The new DSS Bill undermines independent living for disabled persons, entrenches unpaid care by family, and creates the legal framework for means-testing — all without consultation.
Thank you for this great analysis and balanced analysis Bex.
I trust this makes it into the hands of the media as a DSS Bill 101, as well as the Opposition Spokespeople for Disability Issues.
I will be watching the First reading speeches at Parliament's Thursday introduction with interest. I hope they have tested the Debating Chamber's fire suppression system recently as I'm expecting some incendiary speeches!
I appreciate all the mahi sitting behind this post and your leadership, and those of many amazing others such as Huhana Hickey, Nick Ruane, Blake Forbes, Emily Writes, and others who are providing their own lived experience and expert advocacy on this Bill.
I'll definitely be using your artickein my own submissions, awareness raising and advocacy, and will share widely.
If income/asset testing were introduced in the disability surely there would be grounds for discriminstion. ACC is not tested, neither is healthcare so how can it be justified for disability? This CoC has to go!!
The Court will say (a) no discrimination on disability grounds but (b) even there is, it's perfectly justifiable. That's what the learned ones said about Labour's child poverty policy - the one that starved children of non-working parents, includign severely disabled parents, as an "incentive" to get them into paid employment.
And if this Bill is enacted as it stands, what is to stop the Ministry of Health, Health NZ, and the Minister of Health from treating it as a test case or blueprint for changing Health NZ-funded disability supports, including supports funded through Vote Health and regional Health NZ budget allocations?
I can easily imagine NASCs saying someone does not qualify, or qualifies for less, because they have a niece, nephew, aunt, uncle, or even a first cousin who could supposedly provide that support instead. Imagine being someone working as a Needs Assessor having to say that because the Government (or Health NZ leader) has instructed them to do that via internal guidelines!
Question, If this government is bent on not allowing family caregivers to be paid for the caring work they do, and demanding asset testing, does this care pathway monetize and commercialize the care giving process in a similar pathway that eldercare is managed now? By removing the option to be financially supported while caring for a family member living with physical and cognitive impairment, eliminates the ability for large numbers of ordinary NZers to provide that care for family members who need it, and will be forced to 'outsource' that care in the same way our elder care services work.
I’ve been musing on similar issues over the last few days, Jane, mainly with my independent Young-onset Dementia advocate hat on.
At the moment, as I understand it, Aged Residential Care providers cannot directly offer Home and Community Support Services to people who have been needs assessed for Health NZ-funded in-home and community support.
They can, and some do, set up a separate legal entity to provide Home and Community Support Services under a separate Health NZ contract. But those with Health NZ aged-care contracts cannot simply use their existing aged-care resources to also provide Home and Community Support Services through the same legal entity structure.
That is not the direction Australia has taken under its changes to care provision. And politicians on all sides here seem increasingly interested in following at least some Australian aged care and disability care systems and processes.
I’ve seen the Aged Care Association, through its CEO Tracey Martin, former NZ First List MP and Minister for Seniors in the 2017–2020 Labour-led Government, lobby hard for this change through the three aged-care-related reviews we have had over the last two and a half years.
The Ministerial Advisory Group on Aged Care is due to report back to the current Minister for Seniors and Associate Minister of Health, Casey Costello, around now. Costello has undertaken to release that report ‘sometime’. But given she sat on the Health NZ Aged Care Review Part 2 for 12 months, who knows when we might actually see it?
Like you, I also wonder how much lobbying by private sector and not-for-profit aged care providers has occurred, not only on the current Bill, but also on other possible Coalition of Cruelty moves.
Regardless of the above, this Bill shifts responsibility and obligation onto ‘families’, including the cost of caring, which goes far beyond dollars.
It is sickening, and frankly beyond my comprehension, that a government in New Zealand could believe this Bill is the ‘right’ response to the ‘problem’ it has decided to fix.
And, like you, I also wonder whether this is the thin edge of a very large wedge.
Its a disturbing trend, which will have huge negative consequences for many NZers whose families will no longer be able to care for them. Enough of his manner of legislation is being rammed through by many western governments internationally, as a matter of business management, supported by lobbyists who view ordinary human lives as an industrial resource regardless of the consequences for family resilience and social cohesion. Family ties will be severed in this process. We are witnessing huge social and economic changes which are happening internationally, outside the sphere of influence of any individual governments.
I note how Labour paved the way by repealing Part4A of NZPHA and enacting nothing in its place, in spiet of having six years in government to establish a regime that fuflills the Crown's obligations to people with disabilities under UNCRPDA 2008 (another empty gesture by a Labour government). I very much doubt whether (a) there will be a future Labour-led government; or (b) such a creature will ever enact decent law and implement decent policies for people with disabilities.
