Introduction

New Zealand’s Independent Monitoring Mechanism (IMM) is pleased to present our third Making Disability Rights Real report. We are reporting on the status of implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Disability Convention) in New Zealand.

Designated under Article 33(2) of the Disability Convention, New Zealand’s IMM partners are the Disabled People’s Organisations’ (DPO) Coalition, the Ombudsman, and the New Zealand Human Rights Commission. Our role is to provide independent evaluation of the extent to which disabled New Zealanders are enjoying their universal human rights set out in the Disability Convention.

The IMM identified six key themes in the lead-up to this report.

• Education
• Housing
• Seclusion and restraint
• Data
• Access to information and communication
• Employment

These key themes are indicative of wider disparate outcomes between disabled people and their non-disabled peers. Improvements in these areas will have significant positive effects on disabled people’s lives.

The IMM conveyed these and other major concerns to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Disability Committee) in December 2017, to assist the Disability Committee in forming the List of Issues for the New Zealand Government to address in its combined second and third report on the Disability Convention.

Making Disability Rights Real responds to the List of Issues but also extends beyond it, to reflect disabled people’s experiences in New Zealand. Included is a priority focus on indigenous (Māori) disabled people and Pacific disabled peoples. A lack of disaggregated data makes it difficult to report the experiences of disabled Māori and Pacific peoples in relation to each individual article of the Disability Convention. For this reason, a global snapshot of the experiences of disabled Māori and Pacific peoples is presented at the beginning of the report.

The IMM conducted a survey of disabled people and their supporters, and held public consultation hui (meetings), to inform our report. The nationwide survey was available online, in a range of accessible formats and languages, including te reo Māori and New Zealand Sign Language, Easy Read and braille. Hui were held in five locations around the country, all of which were well attended.

The IMM acknowledges change can take time. Positive progress has been made in the years since previous reports. In particular, we commend greater cross-government collaboration and improved participation of disabled people in the development of government policy.

Some system reviews are also underway that may provide benefits for disabled people. However, the primary comment of the IMM must be on current lived realities of disabled New Zealanders. There is still a great deal of work to do. Disabled people remain far from enjoying the full range of human rights and fundamental freedoms reaffirmed in the Disability Convention. Many disabled people are experiencing poverty, exclusion and lack of autonomy.

Eliminating these huge disparities requires a quantum leap. We need to move from compensating for an inaccessible society—founded on notions of disability as a deficit—to recognising disabled people as equal rights holders, by actively working to create fully accessible communities. The IMM urges the Government to mandate a systemic approach to explicitly integrating the Disability Convention into domestic law, and to apply the appropriate resource in order to make this a reality.

The recommendations in this report provide clear navigation to some critical starting points. We trust that they will serve as a springboard to accelerate meaningful advances for all disabled New Zealanders.

Peter Boshier
Chief Ombudsman,
Office of the Ombudsman | Tari o te Kaitiaki Mana Tangata

Leo McIntyre
Chair, Disabled People’s Organisations’ Coalition

Paula Tesoriero MNZM
Disability Rights Commissioner | Kaihautū Tika Hauātanga
New Zealand Human Rights Commission | Te Kāhui Tika Tangata

The Making Disability Rights Real report relates to the period up until December 2019. Production of the report was being finalised at the beginning of 2020, which coincided with the unfolding of the global Covid-19 crisis. These unprecedented circumstances circumvented what was business as usual, delaying the report’s launch. It is recognised that this pandemic has affected many lives throughout the world and, of course, here in New Zealand. The repercussions of such an event are felt more keenly by disabled people and vulnerable groups. It is with this in mind, that the decision was made by the IMM not to include New Zealand’s pandemic response in this report or as an addendum in Article 11. Instead it was decided that Covid-19 needed a specifically themed report based on disabled people’s experiences and the Government’s response to disability communities’ needs during this time. Work on this report is underway.

Report format 

The report starts with a brief outline of the Disability Convention, Optional Protocol and the IMM. It then provides an executive summary including priority recommendations, reference to the experiences of disabled Māori and Pacific peoples and a summary of the six key themes. The remainder of the report provides a detailed analysis of progress in the implementation of specific articles of the Disability Convention. 

Terminology

Many words and terms can be used to identify disability. For some, the term ‘disabled people’ is a source of pride, identity and recognition that disabling barriers exist within society and not within individuals. For others, the term ‘people with disabilities’ has the same meaning and is important to those who want to be recognised as a person before their disability. The Disability Convention uses the term ‘persons with disabilities’. In te ao Māori (the Māori world), ‘tāngata whaikaha’ may be used to refer to a disabled person.

The current consensus in New Zealand, based on the advice of the Disability Strategy Revision Reference Group, is to use the term ‘disabled people’. We have used this terminology throughout our report. We acknowledge that members of the disabled community may wish to refer to themselves differently. The most important guiding principle is to remember to consider a person before considering their impairment.