1. New Zealand Sign Language:
Soon to be a third official language for New Zealand.
Deaf community meetings: Update
December 2003

2. Today’s meeting agenda:
What Government have agreed to do (details)
2. Update on work since May 2003,
and some issues that came up in this work
How YOU can influence the NZSL Bill
Questions & discussion

3. What Government have agreed to do
Cabinet have agreed to
Draft a NZSL Bill
Do more work on:
NZSL interpreters issues
Education, health, work and television issues
CABINET:
Made up of Labour MP’s
meets weekly (private meetings, team approach)
Makes decisions on major policy work

4. Draft NZSL Bill, will say
NZSL will be an official language, also promotion & maintenance of NZSL
Right to use NZSL in legal proceedings
NZSL interpreters in legal proceedings must be competent
Statement of principles to guide government agencies on how to recognise, promote and maintain NZSL
A reporting system to report on progress in following the principles.
2. Right to use NZSL in legal proceedings WHERE FIRST OR PREFERED LANG IS NZSL
3. COMPETENT = SKILLED.
4. PRINCIPLES = guide for all the work government agencies do
5. Reporting System = every year Minister can report on what government agencies are doing to make their services accessible for Deaf people.
Using the DISABILITY STRATEGY reporting system

5. Government will do more work to look at:
NZSL interpreter issues
Work on developing interpreter standards for courts
Review of government funding systems for NZSL interpreters
Education, health, work and television issues
Deaf people have many barriers in these areas. Plans to remove barriers will be developed in consultation with the Deaf community.
OFFICE fir DISABILITY ISSUES will lead this work.

6. Government Departments
2. Update on work since May 2003: Consultations
Deaf community
Government Departments
Deaf Advisory Group
Targeted 27 key government
agencies
Deaf community meetings
1st round: May 2003
Options for details of a
NZSL Bill
Consultation with DEAF COMMUNITY
CRUCIAL to success of the Bill is the Deaf community’s support and involvement in the development of the Bill.
Govt. must acknowledge and respect that NZSL BELONGS to Deaf people.
Consultation with GOVT. DEPTS.
CRUCIAL to getting the Bill successfully through the policy development and legislative development processes and introduced into Parliament.
DEAF ADVISORY GROUP:
Excellent, and skilled people
Provided guidance for our Deaf community consultations
Provided other advice on NZSL issues where needed.
DEAF COMMUNITY MEETINGS:
VIP to getting information out to the community
Need to be face-to-face
Limited by tight time frame and limited resources (unable to visit some centres)
Meet with over 250 members of the Deaf community, including key Deaf related organisations, and visiting 4 main centres.
Included a separate MAORI-DEAF community meeting
Community support was overwhelming! One community organised a bus together for the six hour return trip to attend the community meeting. Our Office & the Minister, received hundreds of signature of support, and many s and letters.
INFORMED OUR PROBLEM DEFINITION
and
USED TO DEVELOP PROPOSALS FOR A NZSL BILL
Why recognition of NZSL?
Current problems without
recognition?
2nd round: Aug 2003
Detailed proposals

7. 2. Update on work since May 2003:
Some issues that came up in this work
Deaf awareness needed for government departments in May/June 2003.
Deaf community meetings showed clearly that recognition of NZSL as a real language is very low which means Deaf people do not have fair treatment
“Official recognition” – what does this mean?
Rights or principles?
Developing proposals and options: in the beginning included a lot of ADVOCACY and AWARENESS raising among government departments, e.g.: NZSL real language, Deaf culture & Deaf community, “D/deaf”, NZSL interp issues.
Deaf Community consultations revealed clearly that the poor acknowledgement of NZSL as a real language resulted in injustices for Deaf people.
FOR EXAMPLE:
Denied use of interpreters in court,
Unqualified interpreters have been used, and
Charged with disorderly behaviour where use of NZSL misunderstood.
DEFINING “Official Recognition”
There is no clearly defined or single approach to ‘official recognition’ in general, incl sign languages, in NZ or overseas.
TWO Official languages in NZ: MAORI & ENGLISH
Official recognition of NZSL would not affect these
Wide range of OTHER LANGUAGES spoken in NZ – generally all are legally recognised in their country of origin. Official recognition of NZSL aims to give NZSL equal status to that of spoken languages via recognition in its home country.
Official status usually reserved for national languages

8. eg: European Parliament
New Zealand laws have some gaps. These gaps mean that Deaf people do not have the same right to their language as other New Zealanders, for example:
New Zealand’s human rights laws do not include ‘language’ as a prohibited ground of discrimination
NZ Bill of Rights Act
International models
eg: European Parliament
Two separate issues (i) access to services and information for Deaf people, and (ii) status for NZSL.
Intra-ground discrimination risk
Our HUMAN RIGHTS LAWS do not include language as a separate prohibited ground of discrimination. It is usually dealt with as an aspect of RACE or ETHNICITY & for Deaf on the grounds of disability, on a case-by-case basis (meaning little certainty or consistency is available to Deaf people)
NZ’s lack of human rights protection for languages received criticism from the UN HUMAN RIGHTS Committee in 2002.
NZBORA : Section 20 provides that a person who belongs to a linguistic minority cannot be denied the right in communication with other to use the language of that minority.
The meaning of this is UNCLEAR because there is debate about whether this places a positive duty on the State of only requires the State not to undermine the rights of minorities.
Legislative MODELS for recognition range from simple statements in Constitutional laws to detailed provisions relating to health, education, justice, social services and community participation.
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: has passed TWO resolutions called for legislative recognition of sign languages in member states, 1989 and Some countries have done this, incl. Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, Portugal, and Greece. Also, some states & provinces in USA & Canada.
Britain has promoted BSL via a policy statement. Analysis showed that In NZ a policy statement would not resolve the difficulties with the legal status of NZSL.
ACCESS to services and information / STATUS of NZSL: Needed to separate these arguments early on in the development of proposals for a NZSL Bill.
ACCESS argument: already being addressed by the NZ Disability Strategy
INTRA GROUND DISCRIMINATION: risk of intra-ground discrimination (Deaf people being advantaged over other disability groups).
From these issues you can perhaps get a sense of some of the consultation negotiations that took place over the 7 months to develop the proposals for a NZSL Bill.

9. 1 - 2 years NZSL Government agencies Parliament Everyone Practice
Problem
Standards
Funding
Research work
Ministers
Cabinet
1st Reading (debate)
Select Committee
2nd Reading (debate)
3rd Reading (debate)
DO YOU REMEMBER THIS PICTURE ??
Ideas

11. How YOU can influence the NZSL Bill
Draft NZSL Bill introduced to Parliament
Early 2004 (?February)
First reading
Parliament refers the Bill to select committee

12. How YOU can influence the NZSL Bill
The Select Committee:
Makes NZSL Bill public
Calls for submissions
Written
? NZSL video
You can ask to meet the select committee to explain your submission points
SELECT COMMT’EES:
Small groups of MP’s from different political parties
They examine Bills in detail
The Bills are made public, advertised in the newspapers, and submissions are called for
SUBMISSIONS
Anyone can make a submission

13. Making a submission to a select committee
can look something like this…
You can find the booklet
“Making a Submission to a Parliamentary Select Committee”
at the Office of the Clerk’s website:

14. 4. Questions and discussion
The Office for Disability Issues would like to ask for feedback on how we have involved the Deaf community in this work…
… and how can we make sure the Deaf community continue to be involved in this work?

15. For further information contact:
Victoria Manning
Office for Disability Issues
PO Box
Wellington
Fax: