Section 3: The Disability Movement in NZ
The story of an unfolding political consciousness from organisations for disabled people to organisations of disabled people is a far from easy one. However, what this story does demonstrate is that the current monitoring project on the Convention has brought disability organisations together and a spirit of partnership between disabled people and the New Zealand government. New Zealand is the first place in the world to receive government funding for the DRPI project.
Identity politics, the social model of disability, the relationship between Maori and the Crown are key influencers of the disability movement in New Zealand. The philosophical underpinnings and cultural context of the disability movement in New Zealand are discussed below. This is followed by a political history of New Zealand Disabled Peoples’ Organisations.
Philosophy
The Disability Rights Movement in New Zealand followed on from other new social movements around the world from the mid 1960s onwards. These new social movements emphasized the need for social change asserting the rights of group members on the basis of a shared cultural identity. It is not surprising, therefore, that it was a group of disabled people, the Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation (UPIAS), who first articulated a radical new understanding of disability by separating impairment (body deficits people have) from disability (the social oppression impaired people experience):
... In our view, it is society which disables ... Disability is something imposed on top of our impairments… .(UPIAS 1976:3)
If society disables then material changes to the social world will enable a less disabling social world. Thus the social model provides a framework for material change. This politics of identity which finds its expression in the social model of disability provides the philosophical basis underpinning current disability policy in New Zealand.
Culture
Population and geography have played a vital role in shaping the politics of the disability movement and the way the struggle has unfolded. In the 1970s at the same time as UPIAS were launching their fight for disability rights Maori land rights marches were occurring in New Zealand. Biculturalism, a spirit of partnership between Maori and the Crown, was the outcome of the fight for equality for Maori in New Zealand culture. Biculturalism plays an important role in New Zealand social policy (see sections 1 & 2). For Maori the partnership principle is an expectation based on good faith, mutual respect and understanding, and shared decision-making in both policy making and resource allocation. This spirit of partnership pervades the public service and third sector organizations in New Zealand.
Sullivan (2001) writes for Maori, ‘partnership’ is an expectation of a relationship based on good faith, mutual respect and understanding, and shared decision-making in both policy making and resource allocation. However, when it came to powerful service provider organisations for disabled people, which traditionally, had a paternalistic relationship with their members, any talk of partnership was highly ideological; more often than not it was aimed more at defusing incipient demands from members for a greater say in running ‘their’ organisations than in seeking a true partnership.
The Convention has moved the position of disabled people beyond dependence on good intentions to a position of entitlement. For disabled people in Aotearoa New Zealand, true partnerships with the state and service providers are far preferable to the client relationship which previously held sway. However, legislative change does not guarantee human rights. It is now up to New Zealand to monitor and enforce the legislation.
The unfolding history of disability politics in New Zealand is told with reference to two organisations of disabled people the Disabled Person’s Assembly (DPA) and the Association of Blind Citizens of New Zealand (ABC NZ) and the political struggles that were undertaken with older and more paternalistic organisations for disabled people. Despite a history of political disagreement and setback, the following description of the history of disabled peoples’ organisations demonstrates a great deal of positive change for disabled people over the past thirty years in New Zealand and in particular a coming together of organisations of disabled people around the monitoring process.
DPA
In 1972 Coordinating Councils for the Disabled were set up in the four main centres, Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin and Wellington. As the name suggests, the aim of these councils was to coordinate the responses of the various groups of and for disabled people on issues such as education and access. In 1978 they combined to become the New Zealand Coordinating Council for the Disabled (NZCD) and were soon at loggerheads with organisations for disabled people, who blocked their attempts to become the New Zealand representative on Rehabilitation International because they were “too much influenced by consumer interests” (Georgeson 2000:56). This should have served as an early warning of the entrenched and hostile attitudes of traditional organisations towards their ‘children’ when they start talking and organising for themselves. But, it did not.
At one of the many meetings set up to discuss issues facing disabled people during the International Year of Disabled Persons (IYDP) (1981), it was proposed that a cross-disability organisation be formed to continue the work of IYDP. In 1983, at an Extraordinary General Meeting of NZDC a resolution to change its name to the Disabled Persons Assembly (New Zealand) was passed.
From its inception, DPA aimed to be as inclusive as possible by creating categories of membership which would draw recruits from across the disability spectrum: individual, family, corporate and associate memberships. The vehicle chosen for achieving inclusion was the partnership model. It was hoped that partnerships would develop between all these categories of members: together they would work to achieve DPA’s vision for New Zealand society to be one “which provides both equity and maximum opportunity to participate for all people” (DPA cited in Georgeson 2000:65)
The DPA has won a significant number of political victories over the years. However, a number of service providers for disabled people adopt a traditional model. Such a model has been criticised by Munford & Sullivan (1997:18) as promoting an image of disabled people as “passive’ dependent, powerless and requiring non-disabled people to do things for them”. It is inevitable that such service providers will come into conflict with disabled people who wish to advocate for themselves (Sullivan, 2001).
ABCNZ
Eschewing the traditional model of service delivery the Association of Blind Citizens of New Zealand Inc. adopted a self advocacy model from the beginning. Founded in 1945 and called the Dominion Association of the Blind (DAB), ABCNZ is the oldest advocacy organisation in the disability sector. In 1996 the Association withdrew its corporate membership because it felt that DPA was not using the Association correctly as a consultative part of DPA's corporate membership, and withdrew from the organisation (Sullivan, 2001). The history of ABCNZ demonstrates the power of self-organisation and self advocacy:
Without the DABs [now ABCNZ] vigorous and sustained lobbying, some of the improvements which later occurred in blind welfare would have been much longer coming, and many would not have come at all. …over the past 50 years, at all levels and in all areas in blind service provision, there has been hardly a single decision taken which has not been influenced by association input. (Newbold, 1995: 195-96)
Today ABCNZ have more members than DPA. However, in recognition of the role that DPA plays in the political arena, ABCNZ is once again an organisational member of the DPA.
Other DPOs in New Zealand include: Deaf Aotearoa NZ New Zealand (DANZ) is a not-for-profit organisation which promotes Deaf culture, New Zealand Sign Language and the interests of the Deaf community. Nga Hau E Wha Wha -a quarterly meeting for mental health consumers, funded by MOH, containing two members from each of the four regions of New Zealand – Southern, Central, Midland and Northern. Ngāti Kāpo O Aotearoa Inc was founded in 1983 upon the vision of self-determination (Mana Kāpo) and improving the quality of life of kāpo Māori and their whānau. The society in the 21st century is a national Māori health and disability service provider that is driven by and for Māori disabled consumers and their families -kāpo Māori and their whānau. People First New Zealand Incorporated Nga Tangata Tuatahi, is a national self advocacy organisation led by and for people with learning/intellectual impairments. People First was first bought into New Zealand by IHC NZ Inc in 1984 and was supported by IHC for almost twenty years. It was established as an incorporated society in 2003 following calls from its members to have their own independent organisation. People First groups assist people with learning impairments to learn to speak up in their own live, in communities and at a national level. All of these organisations play an important role in the history of disability advocacy in New Zealand.
What is clear today despite the complex interconnections and politics within DPOs in New Zealand is that advocacy by disabled people for disabled people in conjunction with the partnership principle works to achieve results. Amongst the DPOs involved in this project a previously untapped spirit of cooperation exists alongside the desire to push the movement along in a cohesive direction whilst respecting difference.