Accessibility for New Zealanders Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Accessibility for New Zealanders Bill.

SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the parliamentary website.

Hon POTO WILLIAMS: I move, That the Accessibility for New Zealanders Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services and Community Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 16 May 2023.

It is an honour and a privilege to introduce the Accessibility for New Zealanders Bill to this House. Today marks an important and historic milestone for the disability community and for Aotearoa New Zealand. The journey here has been a long one paved by my predecessor, the Hon Carmel Sepuloni, who I would like to mihi to for her contribution. The path here has also been paved by those within the disability community. I acknowledge the amazing team of sign language interpreters who are present today to support the first reading of the bill. I’d also like to acknowledge those who produce the closed captions for the speeches in this House to ensure everyone can be involved in their House of Representatives.

For too long, the disability community has been ignored by both Government and non-Government entities. This bill seeks to change that. As the Government, we must lead by example in decision-making and consultation processes. We were elected on a mandate to improve the lives of those with disabilities—tāngata whaikaha—and their families, and others with accessibility needs to have an equal opportunity to achieve their goals and aspirations. We made a commitment in 2020 to introduce an accessibility for New Zealanders Act to help New Zealand to become more accessible and inclusive for disabled people and other New Zealanders with accessibility needs. Today, we take another step towards delivering that commitment.

It has been a long journey to get to this point. Many have been advocating for systemic accessibility improvements for decades as a result of experiencing significant barriers to accessing infrastructure, communication, information, education, and employment opportunities as well as public facilities which many of us take for granted. This bill will help us address those barriers and ensure that disability issues are at the forefront of decisions made by the Government of the day.

The Accessibility for New Zealanders Bill creates an enabling framework focused on progressively identifying, preventing, and removing accessibility barriers that disabled people, tāngata whaikaha Māori, and others with accessibility needs face, so that they have an equal opportunity to achieve their goals and aspirations. It does this in three ways. Firstly, it establishes the Accessibility Committee led by disabled people, tāngata whaikaha Māori, and their whānau to provide independent recommendations to myself, as Minister for Disability Issues, on how to address accessibility barriers and grow accessibility practices. Secondly, it strengthens accountability across the Public Service and Government towards progressing accessibility. It does this by creating strong, clear roles for responsibilities for the Minister for Disability Issues, the chief executive of the new ministry, and the Accessibility Committee to implement and enable a framework with the support of agencies across the Public Service. And, thirdly, it builds knowledge and awareness of the importance of addressing accessibility barriers, and growing accessibility practices across New Zealand.

This legislation will build on and support the work of Whaikaha—the Ministry of Disabled People, which we launched here in Parliament just last month. There is real momentum at play and I intend to ensure that momentum continues and, more importantly, translates into tangible outcomes for disabled people. The key elements of this bill, which I have just outlined, sit alongside the important role of Whaikaha, such as notification mechanisms, policy support, voice, and partnership. These make up the accessibility framework.

In providing these recommendations, the Accessibility Committee has a vital role in this accessibility framework, as well as an enormous responsibility, given the vast range of barriers and the scale of change required. To help, the bill sets out that the chief executive of Whaikaha will support the committee in developing their recommendations and provide administrative and analytical support to ensure they are able to do their role properly. This committee will have a direct line to Government through me as the Minister for Disability Issues. As Minister, I too have a role in supporting the committee—this includes considering and approving their work programme and, importantly, presenting their recommendations to this House and working with other Ministers to consider those recommendations.

Changes implemented as a result of the committee’s recommendations will take time, which, I know, may be frustrating to the community, given they have waited so long already. However, we have to get this right, and by taking an enabling and progressive approach, the bill will balance the need to accelerate progress on accessibility issues while also ensuring we examine and understand the gaps in existing regulation, policy, and practice.

In the spirit of “Nothing about us without us”, this legislation will bring together the expectations of disabled peopled, the affected sectors, and experts to work together to shape policy and hold Government to account on accessibility issues while ensuring accessibility is improved progressively over time. The flexible and progressive approach this bill takes will ensure the Government can set priorities to resource accessibility measures.

It is important to note that while the bill does not have a regulatory focus, as some have called for, it will help shape new or amended regulations across Government to improve the lives of disabled people. These will be worked through with relevant stakeholders. The approach will give organisations who are required to make changes as a result of the committee’s recommendations time to understand and adopt efficient or innovative approaches to legal obligations and the ability to adapt changes in society.

For this to be successful, a cycle of monitoring and review will be required so that the Accessibility Committee can regularly assess how well new and existing policies are performing, and the framework can grow and develop over time. The bill enables this by requiring the committee to provide an annual monitoring report, independently assessing how well its recommendations have been implemented by the Minister for Disability Issues, which must be subsequently tabled in this House. It also provides for a review of the Act every five years to ensure the accessibility framework is working as effectively as it can and to further explore other mechanisms, if not. This legislative review mechanism is an important way of ensuring improvements are continuously made over time, given the long-term nature of the work, to achieve a fully accessible New Zealand.

It is my intention as Minister that, when passed, this legislation will ensure accessibility is at the forefront of future decisions and improve accessibility for disabled people, tāngata whaikaha Māori, and their whānau. Once enacted, this legislation will be administered by Whaikaha as the first Ministry of Disabled People in any comparable jurisdiction, and the first ministry with a New Zealand Sign Language name.

I’m looking forward to the Social Services and Community Committee considering this bill and hearing submissions on it. I believe it is important that the committee takes more time to do this to ensure that we get it right. That’s why I will move a motion later in this debate to ask the committee to report back in May next year. It is not often that a longer select committee time frame is sought, but I believe it is the right thing to do to ensure that everyone can have their say. It is really important that select committees are accessible and inclusive and responsive to the needs of the disability community. I will be sending suggestions to the committee on ways in which the process can be made mana-enhancing, that ensures that disabled people, tāngata whaikaha Māori, and their communities can share their views and feed into the development of the bill in ways that work for them. It is disappointing to hear that some parties will not be supporting this bill to the select committee stage, a place where we can hear from the community and make better law. None the less, it is still my hope that we will have a productive cross-party contribution made at this committee.

In closing, I want to thank the many disability community representatives and interest groups who have input into the design of the accessibility framework, in particular Access Alliance who have worked closely with officials on this work over the years—your input has been crucial in getting us to this point and I am grateful for the time and energy you have put into helping us get it here. I look forward to the select committee continuing these conversations and supporting the Government’s commitment to accelerating accessibility across New Zealand. I commend the bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to speak in support of the Accessibility for New Zealanders Bill being taken to the select committee. Currently, New Zealand does not have comprehensive legislation to help identify, remove, and prevent barriers experienced by people with access needs. We know that as our population grows and people live longer, the impact of accessibility barriers will only increase. We cannot afford as a society to let barriers in the built, communications, and digital worlds to prevent people from participating fully and equally in society.

