Kia ora

Thank you to everyone who joined us for our recent Access Alliance webinar, recognising the International Day of People with Disabilities, and featuring special guests Canadian lawyer and disability rights advocate David Lepofsky, and disability campaigner and writer Áine Kelly-Costello.

If you missed the webinar, a captioned video recording with NZSL Interpreters is available at the Access Alliance website, or simply click on the image below to watch now.

We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create accessible, healthy and vibrant communities, but the Government’s ‘Accelerating Accessibility’ Cabinet Paper currently on offer will simply not deliver what you have told us you need and deserve.

David Lepofsky describes the Government’s proposed accessibility legislation as,

“Very strong on good intentions, but utterly impoverished when it comes to implementation,”

and

“An excuse for extremely diluted and ineffective action, which is trying to make image prevail over substance.”

We deserve better! We need to make it clear that we are not accepting the Government’s proposed framework because - as David Lepofsky points out - a law with no mandatory removal of barriers, no mandatory standards, and no mandatory new enforcement, equals no real difference for people with disabilities.

We cannot sit back and leave it to others to do the mahi. If we do nothing, we are guaranteed to get legislation that will do very little.

Now is the time for us to stand together and claim our right to accessibility. Your support will be crucial in the days, weeks and months ahead.

Please get in touch and tell us how we can support you to mobilise your whānau, friends and community to ask our Members of Parliament and Party leaders to say yes to an effective accessibility law that:

• Identifies barriers and removes them
• Makes it easy for disabled people, and others with access needs, to report disabling experiences and discrimination offences
• Sets new standards for accessibility so that all organisations know what to do, and
• Prevents new barriers being created.

Ngā mihi nui,

Juliana Carvalho

The Access Alliance

www.accessalliance.org.nz