DPA New Zealand

Bites: March and April 2002

News

President says year looks exciting

Making significant practical progress on disability issues in 2002 is a 'potentially exciting prospect', DPA president, Bill Wrightson says. Bill says DPA's financial position has continued to improve, there has been an upsurge in new members and the organisation is well positioned to focus advocacy activities while taking advantage of potentially exciting opportunities.

Much of that progress has been due to chief executive, Gary Williams, and team, while an outstanding contribution from former vicepresident and NEC member, Lorna Sullivan couldn't go unacknowledged, especially for her work on strategic planning and DPA's new consulting arm, MAXEQ. New vice-president, Marion Wellington, is also an invaluable support for the encouragement she is able to offer, Bill says.

With our focus for 2002 on translating the NZ Disability Strategy into measurable guarantees for disabled people, positioning ourselves with a public profile for the general election and increasing our membership, particularly a youth component, we have a very important year ahead of us. The NEC (some pictured below) met in Wellington on Saturday 2 March 2002.

 
Bill Wrightson

Bill Wrightson

Linda Beck & Johnny Wilkinson

Linda Beck & Johnny Wilkinson

 
 
Robyn Crisp & Gary Williams

Robyn Crisp & Gary Williams

Marion Wellington

Marion Wellington

 
 
Matt Whiting & Huhana Hickey

Matt Whiting & Huhana Hickey

David Corner & Cindy Johns

David Corner & Cindy Johns

 

New three year plan

Our Vision up for revision

DPA's national executive committee has asked the chief executive to set down a proposed plan of action for DPA over the next three years. Members will have the chance to see that plan later.

DPA's mandate for the 1999 election. Our Vision, will be re-visited for the upcoming 2002 general election in November this year. A draft vision will shortly be sent to DPA regional assemblies for comment. After that consultation process the new vision will go back for adoption by DPA and be circulated in June.

Transport

DPA believes that transport is a basic right of all people. Recognising this, government must ensure that all forms of transport and its infrastructure, both in the community and nationally, must be fully accessible to people with disabilities.

Moving Forward — a transport vision

All motorists, including those with disabilities, have been digging deeper into their pockets to fund the government's new land transport initiatives, following the 4.7 cents per litre rise in petrol tax on 1 March 2002.

That tax rise was introduced as part of the government's $227 million land transport funding package, called Moving Forward, announced on 28 February 2002, which is a pre-cursor to a new NZ Transport Strategy.

DPA provided a comprehensive submission to the government on the proposed transport strategy last year. The strategy will provide direction across all modes of transport — land, sea and air — and aims to reduce severe traffic congestion, improve passenger transport, promote walking and cycling, assist regional development and alternatives to roading, and improve road safety.

The government says the new transport deal will ensure crucial roading projects proceed while also giving greater emphasis to social, economic and environmental priorities. The vision for transport is that by 2010 New Zealand will have a transport system that is affordable, integrated, safe, responsive, sustainable and designed to:

To this end the Moving Forward funding package, which also introduced a 30 percent diesel tax increase and paved the way for toll roads, includes:

DPA — a strong interest in transport

DPA represents the coordinated interests of transport users with disabilities with and without mobility aids such as walking sticks, walking frames, guide dogs, crutches, wheelchairs and motorised scooters, as well as people with a wide variety of visual, hearing and cognitive capabilities. This group of transport users comprises about 20 percent of the population and is not only motorists.

We believe the other 80 percent of the population who are land transport users will experience varying levels of disability throughout their lifetime, particularly as they age, affecting their ability to use all the forms of transport covered by the proposed Transport Strategy.

DPA president, Bill Wrightson, who has convened the NEC working group on transport, says that during its 18 years of existence DPA has successfully advocated for solutions to the variety of transport needs for people with disabilities:

Of course, while DPA welcomed the prospect of a coordinated New Zealand Transport Strategy, our submission last year highlighted our concern that any New Zealand Transport Strategy needed to incorporate requirements for people with disabilities early in all planning processes. We wanted:

Our argument was that the NZ Disability Strategy identified actions necessary to enable movement around the community. We said:

carWe also drew attention to the fact that the rights of people with disabilities to access and use all forms of transport systems are established under the Human Rights Act 1993. Also, our right of access to footpaths and access-ways around and between transport-public space transition facilities are established in the Local Government Act 1973 and the Building Act 1991.

