New Minister for Disability Issues Priyanca Radhakrishnan says 'inequities are pretty obvious'

Thursday, 2 March 2023

Priyanca Radhakrishnan says work is needed to change systems to benefit disabled people. (Video published March 2023).

Motioning a bob hairstyle with your hands is Labour MP Priyanca Radhakrishnan’s sign name.

It was a “lovely” moment when a Deaf, Muslim woman gifted her the name at an Eid event Radhakrishnan was hosting at Parliament last year.

“I had wanted to learn [New Zealand Sign Language] for a while, and now I think just being the Minister for Disability Issues gives me that mandate,” she says.

While she’s “very much at the start of that journey”, she’s looking forward to learning more sign.

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Priyanca Radhakrishnan became the Minister for Disability Issues in January 2023.

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Radhakrishnan has been the Minister for Disability Issues for only a few weeks and, while it’s been exciting, her new role to lead and advise across Government on behalf of 1.1 million disabled New Zealanders is a “learning curve”.

“What I've wanted to do is to listen, to meet disabled people, organisations that support them and really get my head around the various issues because there are challenges as well.”

Radhakrishnan became a list MP for Labour in 2017 and the MP for Maungakiekie in 2020.

When Prime Minister Chris Hipkins announced a Cabinet reshuffle in January, she took over the disability issues portfolio.

The previous disability minister Poto Williams was in the role for less than one year, before announcing her retirement from Parliament at the next election.

Radhakrishnan is also Minister for the Community & Voluntary Sector and Inclusion & Ethnic Communities, and Associate Minister for Social Development & Employment and Workplace Relations and Safety.

Regarding her new portfolio, Radhakrishnan doesn’t identify as having a disability herself and has not directly worked in the disability sector before, but when working in the refugee movement she came across people with disabilities who had also experienced family violence.

“That's pretty much the extent of it,” she says.

Her closest experience to disability was following her mother’s journey with Parkinson's disease.

“I saw very quickly after a diagnosis, someone who had excelled in a society and in a system being completely excluded from it because of the impairments, the mobility issues that she had and the cognitive issues.”

She is “acutely aware” of not wanting to presume what it’s like to be disabled in Aotearoa New Zealand, but says “the inequities are pretty obvious”.

Employment, access to services and housing are some of the first inequities she mentions, but attitudes towards disabled people also lead to inequities, she says.

“I think the barriers that exist within our various systems within society are disabling, and that's got to be difficult.”

Radhakrishnan became a list MP for Labour in 2017 and the MP for Maungakiekie in 2020.

She feels strongly that there is power and value of people with lived experience “directing change and being at the forefront of change”.

As an ally, she hopes to listen to the lived experiences of disabled people and push for change across Government at the other end.

She refers to the New Zealand Disability Strategy as one of the key documents that provides guidance on change and the Disability Action Plan to implement that change.

She’s read the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) “a bunch of times”, and says the recent concluding observations and recommendations from a UN expert committee on disability rights is another document guiding “the types of change we want to see” in terms of employment, education, health and attitudes.

When asked to give a rating out of 10 on how well she thinks Aotearoa adheres to the UNCRPD, she wouldn’t give a number but does acknowledge a lot that needs to happen.

She points out that the establishment of Whaikaha – Ministry of Disabled People and the national roll-out of the Enabling Good Lives approach to disability support was progress highlighted by the United Nations, but implementing the convention in its entirety was not simple.

“The challenge in this portfolio will be how we roll that out in a way that is feasible but actually makes meaningful progress as well,” she says.

Only a few weeks in, Radhakrishnan says she’s “really enjoying” the disability issues portfolio.

“So I don't think it's just about compliance with the convention, it's about implementing it across various aspects of our society.”

Last week, a petition was handed to Parliament over the Accessibility for New Zealanders Bill asking it to be strengthened and include standards, a regulator, a barrier notification system and a dispute resolution process to remove access barriers.

Radhakrishnan says she is “aware that concerns have been raised” regarding the bill, but work has already been undertaken by previous ministers who have held the disability issues portfolio.

“The aim of the bill was always to set up a group that could provide a more concerted look at the changes that need to be made and advice on those changes.”

She wouldn’t go into detail the feedback she had been given over the bill, but says she will do her due diligence and go through all the select committee submissions.

Regarding the accessibility of her Maungakiekie electorate office, she says there is a ramp and wide doorways, although she would need to double-check the bathroom access.

She was recently at the launch of the Department of Corrections’ first Disability Action Plan. She said that plan was a “tangible step” to supporting disabled people in prison, but other organisations should be doing the same.

“Frankly, if more government agencies followed their path of launching their own plans based on the experiences of those who access their own services, that would be an incredibly positive move.”

She says her vision is for a society that is inclusive.

“I am under no illusions that requires quite a lot of change and a lot of work that will go into that… But I do believe that consistently advocating and making that change will lead to that inclusive society,” she says.

“Ultimately, what we need is to make changes to the system we have so that it benefits people from diverse communities, and that includes our disability community as well.”