4. Conclusions – Ngā whakamutunga

Where New Zealand does well – Ngā mahi pai e oti nei i Aotearoa

• New Zealanders value fairness (and this is often expressed colloquially in terms of a ‘fair go’) and have a well developed and tradition of tolerance and flexibility.
• New Zealand generally meets the international standards for protection of the right to freedom from discrimination through the HRA and the BoRA, and the prohibited grounds of discrimination are reasonably comprehensive by international standards.
• Low-cost and accessible processes for dealing with complaints of discrimination in the private sector have been available for many years. With the introduction of the 2001 Amendment to the HRA, similar mechanisms are now available for complaints about discrimination by government agencies.

Where we need to do better – Kia piki ake te pai i roto i enei wahanga

• An evaluative framework needs to be developed into which data can be placed to better assess discrimination in New Zealand. This should provide some means for obtaining a coherent national picture.
• There is no agreed set of indicators for assessing the extent of discrimination or the status of human rights in New Zealand, and there are severe limitations with some sources of data. Clear indicators against which progress can be measured need to be identified, and systems for data collection – particularly of disaggregated data – need to be developed.
• The law on discrimination is complex, and that complexity causes some difficulties in practice. It is timely to review the exceptions in Part 2 of the HRA to ensure that these are coherent in principle and application, reflect recent developments in human rights law, and do not act as barriers to the equal exercise of human rights by all New Zealanders.
• For many, the idea that everybody is equal means that all people should be treated the same. However, both international and domestic law recognise that in some cases this can perpetuate existing inequities. There is a need for more informed debate about how substantive equality is achieved in practice.

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