Disabled Persons Employment Promotion (Repeal and Related Matters) Bill

Firstly, I want to say that the title of this bill, the Disabled Persons Employment Promotion (Repeal and Related Matters) Bill, does indeed fit in with what this bill is doing. I think it is very important for the public out there to realise that all, or most, of the amendments the Labour Government has put in up until only 2 or 3 days ago would have had the commencement date as 30 June 2007. However, at the very last moment, the Hon Ruth Dyson put in an amendment to extend the date to 30 September. Why did she do this? She did it because the bill was flawed. The machinery to ensure that the sheltered workshops would indeed be able to employ disabled people and give them the real choice they wished for was just not in place.

We have heard time and time again that none of the workshops were confident that those flaws would be remedied in the remaining 3 to 4 months. In many respects, it is a victory for the National Party and for common sense that at least we have pushed the Labour Government into seeing a tiny bit of common sense, if not a complete bit of common sense, which is something it should have.

This bill undoubtedly should have been called the “Ruth Dyson Let’s Steamroll the Legislation Through and Forget About the Practicalities of Implementation Bill”.

💬 Simon Power: That’s a long title.

It is a slightly longer title; that is absolutely true. Let us look at one of the other names it could have been called. It could have been called the “Labour Government Let’s Decimate Sheltered Workshops Bill”. Three years ago, at the time that this bill was first brought into the House in 2004, something like 4,000 disabled people were working in sheltered workshops, but due to the pressure that this Labour Government has put on sheltered workshops they now number only about 1,000.

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: You’re joking!

There are only about 1,000. There were 4,000 in 2004; there are 1,000 now.

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: Labour should be ashamed. They should be ashamed.

They should indeed, particularly when we hear what a woman I know—Jane Watts, whose son Lee so benefits and enjoys working at the Abilities Group on the North Shore—said when she heard about the replacement opportunity of community participation. Her words were: “It’s a waste of money. We do those things—take him to the library, swimming, bowling—on weekends. If the government wants to spend more money they should provide more caregivers at Abilities to help people get their shoes on, open their drink bottles. They could build a little gym there, or send taxis for Lee so we wouldn’t have to struggle and worry so much about getting to work.” That was from the mother of one of those disabled workers who absolutely loves what he is doing.

One of the other names that we could call the bill is the “Labour Government Put Pressure on the IHC to Buckle to our Will Bill—the classic thing that this Labour Government has been doing. We know that the chief executive officer of IHC wrote this: “Has the IHC become too PC in some areas? Yes, by being a service provider we have bought into the government expectation, standards and policies. The $140 million … comes with a cost.” We know that in these 3 years we have seen sheltered workshops go from 4,000 workers down to 1,000. Hence the name the “Labour Government Put Pressure on the IHC to Buckle to our Will Bill” indeed fits this title perhaps more aptly than what we see there now.

The real concern is about the commencement of this bill. At least it has been extended by a few months. The other day in the House I asked the Minister whether she could guarantee that no disabled employees or sheltered workshops would be worse off after 30 November as a result of her bill. She said: “No. I cannot guarantee that.” That has to be the ultimate test, because it is difficult to bring in such a bill as this—and the Labour Government has not done it very well, at all.

This is the “Disabled Persons Unemployment Promotion (Repeal and Related Matters) Bill”; that could be its new title, because that is what it is actually going to do. It is what the legislation has been doing, and it is what it will continue to do. Here are people who cannot be employed in any real capacity, and what happens is that they move into what is called community participation where they get taken to the movies, they do artwork, they might play sport, and they go on outings; they no longer go to a workplace environment and feel valued. They have been taken away from that workplace environment and as a consequence have become what would be called unemployed.

Why was this bill introduced? We have been told by other members of the House why it was introduced. It was because the legislation was deemed to be contrary to the Human Rights Act provisions and it was unlawful to discriminate in employment by offering less favourable terms and conditions of employment based on a person’s disability. The Human Rights Act provisions require that the conditions should be not less favourable. Yet here we have a situation, found in no other work environment, where a labour inspector comes in to assess these people. Now, that does not happen in any other work environment, so would that not be contrary to the Human Rights Act? Why is the Government doing that? Hello—hang on—it is because it suits its purpose, because the reality is that it has to have some way of allowing for people who cannot work at a full rate of employment to have some sort of exemption to allow them to continue in those workplace environments.

