2 July 2006
Life is for living - address to IHC Conference

9.15am Christchurch Convention Centre

Rau rangatira maa,
tenei te mihi ki a koutou i runga i te kaupapa o te ra.
Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa.

[Distinguished guests, greetings to you gathered here for this purpose today. Greetings once, twice, three times to you all.]

It’s wonderful to see such a big gathering of people with an intellectual disability, their parents and caregivers, IHC and IDEA staff, and other people who work in the disability area. I’m happy to have the chance to talk about what’s happening in Government for people with intellectual disabilities and their families.

I’d like to begin by congratulating IDEA, who have organised this conference and have chosen such a positive theme, ‘Strong families, strong voices – Empowerment for families’.

What does empowerment mean? It means being enabled to do something, and being entitled to do something.

For too long, disabled people in New Zealand weren’t enabled to do the things they needed to do to have good lives. They weren’t entitled to do many of the things that other New Zealanders took for granted.

Things like getting a good education, living in the community, doing paid jobs – disabled people weren’t empowered to do these things, and their voices weren’t heard. If we look at a brief history of disability issues in New Zealand, we can see the changes that have been made.

Changes in society

Just thirty years ago, most people with disabilities lived in institutions, with their lives kept quite separate from the wider community. Society didn’t see disabled people as having the same rights, or wanting the same things, as everyone else.

Things started to change during the 1970s. People with disabilities began to leave institutions and move into homes in the community. New services were developed to support disabled people to live and work in the community.

In 1999, the fourth Labour Government was elected, and I became New Zealand’s first Minister for Disability Issues. Today, I’ve been the Minister for just over six years, and I’ve seen some significant achievements.

• In 2001, Government launched the New Zealand Disability Strategy. The Strategy sets out what the Government wants to achieve for disabled people and their families, and how we want to achieve it.
• Also in 2001, we launched Pathways to Inclusion. Pathways sets out our plan for making sure that disabled people can do real work for real pay, and get the support they need to do that.
• In 2002, we established the Office for Disability Issues. The Office helps me to do my job as Minister, and makes sure that government departments are paying attention to the Disability Strategy.

These things show Government takes disability issues seriously, and is committed to building a much better world for disabled people and their families. The Strategy, Pathways, and the Office for Disability Issues have enabled us to make some important changes.

April this year was the fifth anniversary of the New Zealand Disability Strategy, so this is a good time to look back at what we’ve achieved.

Changes for disabled people and their families

First, we’ve continued to close big institutions for people with intellectual disabilities. Eighty people who were living at Nelson’s Braemar Hospital moved into the community in December 2004. In April this year, more than 170 people at Levin’s Kimberley Centre had moved into the community. The Kimberley Centre will close soon, and the rest of the people living there will be in the community by this September.

Pathways to Inclusion is achieving its goal of supporting disabled people to get real work for real pay work. At the end of June 2005, almost 9,000 disabled people had moved into part-time or full-time jobs since we launched Pathways. The Standards and Monitoring Service has made a very good evaluation about how Pathways is working.

Still on the subject of employment, Work and Income is running a New Service for Sickness and Invalids Benefit clients, giving much more support to people with disabilities who want to work. And we’ve made more funding available for people who are employed under the State Services Commission’s Mainstream programme, which covers some of the costs of disability in the workplace.

While there are already lots of disabled people in the workforce, not everyone realises what a big contribution they make, and what a huge range of skills and abilities there is among disabled people. Promoting disabled people in the workforce, and celebrating their contribution, is very necessary to changing attitudes about disability. For people’s behaviour to change and become more open and accepting, attitudes have to change as well.

I believe we can do both things at once. We can lead changes in behaviour, like encouraging employers to hire disabled people, that will change their attitudes. And we can do things to educate people and make them more aware about disability, so they will start to act differently. The success of the Like Minds Like Mine project about mental health issues shows us how successful a campaign to change attitudes can be.

Of course, the disability sector plays a very important role in changing attitudes as well. A good example is the work of People First, the self advocacy organisation for people with intellectual disabilities. People First does great work in helping people with intellectual disabilities to speak out, understand their rights, and educate society. I’d like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the work of People First and congratulate you for bringing the worldwide self advocacy movement to New Zealand.

