Disabled Persons Employment Promotion (Repeal and Related Matters) Bill

Te Ururoa Flavell; Member of Parliament for Waiariki

Wednesday 21 March 2007

The President of the New Zealand Wheelchair Tennis Team, Marilyn Stratford, recently wrote about her life experiences in a way which I believe informs the intent and provisions of the two Bills before us this afternoon - the Disabled Persons Employment Promotion Repeal Bill and the Minimum Wage Amendment Bill. She said,

“If I ask myself, did my own disability shape my life, I would have to say, yes it probably did. Not because I have a problem with it, but because other people do. It’s very much that visual thing: they see the disability before they see me”.

Mr Speaker, this Bill enables people with disabilities employed in sheltered workshops to be seen as employees – having the same conditions, rights and entitlements as other people at a comparable level of productivity.

They are to be seen as workers – rather than as disabled peoples.

The Maori Party believes that in matters of hauora, our health and well-being, it is all about creating the optimum conditions for our full potential to be realized.

Given this wider context, we are firmly committed to a focus on the determinants of health and well-being, including poverty, housing, income, discrimination and the environment.

It is a matter of rights, of wellbeing, and a responsibility of good government, that opportunities should be provided for disabled people to work in the labour market, and to earn and maintain an adequate income.

We are, therefore, happy to support this Bill to repeal the Disabled Persons Employment Promotion Act 1960.

During the course of this Bill we have heard from many sheltered workshops. Hone and Tariana have visited the Abilities Group - which takes as its mission – to enrich the lives of people with disabilities through meaningful employment; and Hone has also visited Accessibility – a private sheltered workshop.

We have met with People First; DPA; IHC advocacy; New Zealand CCS. We have heard from Te Roopu Waiora, a kaupapa Maori disability support group; and from Te Roopu Taurima – the largest residential provider for whanau with learning disabilities.

In my own electorate I know of Te Whare Manaaki i te Hunga Haua in Te Teko which was the first kaupapa Maori home, providing a basis for our disabled people to live an ordinary life in their own community. And I know of the work of Te Pou Whakaaro in Whakatane which has over 70% Maori service users. A centre has opened in Kawerau as well, supporting our whanau to contribute to their communities through both paid and voluntary work.

And of course we all have, within our whanau, the experience of whanau members living with disabilities. In my own hometown in Rotorua, my sister, Hine, lives with us after having suffered three strokes over recent years.

On a daily basis we admire her, as she faces the difficulties of things like memory loss and physical challenge.

My sister spent some time in a residential home as she adjusted to the impact the stroke made upon her health, but as a whanau we were always keen for her to be able to come home, and live an ordinary life.

It is a worthwhile goal - as the National Health Committee report declared – to have an ordinary life; Kia whai oranga noa.

It is a simple wish – but the desire for an ordinary life it seems, is not one which everyone understands to be such a priority.

For much of the history of this country, people thought the best way to care for people with disabilities was in institutions, separated from their communities, focussed on their disabilities; their opportunities defined and restricted by the services they could access.

For Maori, the marginalisation of being disabled – as well as being Maori – saw them being surrounded by a whole host of professionals but segregated from their marae, their whanau, their right to find real work for real pay.

And yet, what we know is the value of whakawhaungatanga; that the continuation of vital relationships and connections with whanau, hapu and iwi, provide the ultimate safeguard to our health and wellbeing.

Madam Speaker, for Maori adults, disability rates are higher than national rates. We know that one-third of Mäori aged between 45 to 64 years reported a disability compared with one-quarter of the total population aged between 45 to 64 years.

So there are more of us – and yet despite higher rates, Maori access disability support services less than any other population groups in New Zealand.

So what to do with all of this?

I like the momentum behind the whakatauaki - He manako te koura e kore ai. Wishful thinking will not get you the crayfish.

We need to have the wish, to have the vision, but also to take the action to make it happen.

And so we support the intention to remove provisions in the existing legislation which have been regarded by disabled persons as improper and an abuse of their human rights.

We believe that disabled persons have the right to work and that the repeal of the DPEB Act is a way of expressing manaakitanga, of including disabled persons, and their whanau, in being able to participate in the community; to be seen as valued and contributing members, and to ensure that services are aligned to whanau needs rather than driven by the preferences of service providers and policy makers.

Supporting the repeal of the Bill is in line with our commitment to rangatiratanga – to ensure the disabled persons and their whanau are their own experts, and should be supported by organisations which employ, care and develop them in ways which enhance their lives.

We know that the requirement to be commercially viable will create additional pressures which may mitigate against the capacity of workshops to be community minded.

It was for this reason that we supported the amendment by Dr Paul Hutchinson to see whether it was possible to extend the time frame within which the legislation was to be established.

We had hoped that with more time, all parties can give due consideration to the ways and means of protecting the needs of those providing the service; and those who are directly affected by this legislation –namely, the whanau.

The key issue for us, however, is how disabled persons and their whanau are able to take up their right to work, and to benefit from their due entitlements covered by the Minimum Wage Act 1983 and the Holidays Act 2003.

So when the question is put, as to whether we support initiatives which can honour minimum wage and holiday provisions; we remain fully in support.

We are pleased that those whose productivity is not sufficient to earn the minimum wage, can apply and be granted a minimum wage exemption permit.

We also know from our talks with disabled persons that so many whanau are happy with what we might see as the crumbs, based on the rationale that if there aren’t any alternatives, than the value of work for the sake of work, may mean individuals ‘put up’ with conditions that are less than ideal.

We know that most of the work obtained by Sheltered workshops is low value with low profit margins; and that a comprehensive funding model is essential if we are to transform these workshops into the social enterprises that can comply with the legislative requirements.

Mr Speaker, we would remind this House, that under the existing Act, people with a disability are the only people in Aotearoa for whom sweat shop rates can be paid without breaching the law.

The low pay has been justified purely and simply on account of their disability - they see the disability before they see me - and has nothing to do with productivity.

Finally, I leave the last word to Carole Williams, who has lived with epilepsy and cerebral palsy since an injury as a baby. She said:

“Just being Maori is a good thing which I’m lucky to have….all my whanau around me, I love that. I wouldn’t want to be without them. There’s not much I’d swap. I’d swap my body – to have a body that would let me do things – but I wouldn’t ever swap who I am”.

This Bill, Madam Speaker, in repealing the Disabled Persons Employment Promotion Act 1960 enables Carole to continue to enjoy being Maori; to continue to enjoy her whanau; to continue to enjoy who she is.

And for those opportunities, the Maori Party wouldn’t swap a thing.

ends

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