That is, of course, if those workplace environments can afford to keep them in there. Affordability of those places to keep going is a very real question. Ruth Dyson acknowledged that some contracts might not be viable even at that rate and they might be lost to China, costing the jobs of some disabled workers. So we have to ask ourselves why here on the one hand the Government is saying that the Human Rights Act makes it unlawful to have disabled people operating in work conditions that are not the same as everybody else’s, yet it is imposing a work condition that is not the same as everybody else’s. It is requiring a labour inspector to give those workers an assessment about their work capability, and that does not happen in any other single environment. The only reason it is being done is so that these people have the opportunity to stay within the sheltered workshops that they might be currently enjoying.

It is interesting to note that since this legislation was first introduced it has hardly changed at all. At the outset New Zealand First and United Future opposed this bill, so I do not know what has happened. Even Sue Bradford had misgivings at the beginning. She has been won over, and somewhere along the way New Zealand First and United Future both capitulated and now support this bill. Yet at the outset they did not, and nothing has changed. One has to wonder, and ask why.

What has happened to those 3,500 people who were in sheltered workshops, if indeed the number has gone down to 1,000? What has happened is community participation. How does that make them feel valued and worthwhile, and as though they are participating in a work environment? People will lose their jobs if there is no way for an organisation like the Abilities Group to have the ability to pay minimum wages, and also keep occupied the people who have exemptions.

I challenge the Minister to take a call and tell me how people are not discriminated against in employment by being offered lesser terms and conditions of employment, because the Human Rights Act provisions require that they are not meant to be discriminated against. How are labour inspector assessments not discrimination, when they do not happen in any other workplace environment?

The other thing I would like to mention is the lack of consultation. Many of the families we spoke to were very aggrieved that they had not been consulted, nor had individuals been consulted; that was very clear. Clients, and their families and providers, had numerous questions around the system of wage assessments and how those were meant to be implemented. They still were not clear, and they were loath to endorse a system that focuses on a person’s skills, and not on his or her competencies.

I rise to speak in support of the title clause that sets out the name of the bill, the Disabled Persons Employment Promotion (Repeal and Related Matters) Bill. The bill is well named because it sets out exactly what the Labour-led Government has been trying to achieve since 1999, which has been around ensuring, under our Pathways to Inclusion disability strategy, that people with disabilities are able to participate in mainstream New Zealand life, be that in education, in health services, or in employment.

This bill honours our manifesto commitment to review the 1960 legislation. We have also set out to review the funding and the support systems that are available to help people who have disabilities into work, which is what our bill will do, as well. The title of the bill is well named. It sets out our priorities very clearly. We have listened throughout the entire debate to National members basically not telling us very much, apart from the fact that because the law has existed since 1960, we should keep it.

I asked Sandra Goudie whether if the law did not exist, she would introduce it, and she said no. So here we are, trying to repeal legislation that the Opposition spokesperson on disabilities—I think it is Sandra Goudie; it is always hard to keep up—

💬 Dr Paul Hutchison: No wonder your majority is going down.

I would not have thought that was the reason in respect of Sandra Goudie. She seems to be the person who does a lot of the thinking around this area for the National Party, and perhaps that is why we heard some of the speeches tonight in that regard.

💬 Nandor Tanczos: Hard to believe.

Hard to believe, I know, but this is a land of opportunity for all people, which is one of the themes the Government has been running tonight, and it ought to extend to members of the Opposition, as well.

The bill sets out to repeal these provisions, which are outdated. We do not believe that any of the predictions of fear, doom, and the end of opportunity for disabled people, which the National Party has put out, will happen. As we do on so many other occasions, we can put a marker in the ground and say: “Let’s come back in 12 months’ time and see whether all these terrible things have happened.” I do not think they will have happened. I certainly do not think we will see situations continuing like the one we heard from Mr Guy, who was supporting the fact that a person with a disability who was working in the racing industry was being paid $4 an hour. I do not think that is fair, and I do not think most New Zealanders would think that is fair, actually.

So if we can, through the title of this bill, bring about some change to honour the Government’s commitment to make sure that people in our country can walk with their heads held high and be treated under the law exactly the same, no matter what their background, then I think the Disabled Persons Employment Promotion (Repeal and Related Matters) Bill deserves the support of the Committee.