Wed 16 Apr 2014 In: New Zealand Daily News View at Wayback View at NDHA
Louisa Wall has made a fresh push for the protection from discrimination on the basis of gender identity to be specifically included in the Human Rights Act, and is urging the community to speak up and encourage Parliament to set it in stone. On the eve of the anniversary of her marriage equality legislation passing its third reading, she's put forward a gender identity amendment as part of the Statutes Amendment Bill (no 4) - which sailed unanimously through its first reading in Parliament this afternoon. (See a video of Wall's speech below) Her Supplementary Order Paper calls for a change to section 21(1)(a) of the Human Rights Act, so it would read: "sex, which includes gender identity, pregnancy, and childbirth." Wall has written to the Chair of the Government Administration Select Committee Ruth Dyson and asked for it the proposed amendment to be included in the submission process on the Statutes Amendment Bill (no 4). The Labour MP says will then be up to the community to make submissions on the issue. “It’s an opportunity for our rainbow community to talk about how important it is for gender identity to be added,” she says. “To outline how relevant it is, how important it is, why we want it.” Wall says it will be a chance for people all over New Zealand to talk about what their identity means to them, “and the fact there seems to be an anomaly which can be easily rectified. Again, it’s going to be up to our community to grasp the opportunity and for us to collectively talk about how important it is.” There has been no progress on having gender identity specifically included due to a Crown Law Opinion in 2006 that gender identity is already covered. However that opinion has never been tested in court and advocates say there is no guarantee that the Human Rights Act in its current form will be interpreted as including gender identity. When submissions open, details will be available here
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Wednesday, 16th April 2014 - 5:31pm