I am very pleased that the Minister has enabled a longer select committee process, and I thank her and acknowledge her for that. I also want to acknowledge the Access Alliance group, who were formed in February 2017. This was a diverse range of disability groups who came together to call for legislation that would enable people with disabilities to more actively participate in society, and I believe we have some of those founding members of the Access Alliance here today and I want to acknowledge them for the wonderful work they have done. I think the founding members should be mentioned here today: the Association of Blind Citizens New Zealand, CCS Disability Action, Cerebral Palsy Society of New Zealand, Deaf Aotearoa, Disabled Persons Assembly (New Zealand), Kāpō Māori Aotearoa New Zealand Inc., National Foundation for Deaf & Hard of Hearing, Blind Low Vision NZ, Parents of Vision Impaired (NZ) Inc., People First Ngā Tāngata Tuatahi.

They were the founding members of Access Alliance, and many of the members of those groups have put in countless hours to get legislation through here. They will, however, be disappointed at how far this legislation goes, and that is one of the main reasons that we are supporting this bill to select committee, because we believe that members of a variety of advocacy groups and individuals from the disabled community should have the opportunity to present at the select committee to tell their stories, to try and improve this legislation.

The Access Alliance came up with 13 principles that they felt should form the core of the Act, and I understand a number of them came from what is seen in Canada. So I think it is worth noting the things that the Access Alliance wanted to see in this legislation. First of all, they wanted the Act to apply to all. They wanted it cover all persons with disabilities whether it be physical, sensory, cognitive, communication, or mental health - related, and would include visible, invisible, permanent, and episodic conditions. So they were very clear that they wanted it to be an all-encompassing piece of legislation.

They wanted the Act to have time lines, and I think they will be particularly disappointed around that not being part of the legislation. They wanted the Act to set a bar that would build on other disability and human rights legislation, regulations, and policies which provide lesser protections and, therefore, use the Act to lift the bar on accessibility.

They wanted the Act to provide accessibility in all areas of life. Obstacles may include but are not limited to physical, legal, information, communication, attitudinal, technological, or other barriers. So they wanted the Act to go broadly across all areas where accessibility was an issue.

They wanted the Act to set policy, to influence and effect the development and the implementation of public accessibility policy. The wanted the Act to champion access to all goods, services, and facilities, and they wanted the Act to champion accessible workplaces, employment, and education. They wanted the Act to charge the Government with the responsibility to lead, educate, train, inform, and review, and, again, I believe that they will feel this Act falls far short of doing all those.

They wanted the Act to be enforceable, and I know this is an area that is particularly disappointing in that if it cannot be enforced, how much difference will it make? They wanted the Act to be made real through regulations so that it could be fairly implemented, and they wanted to ensure that public funds were not used to create or perpetuate obstacles to full accessibility in all areas of life. They wanted the Act to be used as a lens through which other legislation could be vetted to ensure that other legislation was not in conflict with improving accessibility. They wanted the Act to have real force and real effect.

So there will be disappointment amongst the advocacy groups that have been working long and hard on this legislation, and the wider community of people living with disabilities. Disabled people and their families face significant barriers. They need improved access to housing, transport, information, communication, technology, and public buildings and spaces, and it is vitally important for that improved accessibility to enable them to participate in and feel belonging in the world.

This bill is like the announcement of an announcement. It is a bill that enables two nomination committees to be formed, with one nomination committee representing the community and one nomination committee representing Māori. The nomination committees are to nominate for the actual ministerial advisory committee, and the ministerial advisory committee can then consult with the chief executive of the new disability ministry to have more technical committees. So it is a bill that enables committees to enable committees to enable committees, and that is where the disability communities will be disappointed that it’s almost kicking for touch their issues into committee after committee after committee.

There will be a cycle of monitoring and review, and that is where the disabled communities will be wanting to ensure that they have plenty of say in that review process. But the legislation is about process. It is not about regulations. It is not about time lines. It is not about reporting where there are access barriers. It is not about ensuring that public money doesn’t get wasted on creating more barriers. It is a bill about committees to form committees to form committees.

So I’m sure that in the select committee process we will get a significant number of submitters who say this doesn’t go far enough. But I do have to sound something of a warning that we have not seen a lot of evidence of this Government taking notice of submitters, with the most recent being the over 90,000 submitters on three waters reform, where they have gone ahead to employ executives even before those submitters have been heard. So I would temper expectations with those concerns. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

In contrast to the last speaker, Penny Simmonds, I rise with great enthusiasm and confidence in the direction that we are now taking. I want to begin, first, by acknowledging and congratulating the disability community’s activists, who have brought us to this point. I note with some sadness that, in fact, it was back in 2017 that the Access Alliance came to all of the parties in this House and asked them to sign up to this sort of accessibility legislation. Let me tell you which parties agreed to do so. Labour agreed to do so—everyone, in fact, except the party facing me, except the National Party. So it is a little rich to hear from the member opposite that we are failing to give voice and to give representation to the disability community, from the one party in this House who refused to sign up to this legislation.

This is a day of celebration, and I want to also acknowledge and celebrate Minister Sepuloni, who did so much of the work in setting up the ministry, and I want to acknowledge and congratulate our first Minister of the new ministry—Whaikaha - Ministry of Disabled People—Minister Williams. I also want to commiserate with Angie Warren-Clark, who is, in fact, the chair of the Social Services and Community Committee, lucky enough to be in a position to investigate this bill. She is, unfortunately, stuck in the hellhole of Montreal! She has, however, texted me to ask me to say to you, Madam Speaker, that she is so delighted to be chairing the select committee—not at the moment she is not; I am the Acting Chair—to create the best legislation we can for our disability community. She asked me to say: “We really want to support the disabled community to participate in the submissions process.” Therefore, it gives me particular joy to have heard Minister Williams comment about her support for a longer process for submissions.

In social services, we have spent some time investigating issues where we have wanted the voices of the disability community to come forward—and, similarly, we have wanted the voices of other groups who often struggle to access places like Parliament, including young people. We have a history, in the last year, of experimenting with ways and means to increase the accessibility of our submissions process, and we will be delighted to take that experience further and to try to make our process even more accessible as we go. So thank you to the Minister for facilitating us to do our job properly.

The real, fundamental kaupapa of this bill is “Nothing about us without us”. And, thus, this bill does two things. The first is that it sets up this advisory committee, whose job is to give recommendations to the Minister as to where the barriers are and what to do to remove them. Now, the committee, as is set out in the bill, will be nominated by a community nominations panel and a Māori nominations panel, both of whom are charged to make their nominations from within the disability community itself, to make sure they access across the range of the disability community, and also that they include whānau and caregivers so that their voices are also heard. “Nothing about us without us” is the watchword. But, you see, we cannot begin to set regulations and deadlines and all of those important things that will come until we actually know what the community want, and they themselves are going to need something to help them get there. And that is data. Unless we have the data as to what is going on out there, we are not going to be able to enable them to give those recommendations. Thus, the other crucial part of this bill is an information-gathering power, because the sad fact is that too many Governments in the past have failed to gather the data. We are rectifying that fact.

