Speech: Disabilities (UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) Bill

First of all I want to acknowledge the members of the Disabled Persons Assembly and I want to acknowledge the Minister, Hon Ruth Dyson for bringing this bill forward at this time.

The Maori Party has been happy to support this Bill throughout its stages in the House. It amends a number of Acts to make them consistent with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and as such it receives our full support.

As a party, we are utterly committed to addressing discrimination and social inclusion, and barriers to employment, education and access to services; and the various amendments in the legislation will enable that.

Our belief is to ensure that disabled persons and their whanau are able to access support in order to have a life of their own, and to achieve that vital sense of purpose that we all need.

Many Maori are missing out on entitlements to health and disability support.

In the Maori Party we are calling for a review of income support to ensure full participation in family and community life.

The Maori Party believes that information and communication which is tailored to the needs of Maori could be highly useful. We would also advocate for the development of a media campaign to address social stigmas around disabilities and impairments.

We are committed towards addressing barriers in education, employment and access to services to ensure people with disabilities have the same employment rights as any other person.

The Disabled Persons Assembly urged the House to ensure that no barriers be erected to delay prompt ratification of the United Nations Convention.

The Convention allows disabled people to “confidently claim our human rights that other New Zealanders have” – and again we wholeheartedly support.

But I am pleased to rise in this debate also, to bring a very important challenge to the fore.

A fortnight ago, I was stopped by a woman in a shopping mall in Hamilton which has led us to discover a whole new pathway of thought regarding the relationships of health and disability providers, including Maori with our hauaa, our disabled persons.

That woman happened to the indigenous peoples representative on the United Nations International Disability Caucus steering committee; solicitor and human rights consultant Dr Huhana Hickey.

I couldn’t help but be struck by the anomaly that while in the passage of this legislation we are supporting the United Nations Convention; this woman – the indigenous people’s representative on the International Disability Association remains unfunded and unacknowledged by New Zealand.

Huhana has expanded our knowledge of indigenous disability identity issues through the work she has done, based on models of disabilities on indigenous wellbeing.

She challenges us in this legislation, to recognise how well this Convention will take into account the issues of whanau, whakawhanaungatanga (family relationships); interdependence within the community and collectivity identities.

These concepts, she argues, are central to indigenous thinking and yet largely ignored by law and policy.

Collective rights and individual human rights are inter-relational and interchangeable with one another.

Within the Maori Party we share this concern.

We believe there is a need to review the current organizations within the health and disability sector to assess their effectiveness in relation to Maori clients.

It is about valuing the concept of self-determination; of a collective wanting to determine their own rights as groups, not just as individuals.

As an example of such thinking, we believe there needs to be integration of disabilities funding as opposed to the current silo approach, and an integration of solutions to address issues faced by whanau with disabilities.

Mr Speaker, the question that we must then address, is whether there is appropriate acknowledgment and recognition, in this United Nations Convention, of the role and status of indigenous peoples.

And I think it is extremely relevant to bring to the debate, the concept that as recently as August 2006, the United Nations International Disability Caucus working group was still debating the rights of women and girls not to be sterilised on the grounds of disabilities.

If the issues of identity, whakapapa, of genealogy, are still so current in the international debate, it does remind us all to be wary of areas we would not want to compromise on, in our own domestic scene.

New Zealand’s compliance with the UN Convention will ensure discrimination against enabling a person’s disability in certain areas of activity is prohibited.

What we in the Maori Party want to also be assured of, is whether the unique and specific issues of indigenous peoples with disabilities is also fully considered.

In our own land, the Disability Strategy has many strengths and positives which might give us a steer as to the international context.

However, Maori whanau with disabilities want to be able to create their own solutions; be self-determining. But providers have told us that Maori whanau with disabilities did not have enough input to produce a strategy specific to the needs of Maori.

In their view, the result is a generalist strategy whose implementation fails to address Maori specific issues – particularly kaupapa Maori services and access to te ao Maori (including marae). Further they said, that specific funding for Maori whanau with disabilities is woefully inadequate.

I heard that Te Roopu Waiora Trust came to the Select Committee with precise detail as to how the issues of discrimination and marginalisation already identified around indigenous peoples are even more marked in the context of disability.

We believe that it is essential that whanau Maori determine solutions to address the following issues:

Indigenous deprivation - lack of access to Maori language and knowledge particularly as residents of institutions (deaf schools, blind institutions, residential facilities for people with intellectual disabilities);

2. Barriers to government services : inadequate policies and rigid service menus have not included Maori specific needs or input and community services both cultural and non-cultural;

3. Lack of access to service and resource knowledge including health and disability supports;

4. Processes that assume comprehension, sight, hearing, literacy at levels beyond many Maori disability communities;

5. Physical access restrictions to public facilities, both internally and externally;

6. Attitudinal discrimination and institutional racism; and finally

7. Under-utilisation by Maori of advocacy and grievance processes.

Fortunately we come armed with some solutions as well.

We believe the solutions lie in working with whanau, hapu and iwi; and also the Maori-specific expertise available across this community.

Groups such as

Tamaki Ngati Kapo Inc: Maori community of vision impaired/ blind members and whanau;
Mana Tangata Turi: the Maori deaf community;
the National Steering Group of Maori Disability Services;
the Aotearoa Whanau Carers Network;
the Taikura Trust: Disability Needs Assessment and Service Coordination Agency; and many others.

In the conclusion to her doctoral thesis, Huhana Hickey recommended that one of the aspects of providing full autonomy for those with disabilities is to ensure that Maori with disabilities are at the centre of the decisions around their resourcing.

Understanding that disability representation is not only about impairment but also about the representation of all the diverse identities within the disabilities world is key to participation to those groups who have been traditionally under-represented.

We must be able to place the choices and direction of life back into the hands of whanau with disabilities. We must ensure that service delivery is whanau-friendly; minimising the number of agencies traipsing through their lives.

We seek to build the strength of whanau capability and reduce the reliance on formal and specialist support structures.

We want to extend the knowledge and strategies whanau can access to give them greater resilience in times of stress.

And finally, we look to encourage relationships of trust between both services and whanau; and between services and the State.

Kia ora