Copyright (Marrakesh Treaty Implementation) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Copyright (Marrakesh Treaty Implementation) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

The committee stage for this bill was just last night, and I think members and those with an interest would have noticed that this is a very narrow amendment to the Copyright Act 1994, but it will have a very large impact on, I believe, about 180,000 New Zealanders with print disabilities. The amendments that we’re making to the Copyright Act are necessary to allow New Zealand to accede to the Marrakesh Treaty, and, essentially, the Marrakesh Treaty is intended to make it easier for people with print disabilities to obtain what we call in the legislation “accessible format copies” of copyright works or written works. Again, as we mentioned in the committee stage last night, format copies include Braille and they include large print and audio format.

I guess, because this is the third reading: because of, as I mentioned, the large number—I think it’s quite a substantial number—of people who do have print disabilities, I was quite surprised when I first interacted with this piece of legislation that something hadn’t been done for these New Zealanders already to date. I would have thought that something—maybe 10, 15, or 20 years ago—would have been done. So it’s nice to get to the situation where we have a third reading for that community today where I think we are tackling a long-term issue for that particular community to make sure that they can do something quite simply which we do every day, and that is make sure that they can get access to, and access to affordable, formats of books and other manuals.

Once the bill receives Royal assent, New Zealand’s instrument to the Marrakesh Treaty can be deposited with the World Intellectual Property Organization, otherwise known as WIPO, and the amendments of this made in this piece of legislation—or bill, as it is now—will enter into force three months after this, when it comes into force for New Zealand.

As I said, it will enable those who are print disabled to get access to copyright works in accessible formats. It is estimated that around 10 percent of all written materials published worldwide are published in formats that are accessible to people with print disability, so this lack of access—with 90 percent that are not—is a barrier to participation in public life. It restricts employment, education, and, of course, recreational opportunities for a significant number of New Zealanders. Most of our trading partners have also signed the Marrakesh Treaty, and that includes Australia, Canada, China, Singapore, the US, and the EU. They are all now members—Marrakesh Treaty nations. When it comes into force, people in New Zealand with a print disability can access, import, or export some of these works to a much wider range of countries than we can now.

I would like to acknowledge the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, chaired by Jonathan Young, for the very good way in which they looked at the bill but also for the changes that they made to the bill, which removed what is known as the “commercial availability test”. It was relatively controversial for some of the submitters—more so those who represent authors and publishers; they had concerns that removing that commercial availability test would do the opposite of what we’re trying to achieve with this bill and make fewer formats and copies available and actually increase the prices of some of these formats. They are concerns that I think were valid to raise and, through the select committee process, they were asked—and also, in conversations with me as Minister, they were asked—whether they could come to us with examples, in other nations, of where the commercial availability test had been removed and any evidence of this happening. It wasn’t able to be provided; so I think the select committee, and also the Government, made the right, balanced judgment in order to make sure that those 168,000 New Zealanders, I think, can have access to these accessible formats.

I do believe, though, that those who represent publishers and authors do have some wider concerns, and valid wider concerns, around the Copyright Act, which can be taken up as part of the Copyright Act review which is under way at the moment. So I would hope that, while some of those parties who have concerns may feel like they didn’t have them dealt with through this legislation, they know they’ve got another avenue in which to raise some of their concerns about the copyright process more widely.

In closing, can I thank all of those who made submissions during the development of the bill, including the Foundation for the Blind, Universities New Zealand, the Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa, Copyright Licensing New Zealand, and the Society of Authors for their insights and their feedback, noting some of the concerns that they had to ensure that this bill will achieve its objectives and that there was scrutiny of it. It is a piece of legislation that is extremely well timed; I think it’s well overdue, and I think, as I say, for the 160,000-plus New Zealanders who’ve been waiting for this in order to get access to more accessible formats and cheaper accessible formats, it will change their lives in terms of recreation and education in a way that I don’t think I can certainly imagine. So I wish them all the best now that this piece of legislation has changed and will make their lives better.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise in support of the Copyright (Marrakesh Treaty Implementation) Amendment Bill, a bill that has broad support across the House. It would be far too flippant simply to make my third reading contribution “What he said.” but I would like to acknowledge that the Minister, in his third reading speech, has encapsulated the very essence of the bill, the reasons behind it, and has set out why all parties are in support. So I will limit my contribution today principally to the matter of the commercial availability test, which is the only point that had any real contention through the process. [Cell phone rings] I do join with the governing parties in expressing our support for this legislation, which will enable us to meet the demands under the Marrakesh Treaty, which will make copyrighted works more accessible to the blind, visually impaired, and otherwise print disabled. Something is amusing the members, and that’s a very good thing.