That is set beside the very strong processes for accountability, for the annual review of how we are doing and where we are up to from the committee; the strong administrative support they’re going to get from the department itself; and, finally, the five-year annual review of this piece of legislation so that when we are ready to go to deadlines and regulations, we will be able to. These are all parts of what is an extremely progressive, extremely worthwhile bill, and I commend it to the House.

Thanks very much, Madam Speaker. Like my colleague Penny Simmonds, I stand in support of the Accessibility for New Zealanders Bill in its first reading in the House today. We are supporting this bill through to select committee, but, as has been alluded to by my colleague, there is quite a lot of work to do on this bill. As we can imagine, there will be a lot of interest in this bill from the disability sector.

I thought I would lay the foundation of my contribution today by just looking at some of the numbers with regard to the disability sector. We know from a disability survey that was done in 2013, that there were an estimated 1.1 million disabled New Zealanders, to some extent or another. Now, if we put that in context, that’s actually over 20 percent of New Zealand’s population. So the sector is not an insignificant part of our Kiwi way. Again, in that survey, it was realised that some people with disabilities also have multiple impairments. So when that survey was conducted, 53 percent of disabled people actually had multiple impairments. So we can start to see the complexities that do arise with people with multiple impairments in the disability sector.

If I even refer to my own childhood growing up with disabilities in my family—one being a severe intellectual disability, non-verbal communicator—as a child, I didn’t realise that this person was intellectually impaired, I just thought he was another playmate in a big body. Such is the innocence of a child. But, as I grew up, I started to realise the commitment that my relations had to make to the upbringing of someone with such a severe disability, and the barriers that exist in our society for people in that situation. And my grandfather, bless his soul and God rest his soul, was a coal miner on the West Coast and suffered a severe back trauma in a coal fall in the mines and was a paraplegic my whole life. So, again, he was my grandad and I thought that’s normal for us. But, again, as I grew up, I started to realise the barriers that are imposed on someone, especially with the ability to get around in a wheelchair in those days. I’ve still got the gear lever that he used to use in his manual car—being able to use the break and the clutch in this complex mechanism that he had to get installed in his car—and still drive relatively safely. But such are the complexities.

So when we look at this kind of legislation, I think what we see is a very wasted opportunity. For all of the consultation and the thinking that has gone into this over five years, this is the best that can be produced? That almost appears to me to be tokenism, in terms of getting something on the statute book that looks as though there has been real debate and real consultation, real listening.

What we’re going to end up with is this piece of legislation that sets up the Accessibility Committee, and the legislation will also enable the Minister to appoint two more people to that committee. It’s already going to have up to eight people on it. Then the legislation requires the Minister to establish a community nominations panel for the purpose of nominating candidates for the committee members.

Chris Penk: Oh, layers of waste.

MAUREEN PUGH: And it is—thank you, Chris Penk. It’s layers and layers. Again, what we see from the Labour Government is layers of bureaucracy before anything on the front line is actually delivered. It also enables or requires the Minister to establish a Māori nominations panel for the purpose of nominating candidates for appointment to the committee. So it just seems such a wasted opportunity.

As Penny Simmonds alluded to before, it looks as though this is driven simply by accountability to the process without any consideration of what the outcomes are going to be. If I look back to my times in local government, when the Building Act was amended, we had directives about what new buildings could be built in your district. Those buildings that were new, public, and accessible to the public, whether it was free or paid, say hospitals or theatres, or things like that—the Building Act actually required tangible changes to be made to the design. So that was supporting accessibility. It was early days of it, but it actually gave us tangible solutions for some of the accessibility issues, and, over time, we would see, as buildings are either updated, renovated, or built, the accessibility change and more accessibility for people that needed it. So they’re the tangible things that can happen. But, sadly, this bill does not do that.

One of the things that did stand out to me in reading this bill was around the lack of enforcement that it actually has. If I look at some of the clauses, it empowers the committee to request information from specified entities that it considers necessary or desirable, which is all very nice; they can request it, but there is nothing in this legislation that says that they must comply, that they must provide that information. So, again, another missed opportunity. There are no time lines in this bill. There is a review after five years, but I’m not sure what it will be that will be reviewed. It will probably be the process, and there’ll be a lot of boxes that can be ticked. But we want to always go back to the people that this bill actually seeks to support, and they’re the people with the disabilities, the over 20 percent of Kiwis that we are talking about. We want to make sure that their accessibility to buildings, to transport, and even to our streets has improved in some way, but this bill does nothing to allow any kind of data gathering that will measure improvements for them in accessibility in their everyday lives.

When I look to some of the press releases that were done just recently, just last month, one lady is actually saying that if there are no changes made, tangible changes, such as in this legislation, which there are not, people like her will still be forced to shower on her veranda. I think that’s an absolute tragedy. There doesn’t seem to be, in any of the legislation that we deal with in this House, any commitment from the Government to create enforceable legislation. I think the main barrier to doing that is because this Government is afraid of measuring outcomes. We can all probably guess why that is. It is because they have failed to deliver for Kiwis across this country on a raft of legislative change. I have to say that in the press release that I read neither Minister Sepuloni nor the new Minister for Disability Issues would commit to accessibility legislation that was enforceable. I just think that’s a tragic waste of this House’s time and a tragic waste of opportunity because this is not going to come around again any time soon.

So unless we can get some very big changes to this bill in the select committee process, I think we have just delivered another piece of tokenism. I would like to say too that if we are, for the disability sector, very genuine about delivering changes and improvements to accessibility across this country, and if we are to take steps forwards, let’s make them giant leaps, not this tokenism that we’re dealing with today. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a real pleasure to speak on this bill, because many of us have got family members, we’ve got work colleagues, or we’ve got friends for whom aspects of the built environment pose real barriers to them living the lives that they want. I just think about my father, following his stroke, and those three steps that used to go up to our front door, the steps we always used to run up without even thinking about. For him, they became a significant and almost insurmountable barrier to coming and having dinner with us.

I also think about people who have spoken in the public domain about having a vision impairment and changes to the bus timetable that the council has put in place, changes to routes, changes to timings. And while most of us could read about that in the local newspaper, for those with vision impairments, if we didn’t have an accessible format what it could mean is actually missing the bus entirely, or else getting on the wrong bus in the wrong direction and missing an important event. And I’m also thinking about people in wheelchairs who, if there’s no accessibility, there’s no ramp at the local cafe, are not able to go there and meet with their friends, or if they can get up to the counter but there’s no accessible facilities, it means that their time there gets cut short because they have to go home to use their own bathroom. So this is a really important issue.

I think, when we’re thinking about how we design our built environment, it’s incredibly important that we have the voices of those with lived experience around the table. And I think we’ve got a situation in New Zealand at the moment where our approach to accessibility is incredibly fragmented across different Government agencies, and we’ve also got very few formal avenues for the voices of those with lived experience to have their voices put into policy.

