Pacific Disability Forum Regional Conference

I want to firstly acknowledge Mr Sumasafu Vilsoni and Ms Savina Nongebatu, the Co-Chairpersons of the Pacific Disability Forum, for inviting me to open this second day of the Pacific Regional forum.

It is a great honour for us all in Aotearoa, to welcome to our shores representatives of disabled persons organizations, government agencies, donor organisations, disabled people and other interested parties from the Pacific, Australia and Asia.

And I have particular pleasure in seeing on the agenda a place for two people known as great friends to this forum:

• Graeme Innes, Disability Discrimination Commissioner and Race Discrimination Commissioner Australian Human Rights Commission
• and Ron McCallum, Chair of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

I am pleased that my Australian Ministerial colleague, the Hon. Richard Marles MP, the Australian Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs, has agreed to close this conference on Wednesday.

One of the very important roles of this forum is to provide an opportunity to renew friendships forged with those of you who attended the Pacific Island Disability Ministers’ Forum held in October 2009.

The conference was attended by ministers, government officials and community representatives from Australia, Cook Islands, Micronesia, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Marshall Islands, Samoa, Soloman Islands, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

One of the lasting memories of that meeting I attended in Rarotonga was one of warmth and a shared vision.

That although each country had unique challenges – whether it was geographical, attitudes, or too few resources spread thinly – we all shared a commitment to the vision that disabled people need to be able to live their lives as others do.

The first meeting of Pacific Disability Ministers in October 2009 occurred under the shadow of tragedy when more than 100 lives were lost following a tsunami in Samoa, American Samoa and in Tonga.

And now of course, this second meeting will be inevitably mindful of the catastrophic impacts of earthquakes and related disasters in Christchurch and Japan.

Such large-scale crises have fallen disproportionately on disabled peoples and their families.

When basic infrastructure is damaged leaving water, sanitation, sewerage, power, telecommunications and transport systems in disarray, the capacity for disabled persons to function as before is severely affected.

Add to that the inevitable staffing difficulties due to support workers leaving the area, affected by their own situations of hardship, and it is obvious that the circumstances of many disabled persons and their families at a time of such fragility, leave them especially vulnerable.

As Minister of Disability Issues I was greatly concerned that we were doing all that we could to ensure the wellbeing of disabled persons and their families was uppermost in our minds.

Each provider was contacted by phone to get an assessment of damage to property and service continuity, and to assess what assistance was required (for example evacuation, hospitalisation, or assistance with locating people).

We maintained daily contact with providers until their situation stabilised. We tracked the relocation of over 300 community residential clients and we coordinated with agencies on the ground to ensure that disabled people were supported.

In many ways, our experience post-quake restored the crucial importance of partnerships with disabled people’s organisations; with disabled persons and their families; as crucial to any plan.

And so it is timely as a result of our recent experiences to focus on partnership in the context of our support for increasing social and economic participation by people with disability in the Pacific.

We know that more than 800,000 people in the Pacific live with a disability and they are among the most vulnerable to social and economic exclusion and that is even before considering the undue impacts of natural disasters.

And yet an undisputed strength of Pacific peoples, Polynesian peoples, including Mäori, is the value we place on our aiga, our whänau, our families.

The strength of our relationships, our strong families and our strong communities provides us with a powerful base to include the voice of disabled people. The opinions and experiences of disabled people can only enrich what we are trying to achieve.

The Pacific Disability Forum has played a key role in assisting national Disabled Peoples Organisations to build capacity to deliver programmes and advocate for disabled people.

Of particular note has been the focus that the Forum has given to raising awareness of issues for women with disabilities, including providing support for a network of Pacific women with disabilities to information share and advocate together on specific issues.

And I am reminded of that saying teach a woman and you teach a generation – a thought that was no doubt reinforced at the sessions held yesterday in focusing on women with disabilities.

We are soon to reach a momentous point in the life of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Currently there are 99 States Parties to the Convention and any day the 100th State Party is expected.

The Convention is the stronger for the partnership and involvement with disabled people. It is quite a different treaty from others because of this.
Of course, disabled people already had these rights. But the Convention spells out in detail what can be actually done if they are to be experienced by disabled people.

New Zealand continues to promote the Convention at every opportunity. At the United Nations Human Rights Council session held in March, we along with Mexico put forward a resolution on the important role of international co-operation for the realisation of the rights of disabled people.

That resolution itself followed the successful outcome of last year’s United Nations Summit, entitled ‘Keeping the Promise: united to achieve the Millennium Development Goals’.

In particular, the recognition by States that policy and actions in development co-operation must focus on disabled people in order that they may benefit from progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

But what does all this mean on the ground?
As Pacific nations, how do you best adopt and apply the Convention and what does that mean to your Pacific nation and disabled people?

