Warm greetings to you all.

It is a pleasure to address the Annual Conference of the Association of Blind Citizens of New Zealand.

I would like to acknowledge the President of the World Blind Union, Maryanne Diamond; Chief Human Rights Commissioner Rosslyn Noonan; my Parliamentary colleague Lynne Pillay MP; President of the Association of Blind Citizens Clive Lansink, and Chief Executive, Rose Wilkinson; Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind Chair, Don McKenzie, and Chief Executive, Sandra Budd.

The National-led Government is committed to addressing the needs of disabled people, including the needs of the blind. And we are fully behind the theme of this conference: "we can change attitudes now".

The Government is also committed to implementing the United Nations Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. New Zealand led the negotiations for this Convention in 2007 and our delegation included disabled people as full participants, ensuring that the right voices were heard.

The domestic implementation of the Convention is guided by the New Zealand Disability Strategy, which sets out a vision of a fully inclusive society that values the lives of disabled people and encourages their full participation.

In the run up to the election, the National Party campaigned on supporting the New Zealand Disability Strategy and developing a pathway for its implementation, with a particular focus on the principle of choice and the priority of frontline services.

Choice is fundamental to the Strategy, which states that disabled people are best placed to identify their own needs and the kind of assistance they need.

This is reflected in the statement often expressed by disabled people: "Nothing about us without us". 

This Government is committed to this philosophy as a driver of disability policy; working with disabled people to ensure they are able to achieve their goals, aspirations, and dreams.

National campaigned on these commitments and we stand by them.

In order to implement the Strategy and the Convention, the Government has established the Ministerial Committee on Disability Issues.

The purpose of this committee is to improve the co-ordination, leadership and accountability of government agencies in their responsiveness to disabled people.

Chaired by the Hon Tariana Turia, the Minister for Disability Issues, it is also made up of ministers representing the portfolios of justice (including human rights), finance, transport, health, state services, social development, and education.

These portfolios are represented to reflect a rights-based approach for disabled people, consistent with the principles of the Convention. The committee aims to give disability issues greater prominence across Government and promote better responsiveness by Government agencies.

Recently, New Zealand participated in the second Conference of States Parties to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in New York City.

The theme was "legislative measures to implement the Convention" and while many States Parties have ratified the Convention, not all of them have taken legislative steps to implement it.

In this regard, New Zealand has a good story to tell, having gone through a more rigorous ratification process, and having a well-established national disability strategy in place.

In keeping with the spirit of partnership between Government and the sector, the Government ensured that our delegation to this Conference included Mr Gary Williams, Chief Executive of the Disabled Persons' Assembly.

Article 33 of the Convention calls on States to establish or designate a framework that promotes, protects and monitors the practical steps we need to take to implement it.

This framework includes the Office for Disability Issues, the focal point within Government to lead implementation efforts. It also includes a co-ordination mechanism to promote and monitor implementation. For New Zealand, this is our Disability Strategy, overseen by the Ministerial Committee on Disability Issues.

But the most important part of the framework is our disabled community. The National-led Government is formally committed to involving people with disabilities within the national framework to promote, protect and monitor the implementation of the Convention.

We are determined that Government agencies should engage early and often with people with disabilities and their families about developments that might impact them.

Government Ministers have identified three key priorities for the Disability Issues portfolio: modern and more flexible approaches to disability support; an accessible New Zealand; and fully contributing citizens.

By modern and more flexible approaches to disability support, we mean a focus on choice and self-determination; we recognise that disabled persons and their families are best placed to determine their own needs, as opposed to a one-size-fits-all approach.

A modern disability support system acknowledges that people will need access to a range of supports. These may be temporary and one off, or they may be ongoing. A good, modern disability support system should be flexible and focused on individual needs.

We also want to reduce the levels of assessment, interventions, and form-filling that often takes up the valuable time of the service users and the services themselves.

The Government's focus is on providing choice and control so that disabled people, and their families, can lead ordinary lives and participate in society.

The Ministry of Health is investigating overseas experiences with local area co-ordination and individualised funding to improve disability support.

One example of this is the Local Area Coordination model used in Western Australia. This model places the disabled person and their family at the centre, and in control, of their support.

It utilises coordinators who support disabled people by facilitating their support rather than assessing their needs. It is a model that asks "what's important to you?" rather than "what do you need?"

An accessible New Zealand also means accessible government, with accessible information and accessible communication. Improving information access for disabled people is a key obligation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

As Associate Minister for Disability Issues, I am keen to make support systems easier to access and easier to find information about what's available because if we don't know what supports are available then we are unlikely to access them.

The Office of Disability Issues is exploring the feasibility of a website that will provide a single window into the full range of Government support for people with disabilities.

This tool will provide an easy starting point for determining what support is available and reduce the complexity often experienced by disabled people and families.

To create an accessible New Zealand, we must also ensure disabled New Zealanders are able to physically access cities and towns through accessible transport, and accessible buildings.

Towards this goal, the Ministry of Justice is developing a guide to the existing legislative requirements around reasonable accommodation, leading to better provision of accommodation by businesses and other organisations for people with disabilities.

The Government will also be examining committed infrastructure spending to ensure that accessibility for disabled people is kept in mind, and incorporated into the work.

I am encouraged that the investment in Auckland in preparation for the Rugby World Cup will incorporate the concept of accessibility for disabled people and I look forward to seeing this goal realised, for Aucklanders, other New Zealanders, and of course visiting tourists.

Recently there have been discussions held at the World Intellectual Property Organisation regarding changes to international copyright law.

At this meeting, the World Blind Union submitted a proposal to improve access to published works for the visually impaired.

The Office for Disability Issues will be working closely with the Ministry of Economic Development to formulate New Zealand's contribution to these ongoing discussions, and feedback from organisations such as yours will be extremely valuable.

It is important that the implementation of the Convention influences the development of other international agreements which have an impact on disabled people.

To live ordinary lives, disabled people must be able to achieve at school and work, must be able to look after themselves and their family, and have equal access to justice; in other words: ‘‘nothing about us without us".

The Disability Advisory Council is one channel by which this can be achieved. As a consultative forum of disabled people and their families, the Council provides advice to the Office for Disability Issues, which, in turn, supports Minister Turia and myself.

The Council provides advice to the Office on implementing the New Zealand Disability Strategy and on emerging issues that have an impact on disabled people, and is also able to provide advice to other government departments.

The Government is also working on an approach to improve the way disabled people in particular are involved with Government agencies that make decisions about them. We are committed to listening to the sector to ensure their expertise and experience is involved in the decision-making process.

This is also a key obligation of the Convention and we intend to have proposals ready by the end of this year.

This Government is committed to making a real difference in the lives of disabled people. And that's why we're reforming our post-census statistical survey on people with disabilities; to be more focused on ordinary life outcomes, to give us better indicators to track outcomes.

By working together with disabled communities and associations like yours, we will not only honour the Convention but also ensure that people with needs are having their needs met.

I am committed to ensuring this happens and I look forward to continuing to work with you all to ensure that yes, "we can change attitudes now".

Thank You.