What this bill does is it takes us much further towards achieving a goal of having an accessible society where everybody can go and participate in the way that they want. And so what this bill is doing is putting in place a framework which we can use across Government, and that creates an approach where we identify barriers and we prevent them and we remove them. In doing so, we’ve got the voices of those with lived experience around the table.

As we’ve heard already, it establishes a ministerial advisory committee, the Accessibility Committee, and this is going to be led by disabled people and their whānau, their carers. What that is going to be doing is making those recommendations at the highest level to the Minister for Disability Issues on how to address accessibility barriers. And as we’ve also heard, the committee will have eight members, who’ll be appointed by the Minister. In appointing those members, the Minister has got to make sure that the majority of members are disabled, but also that the members of that committee have a very sound understanding of the Treaty of Waitangi, and also of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and also have experience in preventing and removing accessibility barriers. So it will be an incredibly skilled group around the table to provide that advice, but we’re also making sure that we’ve got adequate representation—making sure that you’ve got the broad range of types of impairment reflected around the committee, different age groups, and people from different cultural backgrounds and ages, but also making sure that we’ve got whānau and caregivers there to add their voices to where we need to go.

It’s going to be important that that committee then makes recommendations to the Minister on how we can prevent barriers to access for various Government agencies, not only making recommendations but then being required to report annually on their progress at implementing those recommendations. Basically, then, the Minister will have to present a copy of that report to us here in Parliament, in the House. This is really an important part of the ongoing cycle of monitoring, evaluation, and making sure that that progress is being made. And so alongside Whaikaha, which is basically the new Ministry of Disabled People, which was only established a month ago, this is the important next step in making sure that disabled people and their whānau have that voice and are able to reduce those barriers that prevent them from living the lives they want.

I’m really looking forward to hearing from people coming to select committee and sharing their views on the bill about what they feel the bill will achieve for them and any areas they think may need to be strengthened. This is an important bill, and I’m really proud to commend this to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Green Party to speak on the Accessibility for New Zealanders Bill. I too, before I get into the context of the bill, want to contextualise this discussion as others have before me, where, as has been noted, I can’t imagine that there’s a person in this House who doesn’t either have a family member or a friend or a colleague who has a disability. It’s estimated at least 1.1 million New Zealanders have a disability, and then at any time any one of us may have an access issue as a result of an accident on top of that.

So this is an incredibly important issue for us as a country because we know there are barriers upon barriers upon barriers in the way of full participation in our society for disabled people. That comes out of a history where there was a time where disabled people were thought to be wrong—that, actually, they needed to be hidden away in institutions or in back rooms of houses because they were a source of shame to families—and it’s actually only in very recent times that there have been structural, systematic attempts to change that and to move from a model of fixing people versus recognising that diversity adds to our strength in our communities.

Disability is part of our diversity and is something to be celebrated. That shift from a medicalised model to a social model of disability—we’re a long way from living in the enlightened world of seeing disability as the barrier as opposed to the person, and that history shows up in a really real way in some of the examples we’ve heard already this afternoon about inability to get into cafes, or catch public transport, or even shower within your own home.

We know that only 2 percent of our houses are accessible. We know that there’s double the number of disabled children living in poverty than non-disabled children and that there’s a much higher likelihood of poverty when there’s a person with a disability in a household that a child is living in. We know the unemployment rate and underutilisation rate for disabled people is double what it is for non-disabled people. This is not the fault of our diverse communities. The fault is that our world was created in a way that thought and worked on an idea of a norm that does not exist, that does not reflect our diversity, and that has actively locked disabled people and our children out of participation in society.

So this is so important, and our activists and advocates have been working with members in this Parliament and Government for years—at least five—to get accessibility legislation that would systematically identify and remove those barriers on that systems level. When New Zealand signed up to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, we signed up to take appropriate measures to develop, promulgate, and check the implementation of minimum standards and guidelines for the accessibility of facilities and services open or provided to the public, including those provided by private entities. It’s pretty obvious we don’t have that, and yet we signed up to the convention quite a few years ago now. The only mechanisms that we’ve got for disabled people to address their exclusion because of decisions made by this place and individual businesses and institutions in our community is on an individual basis through the Human Rights Act—but that doesn’t address or resolve the systemic issues—or through the New Zealand Disability Strategy and the Disability Action Plan.

I am really struggling to see, if I’m really honest, how this legislation takes us much further than the Disability Action Plan, which is also supported by a ministerial committee on disability issues that reports to Cabinet and receives advice from Cabinet and reports on a regular basis, and sets the priorities for cross-Government action and reviews progress by Government agencies. I can see the point of difference in that this will set up committees to enable disabled people to appoint to, in effect, the equivalent of that committee. There’s a bit more structure around identification, but that work programme still has to be signed off by the Minister. The reporting timelines are slightly different, but this has nothing in it that identifies the need for standards or enforcement, or even the complaints or disputes resolution mechanisms that have been seen as essential and part of accessibility Acts in other countries.

So today I do, on behalf of the Greens, want to bring in—we acknowledge we’re really looking forward to the select committee stage, and we will actively engage in that process, but we won’t be voting to support this. We will today be bringing through the voice of frustration from disabled people who have worked for years to get something that will be a step change in removing those barriers, and not just, at worst, window dressing or, at best, an incremental movement towards acknowledging their rights, which are rights—they are not “nice to haves”.

I want to at this point bring in the words of Jonathan Mosen, who is the CEO of Workbridge—a very well-respected, I think, analyst in this area—who said, “This is the sort of bill you get when there is no accessibility caucus demanding progress. It’s the sort of bill you get when a political calculation is made that there’ll be little media interest no matter how much disabled people object. It’s the sort of bill you get when the answer is always to form yet another Committee and put disabled people on it, without giving us any real power to make real change. The bill is simple. The Government’s going to form two committees to nominate a committee. The committee nominated by the committees is going to talk about stuff we already know about that desperately needs addressing. When it’s had those discussions, Committee nominated by the two committees is going to advise the Minister, who will tell Parliament. The best thing we can do now is start again and demand a New Zealanders with Disabilities Act.”

I also bring in the voice of Warren Forster, who has worked with communities right across the country, bringing in disabled people’s voices about how we could actively create legislation that would work to speed up the removal of those barriers. He sent me a message in response to this bill, saying, “Effectively, they’ve wasted four years to announce a committee that will be in place in two years’ time—six years to form a committee. Nothing I have seen suggests this will be effective. When I first met with officials in 2018, they said they wanted a bill. And I said, ‘If you want to set up a committee, I can draft a bill today and you can put it in the House tomorrow, and you have a bill to set up a committee.’ But as I explained, you don’t need legislation to establish a committee to advise the Minister, to ask other Ministers to use their regulation-making powers to improve accessibility. There are some positive noises in there, but this is largely ineffective window dressing.”, and disabled people deserve more.