Chlöe Swarbrick: You deserve a theme tune, Brett!

A theme tune? OK; that sounds interesting. They digress, Mr Speaker; I will turn to the bill instead.

The commercial availability test: the one area where there was some level of contention, and I do acknowledge that there were submissions that were very strongly in favour of retaining that test. As the committee worked its way through it, we appreciated that taking the stance we did would introduce some tension, but our view is that it’s a very healthy and market-based tension. It means that those who wish to consume these copyrighted acts in an accessible format have other potential avenues to access them, but we are told that those avenues, particularly creating them themselves, are quite expensive. So there is a natural motivation for them to wish to seek accessible copies that might be available, particularly through copyright holders, and it creates an incentive on those copyright holders or, otherwise, agents—entities that have the accessible formats—to make them readily available and at an affordable price. It creates a tension which is healthy, which should benefit both those that hold either the copyright or a licence to produce accessible works and those that wish to consume them.

I took great pleasure, when sitting temporarily on that committee, to propose and get Green Party support for what is, in truth, a genuine market-based solution—what some of our detractors would call a “neo-liberal” solution to this situation. Mr Hughes was very generous in his support of it, as were other members of the governing parties. I believe that this has landed this bill in the right place. It is the right thing to do in this instance, and I do acknowledge the Minister’s comments that, for those people that still have concerns as to where this bill lands, there are still avenues under the copyright review for them to prosecute the particular elements of concern they might have. But I do hold that the committee, and now the House, has got this to the right stage for the support of this treaty, and I commend this bill to the House.

Firstly, I just want to say that I heard an interjection from one of the members of the Opposition to say that we were filibustering this bill. I just want to assure the Opposition that, actually, what we’re doing on this side of the House is working hard to ensure that members of the public understand the debate, that members of the public can be assured that the Government is working hard for them, and that words are put into the Hansard so that our legislators know the full intent of what it is that we are doing here today. So I want to assure the Opposition: don’t worry we’ve got this one. The other thing I want to say is to refer to Mr Hudson’s contribution. I think he overplays it as being a neo-liberal solution, and I have got some words to say on that matter. I don’t think he has characterised it quite correctly.

Firstly, I want to say that I have been involved with this particular piece of legislation, prior to its coming to the House, in my previous role as the Opposition spokesperson for the community and voluntary sector. I went and met with the Blind Foundation when they were discussing the ratification of this particular treaty. Now, it’s my understanding that there was a certain number of countries that had to sign up to the treaty before the treaty was triggered—that’s my understanding; I stand to be corrected if that’s not correct—and, once that occurred, we were then able to introduce the legislation to put before the House. The Blind Foundation, along with many others, submitted to the select committee—the select committee ably chaired by Jonathan Young, and I thank the chairman for steering this particular piece of legislation through the committee; it was done very collegially, and I think there were some robust and interesting debates.

There are, broadly, two groups that are benefiting from this. The first is those who want to access print text and that kind of material for recreational purposes, and the other group is those who require those texts for study—so, universities and academic institutions namely. When we got to the point of the discussion around the commercial availability test, it was clear that, if this is required for recreational use, the Blind Foundation didn’t perhaps have as high a need for us to examine that particular part of this bill as did the academic institutions. What they were saying is that someone with a vision impairment could start a course and it could be several months before the text was available for them, if at all, and it seriously impaired their ability to be able to participate in those courses.

So that was one of the key examinations that we looked at: what was the reason for the commercial availability test? As Mr Hudson said, I think the solution we got to was quite elegant, in that it looked at the ability to encourage producers of the material, whether that be authors or publishers, to come up with a mechanism that would allow them to have commercially available material so that we could access that quickly if academic institutions needed for that to be so. I think that was a really useful discussion in that regard.

There are other issues that the Minister did raise—other issues that came up with regards to the copyright. Some of the authors and publishers were concerned that their copyright availability—

I’m sorry to interrupt the member, but it’s come time for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break. The House will resume at 7.30 p.m. Kia orana.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.