DPA expects the full NZ Transport Strategy will be announced later this year.

Research

DPA believes that there are many issues in the field of disability that require in-depth study so as to enhance the quality of life of people with disabilities. DPA will encourage such research and provide information as practicable.

GM matters to disabled people

It's quite likely that emerging new genetic technologies could have a potentially large and inimical impact on people with disabilities. That's what DPA told the finance and expenditure parliamentary select committee hearing submissions on new legislation being introduced following the government's decisions on recommendations from last year's report of the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification. The committee of MPs was during February considering the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Genetically Modified Organisms) Amendment Bill.

The government's position on the controversial GM issue aims to preserve opportunities while proceeding with caution. DPA's position is also one of caution, because we believe the medical and ethical considerations in gene technology are not an uncontested 'good'.

And as a considerable body of genetic research and development is biomedical in nature, disabled people are caught up as 'recipients'. Because we are much more likely to be affected by such technologies and modifications, disabled people need to be much more involved in the development of policies and any decisions about GMOs (genetically modified organisms).

While DPA expects to have substantive involvement in ongoing matters concerning genetic engineering, we were concerned and surprised that the new legislation as written had no statement of human rights implications.

2002 National Assembly for Garden City

Pencil in an October Labour Weekend booking for DPA's AGM in Christchurch this year. More details will come later but the National Assembly is a highlight in DPA's two-year programme and well worth the effort.

The DPA National Assembly meets every two years for a weekend gathering that usually has an exciting session schedule. An ordinary AGM is held during the intervening year. Last year Dunedin hosted a great AGM; in 2000 an extraordinary, well-attended National Assembly and AGM was hosted by the exceptionally wellorganised Waikato DPA team. So keep this year's Labour Weekend free for a visit to Christchurch.

DPA forms trading company

DPA has started up a new business consulting arm to take advantage of the upsurge in interest in disability issues, particularly in relation to the implications of the NZ Disability Strategy. MAXEQ Consulting Ltd is the new limited liability company owned by DPA as a profit-making venture that will also relieve the pressure on DPA in servicing the needs of consultants, government departments, and private organisations around disability issues.

The directors of the new company are Bill Wrightson, Lorna Sullivan, Dave Henderson, Gary Williams and Ron Entwisle. There will be central office and MAXEQ will run a register of disability consultants.

DPA chief executive, Gary Williams, says the opportunities for consulting work far exceed DPA capabilities. Now the consulting work that DPA is expected to do for free can be passed on to MAXEQ.

One area where MAXEQ will have a role is to help organisations understand and implement the NZ Disability Strategy. As the Disability Strategy kicks in, government departments, local authorities and private businesses will need more advice about how to implement the strategy.

All DPA members are invited to register as MAXEQ consultants with the DPA National Secretariat.

Regular political chats on agenda

Total Mobility and the Disability Issues Unit of the Ministry of Social Development (the reincarnation of WINZ and the Ministry of Social Policy) were on the agenda for discussion at the first of DPA's regular six-weekly meetings with Disability Issues Minister, Hon Ruth Dyson, held in February.

DPA president, Bill Wrightson, chief executive, Gary Williams, and Policy Researcher, Wendi Wicks, attended that meeting with the Minister. While DPA enjoys an excellent relationship with first Disability Issues Minister, Gary Williams says DPA will schedule meetings with representatives of other political parties also.

Youth leadership camp planned

A DPA youth leadership development camp is being planned for next summer at Hamner Springs, North Canterbury. The camp will be scheduled for a time in January 2003 and is designed to foster and encourage leadership among young people with disabilities.

Disability students surveyed

The State Services Commission is surveying graduate students with disabilities about their knowledge and perceptions of the public service as an employer.

childrenDisability Issues Minister, Hon Ruth Dyson, says people with disabilities get very frustrated having to deal with different government departments to meet different needs. She has been heartened, as one result of the Disability Strategy, to see more cross-sectoral projects, such as collaboration by the Ministries of Education and Health to improve support services for children with autistic spectrum disorder and to develop services for people who are deaf-blind.