We, as allies and family members and friends and colleagues, deserve more than window dressing. The time for pale ambition and glacial progress was in the 1950s. This is the time to actually listen, and progress real change.

The Green Party would like to see legislation that has enforceable standards; an independent disability commission that sets barriers, set standards, and removes barriers; and a programme of work not signed off by a Minister but independently led and approved by disabled people, with enforcement powers covering the private sector with safeguards against the risks of centralising power. This bill is not it, but we will work as constructively as we can and encourage disabled people to send the Government a message: you deserve more.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT as their disability spokesperson to support this bill, the Accessibility for New Zealanders Bill, but, like many others before me, we still have concerns—as do Penny Simmonds, and Maureen Pugh, and also Jan Logie. We agree: this is a committee to nominate people to committees, so it just seems to be committees versus committees. It’s quite sad, because the Access Alliance, who I’ve only just recently met—because I’m only a new MP here, for the last nearly two years, coming up—have formed this great group of 12 different disability groups, and they have already done a lot of work that I feel could have probably been taken and put into a bill, in some form. However, it is not being done. And, as Maureen Pugh mentioned, 1.1 million are identified from the 2013 survey as disabled, with multiple disabilities. As for myself, my godson has a disability, which is quite severe, and I myself fall into the category of learning disability, and also the sad reality is that I have to look after my eyesight. So, one day, I may need the services of a guide dog and have to learn to use Braille.

There are a lot of hidden disabilities that many people do not see. You see the access disabilities but there are so, so many. The other sad reality is that we already know this, and there are so many things that we can also instruct the public on: simple things even businesses could do that would not cost a lot. But if they know that there are problems, if the complaints have been heard, there are different things that can be done, just simple things like asking the communities. Mr Clark from the Blind Low Vision sent me just a few things that the Access Alliance have been gathering as a diary of access problems: the likes of a park where wheelchairs are not able to physically get in with other children; then also just simple things, such as our pathways, where people leave their rubbish bins and then the rubbish collectors come and leave them in the middle of the footpath, and so they’re an obstruction—not only for the disabled but even for mums with prams—that they have to navigate around; some have to go on to the streets. For me, coming from Christchurch, we still have problems with our pathways where holes and potholes are around and forming.

So there are just so many different things that could have been put into this bill, like standards, as has been mentioned by Jan Logie, and time frames, and enforcements. The enforcement is to come and give people that time to fix things, because also there is usually always costs involved in this. But if we’re not aware of these barriers, how can we fix them? And then also we need a proper complaints and solution process, because we have spoken to and heard from many disability groups that sometimes their complaints are not heard, and this is just not on. They are very much part of our community, whether you can absolutely see their disability or whether it is hidden—we need to make sure.

As I’ve read in the paper, accessibility is not just for car parks and toilets; it is our homes, it is our businesses, it’s websites, it is learning aids, it’s equipment to help people with any of these issues—transportation, parks. There is just so much that could have been done and also a buy-in for all New Zealanders. We can’t move forward unless we bring the whole of New Zealand with us, and make them realise that we all, some day, could be disabled. We have an ageing population, and many of this ageing population may end up having to need some form of access. Also, as we say, we can also have temporary disability, where we incur an accident or surgery which then temporarily puts us in need of some sort of access to get around—and that’s when able-bodied people realise how many barriers there are for those who are disabled.

The other thing is, with this committee having a nomination panel of the community nomination and a Māori communication, it’s great, it’s fantastic. However, what about representation from rural areas, which, again, their disability areas are probably totally different from urban areas—Asian, Indian Asian, Chinese, the Pasifika. These are all different areas and they all come from different cultures that have different ideas around disabilities. So I hope that all these lovely different areas come and talk to us at the select committee. I am glad that we have a long, extended time so that we can make sure that everyone’s voice is heard. Because this is very important: we need to hear everyone’s voice—be it disabled, be it able, and different races—because, as we say, every race has different requirements around culture. Some cultures don’t like to mention or talk about their disabled within their communities. So this is a huge input that needs to come out.

Now, I say that we are all able—whether or not you are disabled or able—because, if you get the right tools as a disabled person, you can be part of this society. It may not be that all of them can give you a lot of ability, but they can be part of this community as a whole. And we need to make sure that they have these tools to make sure that they are part of this community, and they feel part of this community, and not excluded like has happened over the many years that this has occurred.

Now, as I said, I have a learning disability, and we find that those run within many families and, if it’s not diagnosed, this can on for generations. Now, I know mine is only a very minor disability, but if we don’t have children learning and being able to participate in things, that’s another huge barrier that we are incurring. And this is a thing; it’s a hidden disability, and most of us don’t want to be classified as disabled. People see the physical disabilities, and, yes, that is a huge barrier there for a lot of them, but the hidden disabilities—you know, we’ve got to make sure that they are identified just as much as the visible ones.

Now, the other thing that’s really important is we do believe that every New Zealander has the right to exist to their best ability. And this bill, again, I’ll reiterate, it just seems to be committees forming committees. It definitely doesn’t seem to have any teeth. That’s why we’re going to be supporting it to the first reading through to the select committee, and we hope that we can get some teeth in it.

Before I finish up here, I would really like to thank Access Alliance group. They have done a fantastic job in giving a really great framework which could have been well and truly implemented into getting some things already up and running, and could have given teeth to the ministry when it opens to start doing things—even just contact between the Government and local government on just simple, simple barriers occurring in everyday lives. And the diaries that the beautiful people are now submitting so that we have ideas—now, this should have happened ages ago and looked at what we could have done sooner. I feel that this bill is not going to go far enough. I do hope that in select committee we get some very great submissions that will lead us to a bill that will give us some standards, give us some time frames, give us enforcement down the track, because, as you say, we’ve got to bring all New Zealanders together, and that means that we just can’t lump enforcement straightaway on businesses, or things like that. And also we need a good area where complaints can be heard, because this is another thing: these complaints, from what I understand from many disability people, have been overlooked, and we can find good and fast solutions.

So I commend this bill to the House, and I look forward to the select committee hearing, and hearing from the wider community of New Zealand. I hope that this can go further than what’s just committees setting up committees. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Kia orana Vaa Tuatua. It’s an honour and a privilege to make a contribution to the Accessibility for New Zealanders Bill. First of all, I would like to acknowledge the leadership of Minister Carmel Sepuloni, who has done most of the work to set up the Whaikaha—the Ministry of Disabled People—and, of course, I also acknowledge the leadership of the Hon Poto Williams, who has now got the ball and is running with it. I want to acknowledge the leadership of the House in terms of that.

In terms of the Office for Disability Issues, they describe the community as—and I want to quote—“We are children, young people adults. … we are parents and grandparents. We also are friends … and whānau. What we want is no different to anyone else in New Zealand;”. That’s the description provided by the disabled community, and that’s the description that they provide within the Office for Disability Issues.

