Summary of the Report Contents

Making Disability Rights Real in a Pandemic is based on disabled people’s experiences during New Zealand’s response to the COVID-19 emergency between 25 March and 8 June 2020.[i] The main section of the report sets out the key themes identified by the IMM as crucial to address. It identifies areas of the response that were handled well, and recommends ways the Government can improve responses to future emergency situations. First-hand accounts and observations from disabled people appear throughout the report.

[i] New Zealand was in a nationwide state of national emergency from 25 March to 13 May 2020, and during the immediate period after this (National Transition Period) which lasted until 8 June 2020, when the country moved to Alert Level 1.