NASC to be improved

The Needs Assessment and Service Coordination (NASC) has increasingly been inconsistent and used as a budget manager and a rationing tool says Disability Issues Minister, Ruth Dyson. She says the message she has been getting is that it's the main obstacle to people receiving good services rather than being the entry point for services.

The original concept of NASC was good — putting the person in need of support services at the centre of the equation, assessing their needs (as defined by themselves and their family) on an individual basis, and actively securing the best possible package of services to meet those needs, she says.

So she has given the Ministry of Health the goahead to undertake a thorough evaluation of NASC, including an examination from a user's perspective.

The Ministry is also developing evidence-based guidelines for needs assessment services. One of the key aims of these guidelines will be to ensure that needs assessment and service coordination is based on input from the users of services, to ensure that processes and outcomes are centred on the person receiving the service. This means they must also be involved in decision-making in a meaningful way.

Ruth Dyson believes NASC should be much more community driven, integrated and individually responsive as a result of the review, though more funding and trained staff is needed in some areas.

Pathways to Inclusion

Providing genuine employment opportunities for people with disabilities is the stated focus of the government vocational services document, Pathways to Inclusion: Improving Vocational Services for People with Disabilities at http://www.dsw.govt.nz/keyinitiatives/pathwaystoinclusion.html. Pathways to Inclusion says greater participation of people with disabilities in employment and our communities will be the twin goals for vocational services. As well, the Disabled Persons Employment Promotion (DPEP) Act is being repealed with any changes phased in over five years.

OBITUARY — Agnes Sneddon

Agnes SneddonIt is with great sadness that we record the death of NEC member Agnes Sneddon of Auckland who unexpectedly passed away during January 2002 after a spell in hospital.

Agnes became involved in DPA about five years ago and in her words 'took to it like a duck to water'. A vibrant, busy person, Agnes (of Ngati Kuri and Ngapuhi descent) loved life and fun. She first became involved in the disability community at Auckland University, then DINS (Disability Information North Shore) and DPA North Shore, after a spinal injury. Agnes made many friends in the disability community and was elected to DPA's national executive committee in 1999.

She became a member of the reference group advising the Ministry of Education on physical disability, was a member of the Maori DEAS (Disability Empowerment Advocacy Support) group for South and Central Auckland and was a member of DPA's Maori Advisory Group.

Only 'fortysomething', separated, and mother of two teenage boys, Agnes was determined to be in control of her life despite the spinal problem, diabetes, asthma, and chronic fibromyalgia. While her two children were her priority, Agnes wanted to make a contribution to the lives of other people with a disability, she found she thoroughly enjoyed her involvement in the disability community and was half-way through her second term on the NEC. We will miss you Agnes.

We Can — Can't We?

Christchurch DPA member Allison Franklin gives her view of terminology and the social model of disability.

Allison FranklinThe debate over the 'social model of disability' remit at the 2001 DPA National AGM was reported in DPA Bites (Dec 2001/Jan 2002) as being lost 'amid some uncertainty and confusion about what the social model of disability actually means'. As the person who led the debate against the remit, I can give a categorical assurance that I was not the least bit uncertain or confused about this model. As a former sociology student, I have never had difficulty understanding it, I just happen to disagree with it!

For the benefit of members who have joined DPA in the past few years, DPA was formed in 1983, seeded by money from the 1981 IYDP (International Year of Disabled Persons) Telethon Trust, and drawing together organisations such as the Co-ordinating Council for the Handicapped and New Zealand's affiliate of Rehabilitation International. The term 'Disabled Persons' originated from the United Nations, probably from American influence. It was quickly realised here that this term is not natural speech for New Zealanders (eg, we don't say '55 persons attended the AGM'). The term 'people with disabilities', contrary to Sara Georgeson's claim in the last DPA Bites was NOT developed by nondisabled people, but was a conscious decision on the part of members of DPA and those of us actively involved in Disability Awareness programmes (predominantly in schools) to ensure that the concept that we are people who happen to have disabilities, was accepted.