Essentially the focus, as always, should be on disabled people and how we can partner with them so disabled people can enjoy their lives as others do.

I understand that a new Pacific Disability Forum Strategic Plan will be presented at the end of this conference. I wish all members well in your deliberations on the Plan; your implementation of the Convention and in setting objectives for the Forum’s future.

What will be so crucial to your deliberations is the way in which you are prepared to engage and open up to the challenges of multiple voices, multiple nations, multiple conversations all founded on the central significance of culture as a unifying force.

I see that this afternoon’s sessions include one from

• Feala Afoa – talking about Faiva Ora – the national Pasifika Disability Plan here in Aotearoa;
• the Aboriginal Disability Network;
• Mental Health in the Pacific Islands;
• the experiences of the PNG Association of Disabled Persons;
• the Fiji Disabled Peoples Association and
• the Pohnpei Consumer Organisation.

Just in the space of a few hours you will be faced with plenty of material to consider how you can ensure that the partnership you bring together today, includes the dynamic and diverse range of voices brought under the umbrella of the Pacific Regional Strategy on Disability.

In August 2010, the New Zealand Government along with other Pacific leaders at the Pacific Islands Forum, affirmed support for the Strategy.

The leaders acknowledged that the Strategy provides effective guidance for Forum members and encourages all players – governments, civil society, development partners and regional organisations to work together to advance their work on disabilities.

I want to pay particular tribute to Disabled Peoples Organisations which play such important advocacy roles in their countries. Countries that previously had no disability policies have now developed national disability policies that become integral parts of mainstream government ministries.

All this activity has increased public awareness around disability.

In New Zealand the Government has made sure that there is a framework to promote, protect and monitor the rights of disabled people and this involves – as a priority - partnership with disabled people.

To allow this the government has provided additional funding to the Human Rights Commission and the Office of the Ombudsmen and will establish a full time Disability Rights Commissioner, within the Human Rights Commission.

The Government has also funded a Convention Coalition made up of six Disabled Persons Organisations to monitor disabled people’s experience of their rights.
I was pleased to accept their first report in December 2010. I was particularly delighted that this report was written by disabled people, trained in interviewing techniques, and in gathering information.

For the Convention on the Rights of Disabled Persons to be effective each partner must play their own part alongside government. In New Zealand again, the Ministerial Committee on Disability Issues provides leadership and co-ordination of activity across government.

I want to come back to the notion of partnership with Pacific peoples, and to share some of the background around our own Pacific Disability Plan in Aotearoa.

At the centre of the plan is the need for a supportive, positive environment that takes into account a person’s culture. It further aims to ensure frontline disability workers and disability organisations are responsive to Pacific disabled peoples needs. It acknowledges that there is work to do on challenging traditional perspectives of disability.

To hear the voice of the Pacific disabled peoples the Faiva Ora Leadership Group was established so disability services hear the key issues facing Pacific disabled peoples in New Zealand. The group comprises of Pacific disabled peoples, Pacific disability workers, Pacific caregivers and whänau of disabled peoples. Members are from various regions within New Zealand, have varying disability types and represent different Pacific ethnicities.

Part of Faiva Ora is also to develop a Pacific Disability Workforce. To achieve this we have developed information that showcases the various roles which Pacific peoples currently have in the disability sector. The intention is to encourage Pacific peoples to consider disability work as a career pathway.

All three of these aspects – supportive environment, leadership by disabled persons and the Pacific disability workforce – are fundamental to the action needed to support Pasifika disabled people to live in their own homes, to participate in their communities and to live their lives free from barriers that might otherwise have held them back.

We must ensure our vision encompasses all aspects of our communities; draws in all of our families if we are to achieve the change we need.

Here in Auckland, for example, we have Lu’i Ola - an interagency Auckland Pacific disability working group.

Lu’i Ola has also developed the Pacific Church Disability Toolkit. This resource provides information on disability and related services to Pacific church communities. The toolkit also provides suggestions to Pacific churches on how to respond to needs of disabled peoples in the community from accessible church ramps and car parks to church service formats, such as prayers and hymns, to enable disabled people to be in supportive environment that is free from barriers.

Finally, this conference provides us with every opportunity to make a real difference in disabled people's lives.

And I want to leave my final words to endorse the work of Ron McCallum whom I see is following directly after me.
Ron has been an exemplary member and indeed Chairperson for the Committee on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with disabilities.

He has brought to its work a much needed legal rigour along with a very real understanding of the multiple challenges confronting disabled people in societies which are too frequently disabling rather than enabling.

Our greatest challenge will always be to look into the lives of disabled persons and to find amongst them that a tangible difference has been made, from the things we have done, the words we have said, the papers we have prepared.

I extend the best wishes of our Government and our country, Aotearoa New Zealand, to this very important Pacific Disability Forum which stands as a true partnership of Pacific organizations of and for people with disabilities.