Look, it’s a great occasion this evening to be speaking from both sides of the House on the Marrakesh Treaty amendment bill here in the third reading. So we’re in that final straight regarding a treaty that was concluded by the World Intellectual Property Organization in 2013; here we are in 2019. It does take a period of time to work these things through.

Regarding this treaty, the ratification of 20 State countries was required for this treaty to enter into effect. The 20th ratification was received on 30 June 2016. The treaty entered into force on 30 September 2016.

So can I say thank you very much to members of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee who, first of all, reviewed the national interest statement. Then when the bill came to the House it was referred to our committee, and we worked through it, and received numbers of submissions.

I think, as the Minister made the comment, there was this: perhaps the most significant point of discussion and tension was around the commercial availability test. This is where, essentially, in the bill that was delivered to the committee there was the requirement for people who were looking for alternative format works to be able to help them in their study or enjoyment, by being able to instead of read use these alternative accessible format copies of textbooks, that they had to search, do a commercial availability test search within a reasonable time, and look for it at an ordinary commercial price. We found that those terms were quite difficult to define. We listened to numbers of submitters who said, particularly those who were studying at university going through a programme, when it became very, very difficult for them to get the text that they required for those programmes going through this process would greatly disadvantage them. We felt—on the balance, we considered that a formal requirement for a commercial availability test would disadvantage print-disabled people; so we made that decision. I think the Minister has very well canvassed that issue.

Can I say thank you once again to the committee. Thank you to all who have participated, and it’s great to see this come to the third reading position and speeches tonight. Thank you.

Kia ora. Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. Kia orana.

So I just rise to take a short call on behalf of New Zealand First. One of the roles that I have at the moment is the Associate Minister of Education, and part of that is around—one of the delegations there is around a special focus on those who have learning support needs. Some of the learning support needs that are under that delegation are for the blind, visually impaired, or otherwise print disabled. So it is with great joy in that role that I stand in support of the Marrakesh Treaty implementation amendment bill. As we’ve heard before in contributions, here only 10 percent of all written materials published worldwide are published in formats accessible to people with a print disability. The speaker who just resumed his seat, quite rightly, acknowledged those who are at university and the capacity of them to be able to get textbooks in a print-accessible manner so that they can really participate in their studies.

But can I ask people to think for a moment of five-year-olds, six-year-olds, and seven-year-olds also wanting to have this wide diversity of materials that they can read on their own in a format that they’ll be able to use for the rest of their lives—so as they are learning to read, as they’re learning to expand their vocabulary, they have access to print-accessible materials. The capacity that we have through the final passing of this piece of legislation for those young people is to broaden their horizons, to give them the opportunity to delve into other worlds through reading, through books, and through material that then become accessible for them. I don’t think we can underestimate what that will do for young people, for these children and these young people who, just like their peers, want to be able to enjoy language, enjoy fantasy, enjoy science fiction, and literally transport themselves to another place through that ability that you get when you actually read and when you participate.

So I really don’t want to take much more of the time because I honestly believe that this bill has been well traversed. There is universal support across the House. It’s practical, it’s sensible, it’s reasonable, and it’s been a long time coming. It amends the Copyright Act from 1994. I know that once we get it into place and we start moving to make sure that print-accessible materials are available—and there is just so much more diversity than they have had up to this stage—it’s going to be transformational for some of our children and young people. Kia ora.

Kia orana, Mr Assistant Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise on the third reading of the Copyright (Marrakesh Treaty Implementation) Amendment Bill. I was listening very carefully to earlier speakers and I suppose for all of us around this House we are in agreement. I will not be taking a long time. But as previous speakers have actually said, there are roughly 168,000 New Zealanders with print disabilities. As New Zealanders age, and for some of us with glasses, as we age small print gets a little bit more difficult, and sometimes we rely on modern technology, whether it’s actually audio books or having print larger so we can read the print.

As the Hon Tracey Martin actually said, 10 percent of written material worldwide is available in accessible formats. That means 90 percent of all works that are actually published are not available to people who have a print disability or any kind of visual impairment, for example. That is a real shame.

Also, making available print-accessible material—for example, Braille—costs so much money. One text, for example, a book costs up to $5,000 to actually produce in Braille, and that is a lot of money. That means that sometimes people are not able to access this material.