I was very annoyed to find when the Disability Strategy was launched that 'disabled people' had been chosen as the term used there, and even angrier when told (by an NEC member) that DPA had supported this. When did the membership give a mandate for this philosophical change? The explanation that society had now 'accepted' disabled people was naive in the extreme. Society (of which we are all a part) is constantly changing and evolving. People die, young people come up through the education system, immigrants come to live here. If we stop our disability awareness and positive promotion of disability issues, attitudes will slide back to the 'bad old days' of patronising pity.

The final 'nail in the coffin' for me was the remit proposing that this terminology be adopted for DPA documents. Yes, I got 'emotive' all right, witnessing an attempt to destroy two decades of work (by myself and many other people) in trying to ensure people with disabilities were seen as equal, participating members of society! It is not the role of DPA, or its members, to re-define the English language! I have cerebral palsy…that is my disability. It is a fact of life and something I accept and make the best of. I don't blame society for my lack of oxygen at birth and I deplore the mentality that does. This leftist nonsense wants to make us victims and tells us that everything is beyond our control. It is, I believe, dangerous and dis-empowering. DPA, at a national level seems, in recent years to have become increasingly 'political'. Whilst I acknowledge we have valid role in 'disability politics', I am concerned that our organisation is straying from its 'apolitical' stance in terms of party politics. This is dangerous for two reasons. Firstly because DPA must always be able to work credibly with whichever party is in Government at any time, and secondly because the members of DPA cover the political spectrum, and there is a risk of losing members and weakening the input from people with disabilities from all 'walks of life'.

I do not 'celebrate' my disability because given the choice, I could do without it (unfortunately it didn't come with a sale or return voucher!). I feel sorry for people who say they can't see the person before the disability and (any) discrimination they may encounter. They fail to see the true reasons to celebrate who we are as people. As well as people with disabilities we are family members, friends, lovers, people with senses of humour, each with our own personalities. Now THAT is worth celebrating! Suggesting that we should 'celebrate our disabilities' to me infers that we are setting ourselves up as being somehow superior to people who haven't got disabilities. This is ridiculous and will not enhance our efforts to be accepted as equal members of society.

I challenge the NEC to conduct a referendum in conjunction with the next NEC postal ballot to see which of the terms — 'disabled people', 'people with impairments' (most people have those whether they identify as disabled or not… I'm still waiting to meet a Perfect Person!) or 'people with disabilities' are acceptable to the wider membership. A full explanation of both philosophical stances would need to be included. I consider an AGM in Dunedin (with all due respect to Dunedin!) where a minority of the membership were in attendance to be an inappropriate forum to deal with such a vital issue.

In the mid-1980s DPA adopted the motto 'We Can'. It was chosen to show that collectively as people with disabilities we can make a difference, we can live fulfilled lives, we can achieve what we wish to (within the realms that all people, disabled or not, have to accept). DPA was founded on positivity, not self-pity and powerlessness. Let's reclaim our organisation and put it back on a positive path. I'm sure We Can!

Allison Franklin served on the regional executive of DPA Christchurch and Districts from 1985 to 1992, and on the National Executive Committee from 1987 to 1993, the final year as Vice- President. From 1997 to 2000 she was employed as Secretary for DPA Christchurch and Districts and now works as Consumer Advisor, for LifeLinks, an agency that provides needs assessment and service co-ordination for people with disabilities in Canterbury, South Canterbury and the West Coast. (Photo: Geoff Sloan, Christchurch Star)

Disability study wins award

A project on identity and disability won a University of Victoria Women's Studies 2001 Rosemary Seymour Maori Award for NEC member Huhana Hickey, announced in January. The judges said that of the two Maori entries, they considered that Susan (Huhana) Hickey's project on identity and disability was the stronger and better documented of the two applications.

Regional Assemblies

DPA believes that the assembly's strength lies in the effectiveness of its regional assemblies, which monitor issues relevant to people with disabilities and ensure that they are addressed at regional and, when appropriate, national level.

Amy joins the committee

Amy HindleyRichmond woman, Amy Hindley, 60, (pictured), has been co-opted on to the NEC to fill the vacancy left by Agnes Sneddon. Amy only just missed out on joining the national executive in the last NEC election.

