Disability advocate Jonathan Mosen is moving to the United States. Photo: Supplied
An award-winning disability advocate is leaving New Zealand saying it is the worst country in the Western world in which to be blind.
Jonathan Mosen told Nine to Noon there were disabled people in the country with some much to offer who were ready and willing to give something back
"New Zealand is a very difficult place for blind people and other disabled people to thrive. We are so much the poorer as a country for slamming the door in the faces of disabled Kiwis with talent."
Blind and disabled advocate Jonathan Mosen to quit NZ in frustration
This audio is not downloadable due to copyright restrictions.
Estimates put the unemployment rate for blind people at about 70 percent, which Mosen said was absolutely unnecessary.
And yet without disabled people in public facing roles, an attitude shift was unlikely, he said.
"We have no Members of Parliament here who identify as an active member of the disability community, there has never, ever, been a Minister for Disability Issues who is disabled themselves. And in 2024 it wouldn't be considered acceptable for a moment for there to be say a male Minister of Women's Affairs, or a Pakeha Minister for Māori Development.
"I'm tired, I'm fed up with disabled people only being visitors to Parliament, how is it that a House of Representatives doesn't represent a group that comprises a quarter of the country's population."
But it wasn't only Parliament.
Mosen said 30 years ago New Zealand was considered a leader for innovation in the blind world, but a deterioration of blindness services was echoed by a lack of leadership of blind people in their own foundation.
"There has not been a blind, what we would now call chief executive, of the blindness organisation in this country since 1923, over 100 years of no blind person leading that organisation."
Access to technology and ground changing equipment and instruction in that technology had become mediocre, he said.
Moving to the US
Mosen will next year take up the role as executive director for accessibility excellence at the National Federation of the Blind in Baltimore, Maryland.
There he will work alongside companies like Meta, Amazon, Google and emerging AI firms, to ensure blind people were considered in new technology.
"It's a wonderland for people like me because it has over US$2m worth of equipment all plugged in a ready to go.
"We'll find new ways to bring that technology to blind people around the world, it isn't just about computers either, or smartphones, it's also about accessible appliances, washing machines, ovens, TVs."
Mosen said it was essential blind people were involved at every stage of development.
The AI space was particularly exciting with technology that allowed real time descriptions of a place on the way shortly, he said.
"It's a really great time to be a blind person and if the attitudinal factors can be sorted out around the world, then we will thrive and there's nothing that we can't do."
Barriers at home
But it was bittersweet, he said.
With so much work needing to be done here.
Instead of world leading technologies he pointed to new Eftpos machines that had been allowed with flat touchscreens, leaving blind people to have to hand over their card and pin and trust no one round was eavesdropping.
Or audio descriptions for television programmes that weren't available in on demand services, despite that being the increasing way people were accessing television.
"The irony is that it's harder for me to find out what's going on in New Zealand than it is to find out what's going on in other parts of the world because, in particular the New Zealand Herald app has serious accessibility problems, it's really hard to read articles in the Herald, I'm quite willing for them to take my money but the iOS app is in an appalling state. Stuff is a little bit better but not by much."
Mosen was born blind and said that put him in the minority.
"I'm not underestimating the adjustment if someone becomes blind... (but) I know without a doubt, with all my heart, that if a blind person is given the proper training and opportunity, blindness does not have to hold you back for achieving your dreams.
Botched apology
Mosen was among the thousands of New Zealanders abused in care and testified to the Royal Commission on Abuse in Care.
He was in Parliament for the formal apology last week and was staggered to hear Christopher Luxon use the term 'turn a blind eye'.
"I know that not all blind people agree with me about expressions like this, just as some women for example will vary about what's acceptable language, what constitutes sexist language, but I tell you this, if he had got up in Parliament at such a sombre moment and said 'we behaved like a bunch of girls for not standing up to the bullies who abused people' it would have been headline news that night."
Mosen said the use of the "ablest slur" was the result of a lack disabled involvement and representation at the highest levels.
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.