It’s not just for enjoyment. The most poignant submission that I heard during the submission process was someone who was studying at university. They were talking about how if they were trying to study science, for example, and they are visually impaired and they have print disability—imagine trying to describe what an epidermis, or a dermis, or a cell, or chlorophyll actually looks like. It is very, very difficult. It takes a long time for them to access this material. Often when they start university, the printed material is actually not available to them. Often they have these texts well after their cohorts are able to study already. I think it is rather unfair.

Previous speakers have traversed other aspects of it, particularly in terms of the commercial availability test; I won’t go through that. But I guess the law change is a positive step towards improving access to copyrighted works for visually impaired New Zealanders. It also means that New Zealand becomes a global citizen and will be able to access other material that is already available to other Marrakesh Treaty members. So I commend this bill.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I really just stand—I believe the issues have been well covered in the House. The Green Party is really pleased to see this come into law. In this third reading, I just want to again reinforce our support for this piece of legislation and for every single effort that helps remove the barriers for people with disabilities to participate fully in our society. This is another step towards that. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to rise tonight and speak on the Copyright (Marrakesh Treaty Implementation) Amendment Bill. It will be a very brief contribution tonight because, as I’ve heard this evening and earlier this afternoon, this is not a particularly politically controversial bill, but that shouldn’t detract from just how important this bill is for a lot of New Zealanders. As we’ve heard, there’s something like 168,000 New Zealanders who are in some way print disabled. So this is a very important bill for them to be able to better access copyrighted material.

I sit on the select committee that considered this bill, the very, very collegial Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee. We had the Green member Gareth Hughes on that committee, and I again want to acknowledge his contribution, because he’s very well aware of the issues that were raised in the bill, and he put forward a recommendation to change the commercial availability test, which I thought was a very good contribution. Earlier in the debate, Brett Hudson, I think, described it as a neo-liberal position to hold, which I thought was perhaps a little bit unfair on Mr Hughes and probably won’t do him much favours when it comes to Green Party selection next year. But I do want to acknowledge his contribution and also all the members on that committee. It’s a very good change to make and I commend it to the House.

This is a split call. I call Jo Luxton—five minutes.

Kia orana, Mr Speaker. I’m absolutely thrilled—absolutely thrilled—to stand here and take a call on this Copyright (Marrakesh Treaty Implementation) Amendment Bill. This is one of those pieces of legislation that is going to have real and tangible benefits for people around New Zealand. We’ve heard tonight that what it does is it amends the Copyright Act to allow New Zealand to accede to the Marrakesh Treaty bill, and, as Jonathan Young mentioned last night in his contribution during the committee stage, actually this is about access.

I would just like to take the opportunity now just to acknowledge Jonathan Young and his chairing of the select committee, and other members—

💬 Marja Lubeck: Gold star.

—have said—gold star. And as other members have said, it’s been a really collegial process.

This is, as I’ve said, one of those pieces of legislation that is a real feel-good piece of legislation. What it does is it allows access to published materials for people who are visually impaired, and that can be through Braille, things like Braille, large print, or audio—

💬 Melissa Lee: Books.

—audio books, thank you. And we’ve heard also that it affects around 168,000 New Zealanders. That is a lot of New Zealanders. We’ve also heard that less than 10 percent of published works are published in accessible format.

What this piece of legislation also does, besides creating access, is it breaks down barriers for people. It provides equitable opportunities for people to participate in work and in education. We’ve had some discussion around universities, and what this process has done for me is it’s actually highlighted just how much I take for granted, or perhaps we take for granted, putting aside what Minister Martin said about young people, because that’s again something I hadn’t actually thought of. I’ve thought about, as an adult myself or as an older student, going into university—I can sit, I can read, I can get my textbooks on time, and I just want to talk about one particular submitter who really touched me.

Her name was Helena. She was an extremely articulate, bright, intelligent young woman who had studied and graduated. I can’t recall what she had studied, but she’d graduated, and she talked about the biggest barrier for her being the accessibility to accessible formats. She had to wait, had to do the commercial availability test, or she had to wait till she got her textbooks, and often that was just prior to her work being due. Then she had to take the time to absorb the material, understand the material, and then submit her work. She said she really wants to go on and do her Master’s, but the barrier for her, and the thing that turned her off potentially going and furthering her education, was the accessibility to materials in an accessible format.

