Dr Melissa Derby Photo: Screenshot / YouTube
The government has named new leadership for the Human Rights commission.
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith announced Friday that Dr Stephen Rainbow would be appointed as the new chief human rights commissioner, Dr Gail Pacheco the equal employment opportunities commissioner, and Dr Melissa Derby the race relations commissioner.
Goldsmith said Rainbow's "career has encompassed a range of roles including managing government relations for the largest infrastructure project in New Zealand, lecturing at Victoria University, as Director of Urban Strategy at Wellington City Council, and National Manager of the New Zealand Historic Places Trust".
Rainbow was also a Wellington City Councillor from 1989 to 1998, and has been active in promoting LBGTQ rights.
In 2021, Stuff and 1 News both reported that Auckland Transport was investigating a social media post by Rainbow to the Rainbow Auckland Networking Group.
The post was promoting a petition to ban gay conversion therapy, and Rainbow's reply reportedly said, "be careful... there's some elements of the trans agenda being sneakily promoted through this campaign". Rainbow's reported comment prompted complaints about transphobia by co-workers at Auckland Transport, 1 News said at the time.
New Human Rights Commissioner Derby is a senior lecturer at Waikato University, teaching early literacy and human development. Her primary area of research is early literacy, and in particular, exploring the role of whānau in fostering foundational preliteracy skills.
Derby has previously been named as a member of the Free Speech Union.
In an April 2023 column by RNZ's Mediawatch on protests around anti-trans rights activist Kellie-Jay Keen Minshull, also known as Posie Parker, it was reported that Derby "liked a tweet calling for [trans activist Shaneel] Lal to be "locked up" and retweeted one saying the "trans movement" cannot be tolerated in civil society."
Derby has also appeared in a series of videos for the website The Common Room with titles like "Equity or Equality" and "Is the system stacked against some kiwis?"
In the latter video, she asks, "If systemic racism is the cause for a disproportionate number of Māori experiencing poor outcomes, why don't all Māori experience poor outcomes?
"In fact, on many measures, the vast majority of Maori perform perfectly well. How is this possible, if systemic racism is everywhere, causing poor outcomes?"
Pacheco is a professor of economics and director of the NZ Policy Research Institute at Auckland University of Technology.
"She has extensive experience leading large-scale, multi-institutional funded projects, including work for the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, Ministry for Women, Ministry of Education and the Human Rights Commission," Goldsmith said.
Goldsmith had earlier expressed desire to make changes in the commission, which the ACT Party campaigned to abolish before the last election.
Goldsmith thanked Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner Dr Saunoamaali'i Karanina Sumeo, who has taken on the roles of acting chief commissioner and acting race relations commissioner over much of the past year.