Other things that have happened since the Disability Strategy was launched include:

• The launch of the Telecommunications Relay Service in 2004. This helps people with hearing and speech difficulties to use telephone services.
• The New Zealand Sign Language Bill, passed by the Government in April this year. The Bill makes New Zealand Sign Language an official language, and means that Deaf people can use their own language if they have to go to court.
• A $9.49 million funding increase for the Total Mobility scheme. Total Mobility is a scheme for people who need to use a taxi to get around, and the extra funding means it can be available in more places.

Hearing from disabled people and their families

Overall, we can see that we’re making government departments and agencies more aware of disability issues. But we really need to hear from disabled people themselves, and from their families, about whether they think we’re making progress, and making it fast enough.

The vision of the New Zealand Disability Strategy is not that the Government thinks society is a good place for disabled people. The vision is that disabled people themselves say that their society is a good place to live. There’s a big difference!

To help us keep in touch with people from the disability community, we established the Disability Advisory Council in May last year. The Advisory Council is made up of disabled people and their families. The Council gives advice to the Office for Disability Issues on the Strategy, where things are working well, and where more work needs to be done.

One area that we know needs more work is the way that the Government funds long-term disability supports. At the moment, ten different government departments provide funding for these supports. There are some problems with the way this works, and some people are finding it hard to get all the support they need.

The Office for Disability Issues has set up a project team to review long-term disability supports and find ways for the system to work better for disabled people and their families. We want a system that really supports disabled people to be independent and to take part in their communities.
Last year the government made changes to access to the Disability Allowance for people who are in vocational service or sheltered workshops. Previously, in many cases a person's Disability Allowance was paid direct to the provider of the vocational service. We have changed that so that allowances are no longer affected by vocational service and go straight to the disabled person.

However, if they are in what is classified as a “residential service” they still cannot get the Disability Allowance. This is a barrier to independent living and is one of the areas that our government is currently considering changes to.

Changing attitudes with information

Earlier in my talk, I mentioned the importance of changing social attitudes towards disability. One way to do this is to provide information. We want to enable disabled people’s voices to be heard, for disabled people and their families to tell their stories in their own words.

In 2003, the National Health Committee published ‘To Have an Ordinary Life’. In this report, people with an intellectual disability talked about themselves and what they wanted from their lives. The overwhelming message was that people with an intellectual disability just want what the rest of us can take for granted: an ordinary life, in which they can work, play, and enjoy their families and communities. ‘To Have an Ordinary Life’ was a landmark in our understanding of intellectual disability issues.

In 2004, the first New Zealand Disability Survey was published. The survey, called “Living with Disability in New Zealand”, contained all sorts of information about disabled people in our communities. It was a snapshot of who disabled people are, where they live and work, and what effect their disability has on their lives. The Government has approved funding for the Disability Survey to be repeated in 2006 and 2011.

This year, the progress report on the New Zealand Disability Strategy includes the voices and stories of disabled people and their families for the first time. Some of these stories are also in “Life is for Living”, the latest publication from the Office for Disability Issues, containing the stories of disabled people and their families.

Some of the stories in “Life is for Living” are very uplifting. Some are very moving. All of them are very honest, and I salute all the people who share their lives with us in this publication. I’d like to quote just a few of the people in “Life is for Living”, talking about what they want in their lives and what they’d like to see in society.

One disabled person said, “As disabled people, we know what we want – now it’s time for people to listen to our needs, and it’s up to us to make them listen.”

Talking about social attitudes, another person said, “Disability awareness is more than just making sure places have ramps. It’s about educating and informing people.”

The father of an autistic son said, “Life in my whanau is very difficult at the moment and we are asking a number of agencies to find ways to help us. My hope for my son in five years is that he is able to speak in sentences, communicate with other people and interact in a family”.

A disabled woman said about what she wanted in life, “I would like to work in a good job with supportive people who understand my disability and be involved in community groups where people do things together”.

These are just a very few examples. The report is full of stories like these, and if you haven’t seen it already, do visit the Office for Disability Issues website, www.odi.govt.nz, where you’ll be able to get a copy.

I’d like to finish today with another quote from “Life is for Living”. This one is a couple of verses from a poem written by Elena, a woman with an intellectual disability”. The poem is called ‘Ode to Involvement’, and here are my favourite lines:

I’ve got a job that’s busy
From 8.30 till 4
Then home to flatmates, household jobs
And meetings by the score.

What’s a disability issue?
It hasn’t stopped me having fun
I’ve travelled to the Melbourne Cup
And picked the horse that won.

Thank you!