My brother Paul is 36. Paul has mild autism and developmental delay. Paul is a supervisor in charge of screen printing and gardening, and leading and training others like him at Spectrum Care vocational services. The funding for the care and support of Paul is by Taikura services. Paul wants to drive a car. He wants to drive a car, but he can never ever get a driver’s licence, although I think that for people like my brother Paul, if the technology enables it to be a gain, then surely he can get a driver’s licence. But he can’t do that, so Paul is supported by my sister Ivanaka, who does everything that I should be doing. He is supported at home. Though my mum has passed away, Paul is supported to remain there with my nephew Lenny, his wife Anna, and also my older brother.

What I’m trying to say is that the description of the community about themselves is actually what I’ve just described: a group of people who support this to happen.

The Minister talked to us in the spirit of “Nothing about us without us”—that is the spirit of this bill, and if my memory serves me right, in the New Zealand Disability Strategy 2016-2026 and the Disability Action Plan 2019-2023, it talks about accountability mechanisms, and it also talks about cross-cutting issues, such as disability data. We know that it’s difficult to find data and how that’s recorded, but I know through the select committee process, until May next year—May next year—we will hear from the community about this.

Today, I want to urge people like my family, who never submit a submission to select committee, to take this opportunity, until May, to put a collective submission in on how a family supports their family member—for my brother Paul to catch the bus to work. If I had my way, I would actually want Paul to sit his driver’s licence and see if he can do it, but I know that my family would never allow that because they still believe that he can’t do that.

Today, we’ve heard from the Minister about setting up an Accessibility Committee to hear from them, and accountability in terms of reviewing this bill, once it becomes an Act, in five years’ time, so that it can come back to this House, and, of course, have access to the Minister. Reports will come to the Minister to address those and to remove those barriers that we as able-bodied people have made decisions to put there.

I want to acknowledge the Minister and the work that has been done, but I want to urge people out there: please, one in every four New Zealanders has a disability—please, make a submission to the select committee. I’m honoured to be a member of the select committee. We will be there. We will move around New Zealand, as the leadership of the Minister has directed us to do, and we will do that.

So please do make a submission. I know that my brother Paul probably won’t be able to write one, but my family can help him write one and present that to the select committee. So, in light of that, in the spirit of “Nothing about us without us”, it’s about us: if our family member is unable to do it, we will be coming together as a family and making that submission. I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ian McKelvie): I call Nicola Grigg—five minutes.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s with great pleasure that I rise to just take a quick in support of the Accessibility for New Zealanders Bill. I’m actually sitting here feeling quite remiss that I wasn’t aware that a quarter of New Zealanders live with a form of disability, through my own naivety, I suppose, and so I’ve been quite taken aback by the statistics that we’ve been presented with today. I do believe that the sheer number of New Zealanders and the sheer complexity of the various forms of disability they live with should be reason enough for the Government to present a bill like this to the House today.

We do support this bill but with some reservations, I think, as has been well canvassed by other members across the House this afternoon. We cannot emphasise enough how important it’s going to be for the Social Services and Community Committee to roadshow this, to take it out across the country, to actually practise what they preach and make themselves accessible to the people of New Zealand, to hear submissions from user groups and stakeholders and those who certainly will be impacted. We at this stage, from what we’ve seen of the draft—sorry, of the bill that’s been presented—don’t think it goes far enough. It does obviously provide a legislative framework to address what some might describe as systemic disability barriers, and a lot of other people have gone through those today, particularly around public buildings and spaces and transport. But there’s also things like services, particularly health services, technology, websites, applications, and communications barriers.

Ironically at the weekend, I was attending a future forum for young people up here in Wellington and had a young deaf woman come up to me with a draft idea for a petition. It was to ask the Government to look at making closed captions, or the words that we see on the screen just above me, available across all channels and across all programmes. I do hope that she now sees this bill and makes a submission on it and asks the Government to consider ideas like that, which would be life-enhancing for people like her. We do understand that this framework will reflect and align with the United Nations and other international organisations to address those systemic accessibility barriers, and we do obviously support that. It’s good to see that this legislation will be overseen by the newly formed ministry, and we do hope that it does form a close alliance, for want of a better word, with the Access Alliance, because that is the one group that has really clearly, to me, spent many, many years in an activation space and an activist space, and I think that without their work, I doubt that we’d be seeing this bill here in front of us today. It’s been five years of work.

I note that in 2017, when this Government first formed a Government, that was when the impetus really started to occur. Again, I note that it has taken five years to get this in front of the House today. But we do join other calls in encouraging groups and people from across New Zealand to get in front of that select committee and to help shape legislation that they’ve been advocating for for decades, and again, on my learning journey just this afternoon, I’ve heard about the impacts on some people. In everyday life for me, I take no notice of potholes in footpaths, and I take no notice that my voting information pack doesn’t come in Braille or in another language or any other form. I take no notice when there’s concrete blocks. I suppose having come from Christchurch, I’m used to broken footpaths and potholed roads and buildings crumbling down all around me. But also, there are things like hospital access. There’s one example here: for a blind person to be able to read all the preoperative procedures and safety protocols was actually literally impossible for them.

So this is a very lofty goal. We do support it. We would like to see more focus on regulation being included in here. We don’t like the idea that this does feel very much like an announcement of an announcement, but we do very much encourage New Zealanders to get involved and to help shape this so that it is of use to them and their lives. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s been a really interesting afternoon, listening to the contributions from across the House today. There has been some really good debate and some really good points that were raised right across the House. There are definitely points around enforcement, etc., which I believe taking this bill through to the select committee will iron out. One of the major, standout points in the regulatory impact statement about this bill is that it really needs to be tested against tangata whenua, against businesses, and, as my colleague Anahila Kanongata‘a-Suisuiki has mentioned, having people come to the select committee—and what the Minister has done to extend that select committee process—is so vital for ensuring that we get those voices, that we can hear those voices. So for some of the issues raised today by the opposite side of the House, I believe, by putting this through the select committee, we will get that good opportunity for analysis and be able to critically look at the bill and see whether it meets some of those or fails some of those tests.

Also, during this debate, I’ve had a little bit of reflection about my personal experience, like many other people have today. I have a cousin—my Uncle Esalei; his boy Lomi—who has spina bifida. I remember him racing around in this little trolley around our house, and I never used to see the stress on my Uncle Esalei. He used to be able to hold that as a good, strong Samoan man and hold his fortitude. We never saw the stress of what it was like to have a disabled child. They moved over to Australia when I was in my teen years and, unfortunately, my cousin Lomi passed away from complications. Then my Uncle Esalei died about a month later, and it was very much our family’s belief that he died from heartbreak.

I see every day throughout my mighty electorate of Mana what our disability groups and advocates are trying to do. What they’re trying to do is provide wellbeing, provide accessibility to things that we who are able are able to access every single day. I think of the Whitford Brown Community Trust, who host dancing every Tuesday or Wednesday in Te Rauparaha Arena. I went to one of their sessions—I definitely should stick to my day job. I also think of Oasis, who is at the back of the Waitangirua Mall. They provide disability advocates to ensure that people have access to the entitlements that they deserve. I also think of Riding for the Disabled. I hosted their conference, about a month ago, here in Parliament. I think about the hard work that they’re doing in Pāuatahanui, having built up and established an under-cover riding platform so that people throughout the Wellington region can come to their under-cover premises for their children to be able to have some good exercise to help with their core building and their development.

