By Chris Ford*
Opinion - The Accessibility for New Zealanders Bill, introduced to Parliament on Tuesday, was supposed to mark a significant legislative milestone for disabled New Zealanders like me and the other 1.1 million disabled people around the country.
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Instead, after reading it, I was reminded of the 1980s hit by radical rappers Public Enemy, 911 Is A Joke, which excoriated the American police for their racist attitudes and empty platitudes towards stamping it out. Similarly, I felt that the Bill, as currently written, does not outline any accessibility standards, mandates, complaints processes or even an enforcement agency with sufficient teeth that would help to seriously begin the eradication of ableism and disablist practises in Aotearoa.
What the disability community did get on Tuesday was an empty piece of legislation that has upset many of my disabled activist friends and comrades, and even disabled people and our non-disabled allies who are not as involved as I am in the advocacy space. To say that the disability community is annoyed about this is an understatement.
From my perspective, it confirms to me that Labour has little changed from the party I left after having briefly joined to oppose the Rogernomics cabal during the late 1980s. The Accessibility for New Zealanders Bill illustrates that it's still not interested in establishing any firm mechanisms to address market failure, particularly when it comes to the lack of provision for accessibility, whether it be in the areas of housing, transport, information, communications, public building accessibility - you name it.
Labour's alternative after the disability community pressured the party through campaigning groups, such as the Access Alliance, is really predicated upon doing something about the lack of societal accessibility for disabled people that is, albeit, very slowly. What disabled New Zealanders want instead, after decades of facing the same accessibility barriers, is to start really seriously addressing them - and that means starting now!
As you can see, I am really angry and disappointed after personally lending my support for the access legislation since the campaign started in 2017 with the formation of the Access Alliance. I even attended one of the very first campaign trainings hosted by the group in Christchurch prior to the 2017 election which featured speeches from MPs across the political spectrum who promised to support the legislation. I also talked to our local MPs from across the political spectrum wearing my Disabled Persons Assembly (DPA) hat.
When I read the legislation after seeing a link to it last Friday night (after it had been formally tabled in the House ahead of its first reading on Tuesday) I couldn't believe that the end product was a Cabinet-dictated decision that accessibility issues be handled by a committee which was merely tasked to advise the Minister for Disability Issues on an accessibility work programme, and a programme which would have to be ministerially approved before moving to the implementation phase.
What really got me too was that the ministerial advisory committee is to be appointed by two nominating committees to ensure that there is majority representation from disabled people and also that Tangata Whenua are fairly represented too. I agree with the need for fair, majority disability and Te Tiriti-based representation on any accessibility governance body but to have the legislation just basically cover the logistics of appointing the nominating and main governance committees is really insufficient - in fact, adjectives fail me.
There were some redeeming things from Tuesday, though: for one, I was proud of the speech given in Parliament by my comrade, Green Party MP Jan Logie, the party's disability issues spokesperson. She nailed the issues perfectly in her address and her words and presentation powerfully conveyed the sense of anger, disappointment and dismay from within the disability community about this first draft of the law, after we had been waiting for so long.
The other is that I was mentioned by name (for the second time ever) in the House on Tuesday by Ingrid Leary, my local Labour MP. It was great that my own work locally as a disability advocate within Dunedin was acknowledged by her alongside that of my good fellow advocate and friend, David King.
However, I do have a wero (challenge) for Leary along with her Labour colleagues - you must really listen to me and other disabled people at the select committee stage and change the legislation to ensure that there are accessibility standards and mandates, that there is somewhere to go when we as disabled people have complaints around accessibility and that there is an independent body (whether it be the new Whaikaha - Ministry of Disabled People or some other entity) that has overall enforcement powers.
The accessibility legislation as it stands will just not fly. If it were to remain unchanged, then the disability community (according to research whose trust in political processes and institutions is already lower than that of the average population's) will just collapse. Personally, I would hate for that to happen as government action has been key in the past to realising what rights and supports we do have.
All I will say now is roll on the select committee process as Labour will well and truly hear not just my voice but the voices of our disability community in way that neither it nor any other political party has heard them before. This issue (alongside others) has galvanised disabled people already and as we showed over the need for a disabled person to lead our new disability ministry, we will be victorious!
*Chris Ford is a Dunedin-based disability advocate, writer and researcher. The views contained here are his own