Disability Advocates call on Minister to be honest about her intentions.

I had the privilege of getting together with Blake Forbes-Gentle and Nick Ruane and hashing out a response to the Minister of Disability Issues on the reductions to disability supports. We produced a short video and statement, which are included below.

Will the Minister listen? I am not sure!

She was pretty short with disability community representatives/stakeholders at on online meeting last night, stating that she was 'cleaning up the mess' and "ripping off the scab to deal with the mess underneath", and "there are areas of waste at the moment". She also said that she "objects to disabled people being used as bullets towards me". The Minister was absolutely certain that she was doing the best thing by disabled people, had the support of disabled people, and that any disagreement was purely politically motivated. 

Yet, so many disabled people and their families/whānau, and communities are deeply concerned about the cuts and reductions in supports and services. 

We are stronger together - and we summarise our concerns below:

Disability advocates Dr Rebekah Graham, Blake Forbes and Nick Ruane have joined forces to call on Disability Minister Louise Upston to front up and be honest to the disabled community after leaked documents revealed actions to reduce funding and limit access to key areas of disability support while telling the disabled community they had nothing to worry about in an evening open letter released last Friday.

The document clearly states that there will be reductions in support allocations, telling NASCs and EGL providers to “further reduce allocation of support” and to bring forward reviews of allocations to reduce spending.

The leaked documents show changes include a reprioritisation of residential care allocation which makes it significantly more challenging for those caring for disabled peoples to get residential support if the need arises. Instead the plan is more “community based” alternatives which will lead to decreasing options for carers with high needs wards.

“The government told us that they were going to consult with disabled people, they were going to involve disabled people in the decision making process, we’ve had two weeks in a row of information coming out, decisions being made without consultation with disabled people and it’s not good enough” says Nick Ruane.

Dr Rebekah Graham from Parents of Vision Impaired (NZ) Inc adds, “they are very clearly focused on reducing financial supports for disabled peoples and their families. They are far more focused on financial costs than they are on ensuring we have the supports we need”.

Blake Forbes added that he wants to encourage Minister Upston to join him for an on air interview for his podcast to explain her actions, and perspectives and speak to the disabled community directly. “Burying an open letter on a Friday night saying not to worry is one thing, but if she really wants to help show the community her intentions and her perspective, this is a great opportunity for her to do so.”

All three advocates are keen to ensure a proper, open dialogue with the Minister but like many in the disabled community, they feel the experience so far has been one sided and actions from the Minister have felt condescending. It was that feeling which led them to throw their support behind a parliamentary petition by Blake calling on the Government to reconsider these changes and retain the current model of Whaikaha and Enabling Good Lives especially while in the consultation process - which seems to have been ignored by a government intent on change for the sake of change.  

Blake’s Petition can be found here: https://petitions.parliament.nz/a25af790-a55b-42f0-1cac-08dcbd9b808b