This bill deserves to go to select committee. It deserves to have those voices from the people at Whitford Brown Community Trust, the people from Oasis, the people from Riding for the Disabled, the people from Alliance, and the people and families who look after disabled children every single day. I remember one of the last comments that the Health and Disability Commissioner said in a recent public accounts committee, which was on financial accounts. We asked her to come to the committee and to provide her view about how we can put representation in our legislation that is financial legislation. She said there is the spirit of “Nothing about us without us”, but she said her hope is that we move to “Nothing without us.”

So, on that note, I absolutely stand here proudly supporting this bill to the select committee so that, across the House, we can continue to have constructive discussions. Just like my colleague over here, I ask that members of the public and members of that important community come forward and make their views known during the committee’s submissions process. Thank you.

Kia orana and meitaki maata, Vaa Tuatua, and happy Kūki ‘Āirani or Cook Islands Language Week. As always, it’s an honour and a privilege to take a call in the House as the member of Parliament for the Ōtaki electorate—or the beautiful Ōtaki electorate, I should say—but also as a member of the Social Services and Community Committee who will be working through this Accessibility for New Zealanders Bill in its first reading.

Can I mihi and acknowledge, first, Minister Sepuloni and the officials who have done lots of mahi in the last five years leading up to this bill, but, of course, also, the Hon Poto Williams and the officials for championing this bill through the House.

Today is a good day—despite what you might hear from some of the Opposition, today is a really good day. We get to introduce this legislation that is going to mean accessibility for all. As the Minister said earlier, this bill will improve the accessibility and, actually, the lives of those with disability—tāngata whaikaha—and their whānau and, actually, all others that have disability needs. This bill will address barriers like communications or getting or receiving information, education and employment opportunities, and accessibility to public facilities for many for whom this currently is a barrier.

Further, this bill establishes an Accessibility Committee, which I’m really excited about. It’s going to be led by tāngata whaikaha, our disability communities, and so we know that we’re going to get authentic voices from people with lived experiences, and their whānau as well. This Accessibility Committee will make recommendations directly to the Minister for Disability Issues, and it is critical that we receive that guidance and information from people, like I said, who have true lived experiences with accessibility issues and disability issues.

On that note, I would also, like my colleague Anahila, encourage the disability community, or tāngata whaikaha, and their whānau, and our community, actually—those awesome people like the Mana electorate that my colleague Barb was talking about. We in the Ōtaki electorate also have really great NGOs and community groups that work with people with disabilities. I have also worked in the disability sector for about 12 years here and in London, and can say that people have been calling for this for a long time. So it’s really good that this is a time that you can have your voice, and make sure that you submit on this bill. Your voice and your experience is really critical to this.

I will also be encouraging my friends and my whānau—and other people have talked about their personal experiences. I have my nephew Rawiri, from the awesome Ōtaki electorate, and his supporting whānau, my awesome auntie, or his nana, Mabel Tasker, and my awesome uncle, or his poppa, Roy Freegard. I’m going to talk to them about making sure that they submit on this bill and tell us about the accessibility issues that Rawiri has faced. Rawiri also has spina bifida and he is in a wheelchair. He’s a young Pacific-Chinese-Māori rangatahi, so the ACT member will be pleased to hear that when they submit, they will cover off some more of those diverse communities that you wanted. He’s also a really awesome representation of not just our whānau but also the Ōtaki electorate, in terms of he plays wheelchair basketball at a high level and he also swims at a really high level. But, of course, we know that that will come with accessibility issues, as well; not just the fact that he is in a wheelchair but that he is playing at a high level of sport. So it would be really cool to get his real lived experience around what that means, but also Nana Mabel’s and Poppa Roy’s experience of what that means in terms of whānau and what that means in terms of making sure that they get through some of those barriers, in terms of the accessibility issues. But, also, I’m quite sure that they’re a really resilient whānau and so is Rawiri, and they will have some really cool solutions, I think, too, that they will be able to talk to us in the select committee about, as well.

I’m also really pleased and heartened to hear the Minister talk about making sure that she’ll be seeking a longer period for the select committee. This is such a critical issues to be able to seek submissions on. I also look forward to going out to our communities to make sure that we get that real, authentic voice. This is a great day and I am very much looking forward to hearing submissions in the select committee.

Kia orana, Mr Speaker and to the Whare, and I acknowledge Minister Poto Williams, your Cook Islands heritage, and also your leadership as the Minister for Whaikaha, the Ministry of Disabled People.

On that note, let’s not kid ourselves. This is a Government that speaks itself up, is self-congratulatory, and applauds itself for its efforts which are of little value and significance to the people who are most affected, the people who wish for their voices not only to be raised in volume but to be listened to, not just heard or lip-serviced or lip-synced. They actually want this Government to heed and to take to heart the voices of the people of New Zealand most affected and, in fact, under this Government, most disaffected.

This debate is about the Accessibility for New Zealanders Bill. I acknowledged appropriately Minister Williams, and the Minister’s new responsibility for Whaikaha, the Ministry of Disabled People, which is a new ministry—more bureaucracy—established on 1 July this year. There was, or there still is, as I understand, and I stand to be corrected, an Office for Disability Issues, Te Tari mō Ngā Take Hauātanga. This new ministry, established this year, is another unnecessary layer of bureaucracy. I say that because I have heard in the House, with everybody else who has been listening—and not just hearing but listening and taking to heart—the voices of our disabled community and the disability sector. Their voices—as is well known for those of us who have sat on the Social Services and Community Committee for the oversight of the Oranga Tamariki bill, and the voices of the people in that sector, particularly the voices of the Office of the Children’s Commissioner and our tamariki, our children who have lived in State care—have been dispensed with.

In the same way I’ve heard speakers address the House this afternoon, advocating on behalf of the disability sector—my colleague Penny Simmonds, who is our spokesperson, for the National Party, for the disability sector and our colleague Jan Logie, spokesperson, again, for the Green Party. That voice in unison is falling on deaf ears with this Government. So let’s be real. The self-congratulatory speeches from the Government and patting themselves on the back and saying what they’ve done—everything from the voices of the disability sector, from the social sector of our children in care, Oranga Tamariki, is falling on deaf ears. That is the arrogance of the members in this House that I’ve heard speaking, congratulating and applauding themselves about how great this bill is for our disabled community. What this bill does is it layers up bureaucracy by establishing and setting in place a committee with another committee to appoint and make nominations to that committee, which is going to do nothing more in terms of its functions.