Nelson DPA has been in recession but Amy, a 'Mainlander' and committee member of NZCCS, is very motivated to try to improve the lot of people with disabilities and increase DPA membership in the Nelson area.

I think that DPA is the vehicle with which to help get things moving, says Amy, who will push the message that people with disabilities must be included in life, not excluded. She wants to see more people with disabilities speaking for themselves and being encouraged.

An English woman who came here in 1996 to marry a Kiwi (they met on a train in England and corresponded for two years), Amy was born with spina bifida and has two artificial legs on which to get around. Occasionally, she'll use a wheel chair. She's very short, she says, without her legs on.

Meanwhile, she calls the non-disabled, 'TAPs' or Temporarily Able-bodied People. She says people did not think she would live to be 60. Nobody thought I would reach 60, so I am celebrating because I am more mobile now than I have ever been in my life. I'm a recycled teenager.

In England she helped establish an organisation called MIND, for mentally ill people (she's a trained counsellor); helping disadvantaged teenagers (by choice she had no children herself but helped other people's children instead); running a pub (I had my own business). Here she is a Green Party member currently involved in writing the Greens' disability policy.

If you can laugh at your disability, that's half the battle. I am still in there with a chance, she says. I have got a lot of energy and a story to tell. I feel I can make a contribution.

International Relations

DPA believes that it has a responsibility to participate in the international community on behalf of New Zealanders who have disabilities to ensure involvement in sharing of new developments and to promote its aims.

Celebrating the end year of AP Decade

Events in Sopporo and Osaka, Japan, later this year will mark the end of the Asian and Pacific decade of Disabled Persons 1993-2002.

The End Year of the Asia-Pacific Decade is being commemorated at the Sopporo Forum in Japan, 2002 when the 6th World Assembly of Disabled Peoples' International holds a session during15-18 October this year.

Back to back with the Sopporo Forum is the Osaka Forum, which is the 12th Rehabilitation International Asia and Pacific Regional Conference, Osaka, 21-23 October 2002. This event will also mark the End Year of the Asia-Pacific Decade.

The Asia-Pacific Decade required participating countries to carry out 15 actions but New Zealand, as far as we can tell, never signed up to it, says DPA chief executive, Gary Williams. I think DPA did its best to persuade the New Zealand government to take action but it didn't go anywhere.

About 40 countries participated including Fiji and Australia. The 15 actions set down change in areas such as social, human rights and income issues. In some areas New Zealand had made progress, but it lagged behind on others.

DPA will send delegates to the events in Japan, most likely members of the NEC.

DPA Diary 2002

May

2 May DPA meets with Ruth Dyson

June

June DPA Bites published

6 June NEC meeting via audio-conference

20 June DPA meets with Ruth Dyson

30 June End of DPA's financial year

July

July Call for nominations and remits

6 July NEC meeting, Wellington

August

August DPA Bites published

1 August DPA meets with Ruth Dyson

30 August Close call for nominations and remits

September

12 September DPA meets with Ruth Dyson

12 September NEC meeting via audio-conference

October

October NEC elections

October DPA Bites published

Early October Disabled Persons International (DPI)

Early October Asia/Pacific Regional Forum, Shanghai, China

15-18 October DPI International Forum, Osaka, Japan

21-23 October Rehabilitation International Assembly, Sopporo, Japan

24 October DPA meets with Ruth Dyson

24 October DPA meets with Ruth Dyson

24 October NEC meeting, Christchurch

25-27 October National Assembly and Conference, Christchurch

November

November New Zealand general election

December

December DPA Bites published

7-8 December NEC meeting, Wellington

12 December DPA meets with Ruth Dyson

24 December DPA National Secretariat closes

January 2003

January Youth Leadership Development Camp, Hamner Springs

6 January DPA National Secretariat opens

Want to know more?

If you need more information from the DPA National Secretariat on any item in Bites simply phone /ITTY us on (04) 801-9100, fax your request to (04) 801-9565, send it email: gen@dpa.org.nz, or to DPA (New Zealand) Inc, PO Box 27-524, Wellington or check our website www.dpa.org.nz.