Submission of the New Zealand Human Rights Commission to the 18 th session of the Human Rights Council; New Zealand’s Second Universal Periodic Review. 6. Providing disabled people (and others) with an avenue of last resort for making complaints when all other domestic avenues have failed would further reinforce that the Government is serious about respecting the rights of disabled people. The IMM understands that the Government is investigating what steps need to be taken to make it possible to ratify the Optional Protocol to the CRPD. The IMM sees this as a high priority. 7. Recommendations: a b c That the government urgently reconsider the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill Act and in particular repeal those sections that limit further legal action and limit the circumstances in which family members can be paid and the categories of family member that can be paid. That all areas in the Government’s Disability Action Plan have a clear co-governance process that is adhered to. That the Government ratifies the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Statistics and outcomes data 8. The fulfilment of the IMM’s role of monitoring, evaluating, reporting, advocating and advising on the implementation of the CRPD in New Zealand is heavily dependant on the availability of reliable data and statistics that track the achievement of disabled people’s rights compared to those of non-disabled people. The IMM 2013 Annual Report attempted to establish a base line of achievement across key indicators in each of the rights areas. In most key areas reliable data was not available. 9. The Household Disability Survey provides the only reliable data in a range of areas such as employment, educational achievement, unfulfilled needs and difficulties using transport. The next Disability Survey will be administered in July 2013 with results beginning to be available in 2014. A review of the Disability Survey after the last iteration in 2006 has resulted in a more outcomes based survey that will provide better quality data. Statistics New Zealand, the government agency primarily responsible for gathering national level statistics, has indicated a willingness to include the measurement of disabled people’s rights in regular review’s of its surveys and other measures. Further work is required to ensure a comprehensive suit is statistics is available. 10. Recommendations: a Statistics New Zealand ensures that key outcomes data for all New Zealanders are collected in a way that makes it possible to compare the outcomes for disabled and nondisabled people. b Statistics New Zealand develops comparable data sets, by December 2014, for education achievement, work force participation and living independently and being included in the community. 19