At every turn of this COG’s attack we are all complaining of the same issues. As you say - no consultation! Fascisim is its name.
Thank you for this great analysis and balanced analysis Bex.
I trust this makes it into the hands of the media as a DSS Bill 101, as well as the Opposition Spokespeople for Disability Issues.
I will be watching the First reading speeches at Parliament's Thursday introduction with interest. I hope they have tested the Debating Chamber's fire suppression system recently as I'm expecting some incendiary speeches!
I appreciate all the mahi sitting behind this post and your leadership, and those of many amazing others such as Huhana Hickey, Nick Ruane, Blake Forbes, Emily Writes, and others who are providing their own lived experience and expert advocacy on this Bill.
I'll definitely be using your artickein my own submissions, awareness raising and advocacy, and will share widely.
Arohanui.
If income/asset testing were introduced in the disability surely there would be grounds for discriminstion. ACC is not tested, neither is healthcare so how can it be justified for disability? This CoC has to go!!
The Court will say (a) no discrimination on disability grounds but (b) even there is, it's perfectly justifiable. That's what the learned ones said about Labour's child poverty policy - the one that starved children of non-working parents, includign severely disabled parents, as an "incentive" to get them into paid employment.
💯 Diane.
And if this Bill is enacted as it stands, what is to stop the Ministry of Health, Health NZ, and the Minister of Health from treating it as a test case or blueprint for changing Health NZ-funded disability supports, including supports funded through Vote Health and regional Health NZ budget allocations?
I can easily imagine NASCs saying someone does not qualify, or qualifies for less, because they have a niece, nephew, aunt, uncle, or even a first cousin who could supposedly provide that support instead. Imagine being someone working as a Needs Assessor having to say that because the Government (or Health NZ leader) has instructed them to do that via internal guidelines!
Question, If this government is bent on not allowing family caregivers to be paid for the caring work they do, and demanding asset testing, does this care pathway monetize and commercialize the care giving process in a similar pathway that eldercare is managed now? By removing the option to be financially supported while caring for a family member living with physical and cognitive impairment, eliminates the ability for large numbers of ordinary NZers to provide that care for family members who need it, and will be forced to 'outsource' that care in the same way our elder care services work.
I’ve been musing on similar issues over the last few days, Jane, mainly with my independent Young-onset Dementia advocate hat on.
At the moment, as I understand it, Aged Residential Care providers cannot directly offer Home and Community Support Services to people who have been needs assessed for Health NZ-funded in-home and community support.
They can, and some do, set up a separate legal entity to provide Home and Community Support Services under a separate Health NZ contract. But those with Health NZ aged-care contracts cannot simply use their existing aged-care resources to also provide Home and Community Support Services through the same legal entity structure.
That is not the direction Australia has taken under its changes to care provision. And politicians on all sides here seem increasingly interested in following at least some Australian aged care and disability care systems and processes.
I’ve seen the Aged Care Association, through its CEO Tracey Martin, former NZ First List MP and Minister for Seniors in the 2017–2020 Labour-led Government, lobby hard for this change through the three aged-care-related reviews we have had over the last two and a half years.
The Ministerial Advisory Group on Aged Care is due to report back to the current Minister for Seniors and Associate Minister of Health, Casey Costello, around now. Costello has undertaken to release that report ‘sometime’. But given she sat on the Health NZ Aged Care Review Part 2 for 12 months, who knows when we might actually see it?
Like you, I also wonder how much lobbying by private sector and not-for-profit aged care providers has occurred, not only on the current Bill, but also on other possible Coalition of Cruelty moves.
Regardless of the above, this Bill shifts responsibility and obligation onto ‘families’, including the cost of caring, which goes far beyond dollars.
It is sickening, and frankly beyond my comprehension, that a government in New Zealand could believe this Bill is the ‘right’ response to the ‘problem’ it has decided to fix.
And, like you, I also wonder whether this is the thin edge of a very large wedge.
Its a disturbing trend, which will have huge negative consequences for many NZers whose families will no longer be able to care for them. Enough of his manner of legislation is being rammed through by many western governments internationally, as a matter of business management, supported by lobbyists who view ordinary human lives as an industrial resource regardless of the consequences for family resilience and social cohesion. Family ties will be severed in this process. We are witnessing huge social and economic changes which are happening internationally, outside the sphere of influence of any individual governments.
I note how Labour paved the way by repealing Part4A of NZPHA and enacting nothing in its place, in spiet of having six years in government to establish a regime that fuflills the Crown's obligations to people with disabilities under UNCRPDA 2008 (another empty gesture by a Labour government). I very much doubt whether (a) there will be a future Labour-led government; or (b) such a creature will ever enact decent law and implement decent policies for people with disabilities.