We have touched on the commercial availability test and we know that there was some concern from publishers and copyright groups, but as the Minister, Minister Faafoi, said earlier, some of their issues will probably likely be addressed within the Copyright Act review, which is under way now. We note that most other countries that have signed up to the Marrakesh Treaty don’t actually have the commercial availability test. So whilst we were sympathetic to the view that they felt that perhaps they might miss out on some revenue or copies might be made by all sorts of people, we do note the fact that to create an accessible format is highly, highly expensive and therefore very, very unlikely that people would go about willy-nilly making additional formats. So that was one of the reasons. The biggest reason that we decided not to do the commercial availability or to leave the commercial availability test out was so that people could get access to the work that they needed in an appropriate and timely manner.

I just want to finish off by something from the Blind Foundation. They said “Our vision is a life without limits.”, and I believe this piece of legislation goes a long way towards that.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise on behalf of the Green Party to passionately support this bill to the House. I was a little bit late, so I’d like to thank the National Party for donating a second slot to me.

Copyright’s something I’m incredibly passionate about. It’s something I’m quite proud to, across my career—on reflection—have stood on the right side of the copyright debates of the last decade. Look at section 92A under the previous Labour Government, which was never fully enacted. Look at the Skynet debate we saw in the mid-2010s—the massive debate and the hilarious debate amongst some of the first memes ever produced about our Parliament—and, of course, the Trans-Pacific Partnership where terms have been extended, which officials did say did carry a financial cost for Kiwi consumers.

In this case I’m really glad that we’re seeing cross-party support for something which is going to make a huge difference for the 168,000 Kiwis with a print disability. It’s wonderful to be here supporting the bill unanimously. I’m even more heartened because this legislation was improved in select committee, and again I’d like to thank members from both parties, Labour and National.

Now, here, the key test was the commercial availability test. One of the major copyright proponents in New Zealand is Paula Browning. She’s been tweeting me a huge amount about this issue. But I was glad I was able to respond to Miss Browning that we saw cross-party support to change the legislation to remove the commercial availability test in the select committee, because what this House and what these parties want to do is make it easier for Kiwis to access print accessible copies.

Secondly, what this House wants to do is make sure that we’re encouraging our producers to create accessible content. What we heard in the select committee was that only 10 percent of material is actually produced that’s disability print accessible. Now, of course, I made a moral argument to the members of the committee that it was just the right thing to do and I pointed out that only four of the 55 Marrakesh Treaty countries—Australia, Singapore, Japan, and Canada—applied this. The other 49 didn’t. I made a moral argument that it was the right thing to do because we want to encourage access, because we heard very clearly from the universities, from the disability community in New Zealand, that having the commercial availability test simply gave them the right to wait for months on end, the right to send emails which could be ignored, the right to search multiple databases, many which don’t even exist at this point in time, to then finally get the material.

What we also heard is that many disabled students in New Zealand don’t actually get print accessible copies of their textbooks until their course has actually been completed. I mean, this is madness. So I’m glad that all parties agreed this moral argument, but I also support the National Party, who made quite a clear economic argument, which was the sense that by removing this commercial availability test—and given the fact that it’s much, much cheaper for a producer of content to be providing accessible content at the time of publishing, rather than the incredibly expensive and incredibly time-consuming onerous process of someone individually actually transcribing the material—this is acting as an economic incentive.

I think that’s a wonderful thing that we can do for New Zealand consumers. This is about modernising our Copyright Act, which dates from a pre-internet age in 1994, extending the lengths—the series of exemptions. This is a great day forward for sensible, modern copyright reform. It’s going to really help those consumers, but, most importantly, it’s also going to encourage those producers, because, ultimately, in this digital age we want more and more producers.

I’d, quite rightfully, respond to the criticism of Paula Browning that we also have a challenge in this House, and as a Government, to make sure that we are living up to the high standards articulated in this debate. We should be striving that Government information is produced in accessible formats. While we’re sending a clear signal to publishers in New Zealand, let’s also take on board a clear challenge for this House and this Government to make sure we’re doing it.

The Green Party is incredibly proud to support it. We’re proud to have made a positive difference, and we’d like to thank other parties for supporting my amendment to remove that commercial availability test.

Kia orana, Mr Speaker. Can I, first of all, just actually acknowledge Gareth Hughes for the work that he’s done over the last, gosh, 11 years in this House on copyright reform, and the importance of bringing our Parliament into the modern era around how we, as representatives of New Zealanders, look at information and accessibility to the public, while acknowledging the absolute importance of the content creators and valuing them—our New Zealand content creators, which is where our first principles should derive from.

