Disabled people make up most of Community Steering Group guiding the establishment of new Ministry for Disabled People
Friday, 18 February 2022
Disabled people make up nine of the 10 members announced in the Community Steering Group responsible for supporting and guiding the establishment of the new Ministry for Disabled People.
The members are: Dr Tristram Ingham (co-chair), Gerri Pomeroy (co-chair), Ruth Jones, Lou McLeod, Mark Benjamin, Shane McInroe, Pati Umaga, Lautoa Halatau-Talagi and Geneva Hakaraia-Tino.
There are still two roles to be confirmed – one rangatahi member and one representing the Family and Whānau Leadership Alliance.
“Disabled people have contributed decades of hard work to the vision of a Ministry for Disabled People, as a group we are humbled to be contributing,” a Community Steering Group spokesperson said.
**READ MORE:
* Disabled leaders disappointed non-disabled person will lead set-up of new ministry
* Covid-19: Disabled community ‘an afterthought’ in NZ’s vaccine roll-out, expert says
**
Geneva Hakaraia-Tino (Ngāpuhi and Te Aupōuri) said she felt “very privileged” to be a member of the Community Steering Group.
“Collectively we are all on the roopu to ensure that partnership, technical expertise and processes are implemented so that the new ministry can deliver successfully to its rightsholders,” she said.
“We also provide guidance, advice and support to the project team and its director to ensure that a disability perspective is central to the mahi.”
Hakaraia-Tino has lived with athetoid cerebral palsy since birth. Due to her condition, she is unable to articulate words verbally so uses assistive technology to communicate.
“As a disabled person, I will be a rightsholder in the new ministry and I look forward to being represented by it. I believe it’s critical that rightsholders play a significant role in the ministry’s establishment,” she said.
Send your tips, story ideas and comments to poutiaki@stuff.co.nz
With a background in communications, Hakaraia-Tino also has a number of responsibilities within the disability sector, including being a member of the National Enabling Good Lives Leadership Group and as a project lead for TalkLink Trust – Wahanga Tū Kōrero.
The Community Steering Group will also be advising on the job description for the chief executive and recommended the role must be filled by a disabled person.
“My personal preference is that the successful applicant has already fostered and established relationships within the disability community,” Hakaraia-Tino said. “I believe this would be beneficial for both parties. I also strongly believe the applicant must hold value to Te Tiriti o Waitangi and is willing to partner with tāngata whaikaha Māori.”
The announcement of the Community Steering Group comes days after around 100 disabled people attended an online protest rally organised by Disabled Leadership Now (DLN) and voted no confidence in the process for staff appointments relating to the establishment of the Ministry for Disabled People.
One of the protest organisers, Pam MacNeill, who is totally blind, said participants in the protest rally “overwhelmingly” felt that lived personal experience of disability was “critical” both to the establishment director role and throughout the whole ministry to set the ministry’s culture as a disability organisation and a policy organisation.
One of the suggested solutions made at the protest rally was to have a joint establishment director role, with one person being disabled, although this would be a “compromise”.
“We certainly wish the steering group well, and it’s fantastic to see that it’s mostly populated by disabled people,” MacNeill said.
In a letter to the chief executive of the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) and the Director General of Health, DLN leaders were asking for a three-month suspension of the establishment unit “to get the fundamentals right, including meaningful consultation with disabled people; showing respect for the mana of those senior disabled activists who formed DLN”.
They are also asking that personal lived experience be a key requirement in all job descriptions at the new Ministry for Disabled People.
MacNeill and other DLN leaders still want a meeting with the MSD and MOH chief executives, along with Minister for Disability Issues Carmel Sepuloni and Minister of Health Andrew Little to “discuss how we can rectify the situation” of a nondisabled person leading the establishment unit.
They are yet to be acknowledged by MSD and MOH in attempts to set up a meeting.