Media Release From The Association Of Blind Citizens Of New Zealand

New Zealand needs a Ministry that is to people with disabilities what Te Puni Kokiri is for Maori, according to the Association of Blind Citizens of New Zealand.

It's President, Jonathan Mosen, says that disability is still too often seen as a medical or personal rehabilitation issue, rather than an issue requiring societal changes.

"We don't believe that disability issues are taken into account during the public policy formulation process in the same way that the needs of women, Maori, and ethnic minorities are. To begin the process of closing the gaps, gaps which see around 60 percent of working aged blind people out of work, we desperately need a Ministry to play a watchdog and advisory role right across the public sector. Tucking our needs away in a little corner of the Ministry of Health reinforces the notion that we have the problem, when in fact it is attitudinal, environmental and social barriers that cause characteristics like blindness to become a disability," Jonathan Mosen concluded.

Ends.

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>