New bill opens doors to means testing for disabled
Friday, 22 May 2026
A disability advocate says the new disability bill opens the door to future means testing while shifting more responsibility onto families already struggling to make ends meet.
The Disability Support Services (DSS) bill, which passed its first reading on Thursday, creates a legislative framework for DSS funded support.
Part of that framework is clarifying that families are responsible for the wellbeing of their members firstly, before the Government provides support.
CCS Disability Action disability leadership coordinator Debbie Ward said the bill treated Government funding as a top-up to family effort, rather than as a right disabled people were entitled to.
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The bill also gives future ministers the power to introduce means testing, allowing them to decide who qualifies for programmes based on income‑ and asset‑based criteria.
Those decisions can be made by a minister by written notice, without a parliamentary vote.
The bill also clarifies that the Government is not the employer of family carers, following a recent Supreme Court ruling that two full‑time carers should be treated as Government employees and receive the same protections as other workers.
While the two claimants will continue to receive the benefits, the bill removes the right of family carers to seek remedies such as additional wages or compensation through the Employment Relations Authority and restricts other carers from taking the crown to court over similar claims.
Disability Minister Louise Upston said giving families responsibility in the first instance reflected the way DSS funding already worked.
“This bill does not change current eligibility and access to support, nor does it introduce any new requirements for disabled people, families, and carers.”
Ward said the bill quietly shifted more responsibility onto family carers. “That risks deepening hardship for whānau who are already stretched.”
Data from Stats NZ in April found disabled adults receive less than half the median weekly income of non-disabled adults.
More than half of disabled people lived in households where income was not enough, or only just enough, to cover basic needs.
The 2023 Household Disability Survey found 137,000 disabled people did not have enough income to meet basic needs, with a further 281,000 saying they had only just enough.
“The bill asks disabled people and their families to use their own resources first - but what resources?” Ward asked.
As a disabled person, Ward said the bill brought back the feelings many disabled people and their whānau experienced when flexible funding was cut in 2024.
“The feeling that we are seen as a burden. The feeling that we do not deserve the same everyday opportunities as non-disabled New Zealanders.”
Disability advocate and lawyer Huhana Hickey wrote on Substack that giving families and whānau responsibility for the wellbeing of their members “in the first instance” should concern every disabled person in this country.
“It reinforces a long-standing assumption that families will step in where government support falls short.”
She wrote that while the minister promised the bill would not change eligibility or funding, when support is framed as merely a “contribution” towards an everyday life, it subtly lowered expectations about what the State was responsible for providing.
“When whānau responsibility is written more clearly into law, governments can retreat further.
“When sustainability becomes the dominant lens, disabled people often become viewed through the language of cost rather than rights and that is the real risk here.”
Labour MP Priyanca Radhakrishnan said the bill signalled a move away from a rights-based framework to one that was closer to a benefit system.
“The onus is on the minister to make this legislation as clear as possible that we’re not moving towards means testing, that it’s not a sneaky way to reduce support further for disability communities, disabled people, and carers.”
Green MP Kahurangi Carter said the bill was introduced with no meaningful consultation, saying people with disabilities were being asked to react to major structural change rather than being involved in shaping the system from the beginning.