This bill—it’s absolutely fantastic, can I just say, actually having unanimity around a copyright issue in the New Zealand Parliament. I feel quite proud of that, and proud of all the people that have worked on this. The phraseology that comes to mind is the “From little things, big things grow”. People look at a bill like this bill, the Copyright (Marrakesh Treaty Implementation) Amendment Bill as being something small and inconsequential—but often the apparent small and inconsequential bills actually have within them the nuggets of real importance, in terms of cultural change and the acknowledgement of equality of access, and the values, actually, that upon which New Zealand should and does rest when we all work together. I really, also, want to say to the Hon Tracey Martin that I watched her speech up in my office and actually had a bit of a tear because, seriously, if we can’t—

💬 Chris Penk: It wasn’t that bad.

Don’t make fun, guys—start from the beginning of life where we provide equality of access to information, which is a hallmark of democracy in this country, an absolute hallmark of democracy, then where are we as a country? Thankfully, we’re all speaking as one tonight and that’s a great thing.

Various speakers in the House, and, I think, the Minister Kris Faafoi, said that this will have an impact for around 160,000 New Zealanders. I actually wonder whether it will be even more than that, because I went and had a look on the Blind Foundation’s website as I had a figure in my head of even more than that, in terms of people who have blindness and low vision in New Zealand. I know we’re talking of equality of access to printed works; equality of access also includes broadcast information. That’s not just for the visually impaired it’s for the—we have a lot more work to do in this country, and as a Parliament, for people who have disabilities of any kind, whether they are hearing impaired, visually impaired, or impaired in any other way, where their ability to access information, access services is impaired. So I know that’s taking it a bit broader than the bill, but that is a challenge for us.

In terms of the visually impaired—the 30,000 individuals who are affected by blindness and low vision—we also have other conditions that affect the ability to see, in this country. The age-related macular degeneration—projected by 2030, 352,000 Kiwis will have that, at the moment it’s around 207,000. Around 330,000 Kiwis have diabetes; diabetic retinopathy is the leading cause of blindness and sight loss in New Zealanders under 50. Glaucoma—anyone in this House who has a history of glaucoma, please make sure you get your eye tests every year and your glaucoma tests, it’s absolutely important because it is treatable—for 70,000 Kiwis it’s the second most common cause of blindness and low vision in New Zealanders over 65. Then we have cataracts, there are 370,000 people estimated to have cataracts in this country, and in 95 percent of cases surgery is successful. Obviously, from a health perspective that is treatable as well, but if you add it all up—I don’t have the actual figure and some people have more than one condition. It’s a major issue.

So this bill makes a difference—makes a real difference to a lot of New Zealanders, in terms of their access to print-capable information. I absolutely support this bill.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It’s a great pleasure to speak on the Copyright (Marrakesh Treaty Implementation) Amendment Bill. This bill had its genesis, actually, in New Zealand back in October 2015 when the National Government released a discussion document on whether to join the Marrakesh Treaty or not. It has taken quite some time to work its way through to this point today, where we’re on the third reading. It does make a difference and, actually, its 168,000 people and growing who will benefit from the passing of this legislation. I see no need to delay it anymore, so I commend it to the House.

Kia orana e Te Vaa Tuatua. There are three points I wish to make taking the final call on the speech tonight: I wish to speak about the social construction of disability; I want to tell some of the stories around disability and why this bill is so important; and I want to talk about what this bill does to deconstruct the social construction of disability. That phrase “The social construction of disability” is very, very important. It lies at the heart of this bill, but it’s not a phrase I’ve actually heard in any of the speeches so far in the debate on this bill, tonight. However, “If we talk to people in the disability community” is a phrase that is used all the time; it is how people with disabilities understand and work with their own disabilities. So I want to talk, first of all, about what the social construction of disability is.

When we look at a standard model of disability—and this is probably the easiest way to understand the social construction of disability—we tend to think of it in medical terms. We tend to adopt the medical model of disability, where someone with a disability has a physical problem to be fixed. There’s an emphasis on someone with a disability being autonomous, on standing on their own two feet. We see people with disabilities as, somehow, deviating from the norm, as a problem to be fixed. Alongside that we have a narrative of the cripple as hero; they’re so wonderful overcoming whatever it is that disables them. So it is a model of disability that thinks in terms of taking away—someone who is disabled is less than the rest of us.

