Accessibility legislation has 'little substance', disability advocates want it redone

Wednesday, 9 November 2022

Prudence Walker, chief executive of Disabled Persons Assembly NZ.

In his public submission for the Accessibility for New Zealanders Bill, Dr Jonathan Godfrey, who is blind, illustrated the access issues he and other disabled people face by going through the whole alphabet

Some of them included: A for accommodation, K for kids’ school reports, M for movies and entertainment and P for public transport.

For the letter S, his access issue was going to the supermarket because he can’t read the prices so needs to ask store staff to help him.

Public submissions closed for the Accessibility for New Zealanders Bill earlier this week, but Prudence Walker, chief executive of Disabled Persons Assembly NZ, said she struggled to think of anyone who “has much good to say about it”.

Dr Jonathan Godfrey is the national president of Blind Citizens NZ.

* Proposed accessibility law is useless without enforceable standards

* Disability advocates frustrated over feedback process for accessibility legislation

Should the bill be passed into law in its current form, an accessibility committee would be established, with the majority of members coming from the disability community and representing a range of access needs.

The committee would have no legal powers. Instead, it would provide advice to Minister for Disability Issues Poto Williams, who would assist with the development of the recommendations.

However, the bill does not include mandating any accessibility standards or have a dispute resolution process for accessibility barriers.

“The legislation doesn’t demand anything,” said Godfrey. “It sets up a bunch of disabled people and a minister both to fail.”

He said one of the major inadequacies of the bill results from the fact that it was not drafted by disabled people whose lives are being affected by a lack of access.

“If we had drafted our own bill it would look very different and it might actually then do something useful for us.”

Minister for Disability Issues Poto Williams speaks about the future of the new ministry.

Walker said the legislation needed to go back to the drawing board.

“The bill is structurally flawed in its design. It needs to be redrafted, and that needs to be done with disabled people, tangata whaikaha Māori, DPOs and the wider disabled community,” she said. “Most of what is in the bill contains little of meaningful substance and could be achieved without legislation.”

Godfrey said an improved accessibility legislation would need enforceable regulatory frameworks and the resources to “deal with the hundreds of thousands of issues disabled people face”.

“We need to legislate that the onus of providing reasonable accommodation exists on everyone and not providing it is an act of discrimination,” he said.

Godfrey said this issue of lack of accessibility in Aotearoa wasn’t just about him as an individual: “It’s about me and people from my community.”

He said he would like to see the minister for disability issues “declare her willingness to work with disabled people to help make it right. She can bring her fresh perspective to it … now this minister has a chance to be brave.”

Peeni Henare is acting minister for disability issues while Poto Williams is on leave. (File photo)

In September, a United Nations panel of disability rights experts released a report card on New Zealand’s fulfilment of its obligations to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which the country signed and ratified in 2008.

The concerns and recommendations came following the examination of New Zealand held in Geneva in August, attended by Disability Minister Williams and a government delegation.

The UN committee raised concerns that the Accessibility for New Zealanders Bill didn’t contain enforcement mechanisms, it may not cover private entities or local government and decision-making bodies and it lacked obligations to make tangible changes within fixed time frames.

The committee recommended that the Government establish a co-design and co-production process with disabled people’s organisations to address those concerns following release of the select committee’s report.

Williams has been approached for comment, but was on leave this week.

Acting Minister for Disability Issues Peeni Henare said officials sought feedback from more than 20 disability and interested groups to inform the design of the accessibility framework agreed to by the Government and subsequent drafting of the bill.

When asked if there was any positive feedback regarding the bill from the disability community, he referred to a Cabinet paper released in May, which stated: “Engagements were largely positive, but a number of groups still maintain that for the legislation to have ‘teeth’, it needs to include accessibility standards.”

Regarding mandating accessibility standards in the bill, Henare said taking a regulations-focused approach was considered during the development of policy proposals.

“However, while prescribing specific requirements has the advantage of certainty, prescriptive regimes are inflexible and difficult to adapt to best address the systemic barriers disabled people with varieties of needs face,” he said.

“The Accessibility Bill will enable legislation to take a flexible rather than prescriptive approach. It is focused on resolving accessibility barriers by using a range of policy, system design, and operational solutions.”