’s really interesting, having been a second-term member of Parliament, to actually begin to unwrap and unravel this process and ensure that, actually, we were doing things right. I encourage all members across the House to engage in that process.

So what does this bill do? This bill is a very thoughtful, very small change, but it essentially changes the effect to say that a guide dog or a disability assist dog—when we discriminate when a person has that dog in public, then we’re discriminating against the person’s right to access and to full participation. It really just very simply makes it clear that you can’t discriminate against a person because they have a disability assist dog.

Now, many of us would think that of course that’s perfectly normal—that is absolutely normal—but what we learnt from hearing from the submitters was that, actually, people didn’t understand the purpose of disability assist dogs. They didn’t understand that they were actually there to help and support a person. So we heard things like people were being denied access to cafes and to buses. They were unable to rent apartments and do all sorts of things because they had a disability assist dog, and so this bill is actually a really perfect solution for fixing that.

I think it’s really useful to talk about the way that we approached this. The bill had to be quite small. It had to be quite discrete in its process. I read back over the Hansard record of the first reading debate, and we were quite wide in our understanding and quite wide in our briefing of what we might want to possibly look at, but we actually just came to a very, very useful place. So we didn’t make any amendments to the bill, which is fair enough really—it’s quite a small bill. It’s quite small in terms of what it actually says, and that is particularly that it amends the Human Rights Act 1993—the principal Act—to include the insertion: “ ‘disability assist dog’ has the same meaning as in section 2 of the Dog Control Act 1996”, which really just allows dogs to enter and access and for them to have the same rights as us.

When hearing from submitters, I thought it was quite interesting. We heard from 75 submitters and, except for the one that the member spoke to, they were pretty much 100 percent in support of this change. I will quote the submission from Graham Oliver, who sort of summed up, really, how we all as a select committee felt but also how the submitters felt. Graham Oliver said, “Disability assist dogs should be allowed everywhere without exception. It’s what I would want for myself if I had one.” Now, you can’t say anything much more plainer than that, can you? In fact, that’s the reality. I would like to think that if I needed to use a taxi and I had a disability assist dog, no one would prevent me from doing so.

Then we also had another submission which came from a person called D C Webster, and he was quoting the words from a Spinoff article from November 2021 by Hannah Gibson. I thought this was quite powerful and quite useful for us to reflect upon, and we heard many submissions like this. Hannah Gibson said, “As an extension of my arms and legs, Darcy is part of my physical body. Sometimes I call him my shadow, but really, he allows my precarious and struggling (but strong in many other ways) body to do more than I ever thought possible. He is my independence; he bolsters my confidence. I know that with him, I am safe. To deny him entry is essentially denying me. It strips me of choice. If the bill is passed as legislation, it will not magically make Wellington less hilly and inaccessible, but it would make a tangible difference to many of us with mobility assistance dogs.” She said, “The bill is welcome news.”, and I absolutely agree with that.

I think it is worthwhile for us even to think about when we were plainly and simply planning how to enable accessibility, to enable transcription, to have sign language, to organise the sign language interpreters to come to support us, and to ensure the pace of the meeting was appropriate. All of these things we had to think about very carefully, so there but for the grace of God go I that I do not have to think about those things every day. I am incredibly privileged to not have to do that, which is why I am so delighted that at this second reading, we haven’t changed the bill at all, but we, I believe, are unanimously going to support this bill in its second reading. With that, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise and speak in support of this bill, the Human Rights (Disability Assist Dogs Non-Discrimination) Amendment Bill, in this second reading. I do want to congratulate Ricardo Menéndez March on his good fortune in being able to bring this bill to the House. And also, I want to make mention of Mojo Mathers and the work that was done back in 2015.

The two previous speakers, Angie Warren-Clark and Ricardo Menéndez March, have spoken about the submitters, and I also want to acknowledge the individuals and the organisations who submitted on this bill. They talked about, particularly the individual submitters, their very personal experiences, and it absolutely brought home how important this bill is and how important the disability assist dogs are to people living with a disability. The support and the independence that these dogs give them is just something that was wonderful to be able to listen to the examples.

I guess the thing that was very sobering, listening to the individual submissions, was the level of discrimination that had been experienced by a number of people living with disabilities around access with their dogs, whether it was housing or access to public transport, to public buildings, or things like cafes or movie theatres, which we might take as granted. To be denied access because of your assist dog is not only distressing but incredibly debilitating for New Zealanders living with a disability being able to live what should be access to normal life. So we certainly are very supportive and know that we need to work diligently to remove a number of these barriers. Certainly the first part of the legislative change, replacing a “guide dog” with a “disability assist dog”, is a very simple part of the legislation.

The bit that I do want to flag that I wonder if we’ve got some more work to do on, and I’m very keen to see if we might be able to get some cross-party agreement on, is the definition of the assist dog being a dog certified by an organisation specified in the Act as being a dog trained to assist a person with a disability. There are a number of organisations that are authorised to do this training, and certainly all of those organisations we absolutely support as organisations that are appropriate to be doing that training, and we certainly support each of those. But I just want to flag that we may be able to improve the legislation by making it more enabling, because we know that demand routinely exceeds supply and there are quite extensive waiting lists with every existing recognised training agency. We also know that there are several agencies that require applicants to personally fundraise quite significant sums of money ranging from $5,000 to $20,000 before they can receive training or receive a dog. And so that further constrains just who can get access to disability assist dogs.

The other complication is that most recognised training agencies work with only one specific type of disability, i.e., visual impairment or auditory impairment, and also there are some restrictions geographically, meaning that individuals with perhaps rare or multiple types of impairment have no way in which to access a dog trained specifically to their very unique needs. And so one of the things that we want to flag is that we may want to put a Supplementary Order Paper forward that looks at altering the definition of a disability assist dog from a disability assist dog being a dog certified by an organisation specified in the Act as being a dog trained to assist a person with a disability to a disability assist dog being a dog that has been or is being individually trained to do work or perform tasks for an individual with a disability. The tasks performed by the dog must be directly related to the person’s disability. This is in no way wanting to constrain the legislation, but rather to broaden and provide greater enabling of more agencies to be able to train. So it would enable suitably qualified and experienced private trainers and disabled individuals to be able to customise that training.

That would also align the legislation with best practice disability assist dog legislation, which exists in other jurisdictions which we would often compare ourselves to, and particularly the US, Canada, Australia, and the UK. So we would welcome the opportunity—and I apologise that it is at this late stage, but it is as a result of some further consultation—to have that discussion, which might provide greater freedom of choice, a greater range of options, and also a greater supply of recognised trained assist dogs.

We are very, very supportive of the intent of this bill. We certainly want to work closely with other parties to see if we can improve the legislation, even at this late stage, and we are delighted to be supporting it. I know that there’s a range of issues that New Zealanders living with a disability have to contend with every day, and I’m reminded of that saying that you can only eat an elephant one bite at a time. I guess this is one bite, one small bite. There are many, many other issues that we need to be looking at to remove discrimination and to help improve the lives of New Zealanders living with a disability. One that comes to mind is one that is very dear to my heart and that is respite care and the ability to get access to respite care for people living with a disability and their families dealing with caring for family dependents with a disability.

This is a good piece of legislation. I compliment the member for bringing the legislation to us, but I remind members of the House that there is certainly quite a lot of work for us to continue on with to be making the lives of New Zealanders living with a disability, and their families, better and things that we can do and should do as we work diligently to improve their lives. So I commend this bill to the House.

Debate interrupted.