'Exceedingly weak': Petition to strengthen accessibility legislation delivered to Parliament

Thursday, 23 February 2023

Juliana Carvalho is lead campaigner for Access Matters Aotearoa. (Image description: Juliana is a wheelchair user and speaks into a microphone. There are balloons beside her and a sign reading ‘Give the Accessibility Bill some teeth’.)

A bill going before Parliament which aims to make Aotearoa more accessible has been described as “exceedingly weak” by an international disability advocate.

Canadian David Lepofsky has travelled to in New Zealand for the handover of a petition calling on the Government to strengthen the Accessibility for New Zealanders Bill.

The petition has more than 14,500 signatures and insists that accessibility legislation includes standards, a regulator, a barrier notification system and a dispute resolution process to remove access barriers.

A petition with almost 15,000 signatures has been delivered to Parliament, calling for the legislation to be strengthened.

In its current state, should the bill be passed into law, an accessibility committee made up of mostly disabled people would be established.

Canadian disability advocate David Lepofsky has travelled to New Zealand for the handover of a petition calling on the Government to strengthen the Accessibility for New Zealanders Bill. (Image description: A white male wearing a blue shirt sits at a sunny café table.)

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The committee’s role would be to identify accessibility barriers and provide advice to the Minister for Disability Issues and the chief executive of Whaikaha – Ministry of Disabled People, who would then assist with the development of the recommendations.

Lepofsky is blind and has been involved with disability advocacy for more than 40 years. He is the chairperson of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance and led the coalition to get the first comprehensive disability act passed in Canada.

He acknowledges that effectively implementing any form of accessibility legislation involves “a lot of uphill battles”, but the state of New Zealand’s proposed accessibility legislation is “exceedingly weak” and “far less than what people with disabilities need”.

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“They basically took three years or more to decide to create an advisory committee,” Lepofsky said. “You don't need legislation to create an advisory committee.”

He said the Government needs to enact enforceable accessibility standards on a sector by sector basis that provide barrier-free education, transportation and employment so organisations know what to do.

“The government shouldn't just pull these regulations out of their ear,” Lepofsky said. “They should develop them through a consultative process with people with disabilities and obligated organisations at the same table, figuring out what's needed.”

Despite their laws, Canada was not a “nirvana for accessibility”, Lepofsky said. “We have lots of problems”.

But with accessibility legislation there had been progress.

“Certainly we're better off than before,” he said. “There's ample room for New Zealanders to be proud of coming up with something that's even stronger and more effective than what the rest of us have done.”

As a blind person, Lepofsky requires accessibility to navigate websites. The sites he needs to access for work are fully accessible, which wouldn't have happened without the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, he said.

He said there were ways to implement accessibility that is clever, creative and cost-effective.

A crowd gathers outside Parliament for the handover of a petition to strengthen accessibility legislation. (Image description: A crowd of around 50 people, including wheelchair users and people holding canes, gather outside Parliament with yellow balloons and signs.)

“But it isn't appointing an advisory committee,” he said.

He said disabled people shouldn’t carry the burden of enforcing accessibility legislation – “once it’s the law, it should be enforced”.

“It's not that the government is short of advice on what to do. It's a question whether the government will do it.”

Juliana Carvalho is lead campaigner for Access Matters Aotearoa and officially presented the petition to Green MP Jan Logie at Parliament on Wednesday.

Carvalho, a wheelchair-user who has been campaigning for better accessibility for six years, said she was tired but happy.

While being interviewed by Stuff after the petition handover, she was waiting for transport, but there weren’t any wheelchair-accessible taxis available in Wellington which clearly illustrated why accessibility needed to improve, she said.

“But we got our message across pretty strongly,” Carvalho said.

She said she hopes politicians who want to serve the community listen to their voices.

“We need accessibility legislation with enforceable standards that will really create change and remove the barriers and also stop creating new barriers that hinder our participation aspects of life,” she said.

“Disabled people are not second-class citizens and we’re going to keep pushing to claim our rights until we feel we are being treated with the respect and dignity we deserve.”

Canadian advocate Lepofsky said disabled people are in every part of society.

“No politician can ultimately succeed by disregarding the most basic needs and rights of the minority of everyone,” he said.

When then Minister for Disability Issues Poto Williams introduced the bill to the House in August 2022, she said the bill would strengthen accountability across government and build knowledge and awareness of the importance of addressing accessibility barriers and growing accessibility practices.

And although she acknowledged the proposed legislation did not have a regulatory focus, as some disability advocates had called for, it would help shape new or amend existing regulations to improve the lives of disabled people.