I now turn to the bill. Those functions set out in clause 15 are going to be scrutinised with quite some eye and detail, heart, hand, and head that are in sync with the disability sector, to say that this Government should have done more since 2017 than establish a new ministry and then put this bill before the House to create yet more committees to advise the Minister and her ministry on who should be appointed by a community appointments committee and a Māori nominations committee. I turn back to clause 15, functions of the committee, by which two committees have to be appointed to appoint members to the committee whose function will be to provide advice to the Minister. What has the Minister been doing when we have so many agencies, voices, representatives from our disability sector who have been advocating for years on what needs to be done?

Another function is to develop a work programme. Five years later, we’ve got a bill introduced to this House to say we now need to look at developing a work programme, but before we do that, we’ve got to appoint two committees to nominate members for a final decision for the Minister to make on who’s going to be on that committee. Well, there are a number of us in this House who have given service on various committees, and it didn’t go through that lengthy, unnecessary, inordinate process for those appointments or selections to be made.

Another function is to make recommendations to the Minister. Why is the Minister not listening to the very people most affected or disaffected, our people and the disability sector?

My colleagues in the House this afternoon have spoken about the different levels of disability and I’m going to bring it back, as I always do, in terms of where my heart and my relationships and connections are, and that is Te Wanganui. So as uri, as a descendent of the Wanganui tribal peoples, also as National Party spokesperson for Māori development, the relationship that I connect back to Wanganui is that a former Minister of this House, Dame Tariana Turia—who was Minister for the disability sector back in 2016. There was a news release on 16 June that Wanganui’s Sir Robert Martin was appointed to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Robert Martin was our first representative for the disability communities, being a disabled person himself, advocating and representing as of 2016 at the United Nations. And here we are, 3 August 2022, seven years after this Government came into power, introducing this Accessibility for New Zealanders Bill.

In the remaining moments that I have left I’ll be seeking some time to sit alongside members, my colleagues on the select committee, in terms of input around the details of the letter of the law. Because as lawmakers, as legislators, we have a responsibility to our New Zealand public to get things right. At a cursory glance at this bill, and, again, I draw on my lived life experience, as mana whenua of Wanganui, as tangata whenua, of dual heritage—my mother, a Pākehā, tauiwi, Celtic, third generation New Zealander; my father and his people being Māori. So, of course, I always look at the letter of the law with my legal discipline, but also my dual heritage cultural context, and I’ve already picked up on terms of some detail and definition—whoever writes or drafts these bills and legislation, that’s why it comes to select committee; because there are those of us that come from the context of different perspectives but the context of lived experience. I look at the terminology: ”tāngata whaikaha means disabled people who are Māori”. Actually, tangata whaikaha is a disabled person; tangata whaikaha Māori is a disabled person who is Māori. That’s just one example.

The other one that I’ve picked up as well, which should be subjected to scrutiny and to perspective—and when I sit on a select committee, I sit with that lived experience of a dual heritage context, unlike some other select committee members, who I’m constantly reminded, and they happen to be Labour Government members, that I’ve got it wrong, when they haven’t lived my life experience.

Well, I just put it on the record that there are other elements of this bill that need scrutiny, that the Government members need to be held to account for, because this is their bill; this is what they are to be held to account for. And importantly, in being accountable, it means more than just hearing and dismissing and dispensing because it suits your kaupapa. I remind members of this House and members on the Government bench that we are here to represent the interests of our communities; not, as you see, a political agenda to secure the position that you have right now. We are to be reminded that we are here because we have been chosen by the people, and it is a privilege to do so, not to kick them for touch when it suits your political motivations—my apology, Mr Speaker—when it suits the Government’s political motivation to do so, according to their will.

On that note, I think my message has been loud and clear. I’ve raised my voice and volume. I do that because I am here as a member representing the people we represent.

This legislation is long overdue. It’s a great start, and it’s a necessary start. I think there’s an irony—that this place should reflect New Zealand society, disabled people—along with some young people as well—and they are probably the least represented. There’s an irony that this place, which is about enabling our communities, is one of the hardest places for our disabled communities to get into. So I think the pathways in here should not just be institutional but also through every political party. I would say to the Green member who spoke, Jan Logie, and to the National member who just spoke, Harete Hipango, that that is worth reflecting on.

So how does that lack of representation play out? Well, we’ve seen it in outcomes in education, employment, income, housing, and health. COVID has certainly exacerbated the inaccessibilities, and it has also shone a light on the disparities, which is something that we can learn from. For me, one of the biggest and most revealing things for us to note is that there is no positive duty on the Crown to include disabled people; that it is up to those people to complain when that, in fact, can be very, very difficult and inaccessible itself. It’s people like Chris Ford in my Taieri electorate, from the Disabled Persons Assembly, who has tirelessly advocated for the last 22 years, who is making this progress.

It is people like Dave King from People First in the southern region; he’s the vice president, who revealed COVID self-isolation disparities—what it would mean, his concerns for disabled people around self-isolation, and what we could do as a society to help and make that situation better. People like Heidi Parks, who is a teenage champion for accessibility from Kawerau. She was a winner of the Local Impact Award in 2021—she spoke at Festival for the Future over the weekend. She wants to use her prize money to start getting wheelchairs into schools, simply so that students can have a go in the wheelchair and see what it’s like. She is so frustrated with people not understanding what her lived experience is.

So how do we change all this? Well, I can see that it would be tempting to immediately regulate, to mandate legislation, and certainly that’s what this Access Alliance have wanted to do. And I tautoko their advocacy. It would be quick, it would be economically efficient, but it would also be hierarchical. So it is no surprise to me that the National Party is advocating for this. Because one of the issues we have with quick legislation is that when it comes to implementation, if it hasn’t been thought through properly and if it is not properly represented, it will result in a divide and conquer culture and that is the last thing that this community needs. So requirements like standards, enforcement, complaints procedures, and so on—the step change that is needed—will come at the right time. But if we want to bring the whole of New Zealand with us, which is what Toni Severin from the ACT Party has said—and others have said as well in this House—then it needs to be done appropriately.

Currently, there simply is no framework to work from. The data collection is just not good enough. So in order to do this properly and to have enduring and flexible legislation that adequately and more than adequately meets the requirements of our disabled communities, we need to do the process properly. As tempting as it may be to rush it through and to try and have a restrictive and compliance-based quick fix in legislation, the outcomes could be terrible for some members of those communities because not everybody agrees with what the solutions are. Hence the need to get the committees appropriately represented and put into place. Hence the need to do this thoughtfully and carefully.

One final point I would like to make is the line that we’ve heard in the House today that one quarter of New Zealanders live with a disability. Now, that statement still puts the focus back on the people. The social model of disability requires us to look at the enabling or disabling environment. It requires a fundamental rethink about how we operate as a society, and that requires a framework and a culture change. It does not need a quick fix which is going to further marginalise some people and which is likely to be changed in very short order when the problems become apparent. This bill creates that framework. This bill is the first step towards a truly inclusive Aotearoa New Zealand for all people, and therefore this is the right way to go. I strongly recommend this bill to the House.