Understandably, people with disabilities reject that model. Instead, they often think in terms of the social model of disabilities, where that which disables them is not the physical—it’s not the physicality—it is not being non-neurotypical, it is not having a body that is different from others, but it is our social structures and the way we design our societies which makes them disabled. This fits so well into this bill, in terms of how we are starting to deconstruct disability here.

Let me give you an example of the way that our social structures construct disability. The main formal entrance into this building is a long flight of steps. Only some of us can climb those steps. If we had thought in terms of the social model of disability right from when this building was built—and I know that was a long time ago—perhaps our main entrance would have been constructed with a ramp, and the steps might have gone to the side. Everyone can use a ramp, but only some people can use steps. It is our social structure there that has disabled some people; it is not, in fact, people’s own bodies that have disabled them.

So that is the social model of disability. In it we understand disability as people being excluded from participation in mainstream activities. Having said that, I am sure you can understand why it is that this bill is so very, very important. It’s because it begins to deconstruct social disability.

Interestingly, one of the previous speakers—I think, Mr Andrew Falloon—said that this was not a controversial bill. I disagree. This is a very controversial bill; not politically, but it is controversial socially, because it is making us begin to deconstruct that social model of disability. That is why this is, in many ways, quite a radical bill that this entire House is agreeing on.

So we know that we’ve got some big long-term issues facing New Zealand, that we’re tackling them. It’s something we’re going to be working on for a long time—for 30 years; not just three. This is part of that work of tackling some of those long-term issues.

Let me tell you some of the stories that I have heard relating to this bill, in particular. The first is a young constituent of mine, Áine Kelly-Costello. Áine is vision impaired. She came and met me in my early months as an MP to talk to me about the way she had to study at university. It was extraordinarily difficult for her. She couldn’t access print information in a way that suited her. She was handed course notes, but they were only suitable for people who had normal vision. She couldn’t get textbooks quickly and easily; she had to have readers working with her, readers who would read the textbook for her in order that she herself could access the material. She was disabled not by her sight, but by the fact that there were no books available that suited her. That was that social model of disability. She said that we need to improve access for people with disabilities—including print access.

Another story that touches me a little—somewhat indirectly—personally, and this is from a submission from Phillippa McKeown-Green, who says that her husband Dr Jonathan McKeown-Green, sadly deceased, was blind but he had completed a PhD in philosophy, and lectured in philosophy. Now, I know how hard it is to complete a PhD in philosophy, and the sheer amount of reading that is to be done, from personal experience. It took an extraordinary amount of work for Dr McKeown-Green to be able to access the information he needed. For that reason, his widow came to present to the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee and talked about how much she supported this bill.

So the third point I want to make—I want to talk about—is how this bill starts to deconstruct the social model of disability. It does it by ensuring that people with visual disabilities have a way of accessing the print media they need so that they are no longer subject to the book famine, there is a way for them to access text, there is a way for them to access books, because it can be created for them in an accessible format. Now, copyright law was previously a barrier to this. Under this bill and this treaty, copyright law will no longer be a barrier.

The one major problem that many of the people submitting had with the bill, as it was originally presented, was the commercial availability test. People seeking this alternative format, or this accessible format print media, had to first see if somewhere, somehow the particular text was available commercially. That was another disability being imposed by social structures.

As it turned out, I wanted to order a book, an economics text that I want to read, Economics in Two Lessons, which I feel would be a good follow-up to my recent reading in economics. I got online. I ordered it—easy—from a bookseller in Christchurch. It should be waiting for me when I get home. Not so, the barriers for people with print disabilities. For them getting hold of the book would have been extraordinarily difficult. Now, they’ll still face some difficulties in getting it, but at least an authorised entity—a library or so on—can make an accessible format copy of the text for them. In this way, this bill enables people with print disabilities to function almost as well as I can with my ordinary vision and my ordinary sight. So this is a major step in, again, deconstructing the social model of disability, with respect to print media. And that is why this bill is so important.

So there’s a lot to fix, with this Government. We’ve talked many times about homelessness, hospitals, water, and so on. These are known problems. In a sense, accessibility for people with disabilities is an unknown problem. Many of us are unfamiliar with it—particularly that social model. We can’t solve all the problems straight away, but we’re starting and we’re making some really good progress. We’re taking a balanced approach to solving the known problems. Here is a balanced approach to an unknown problem. I commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a third time.