Deaf Aotearoa New Zealand Bi-annual General Meeting Speech

Tena Koutou Katoa and good morning to you all.

It is a pleasure to be here at your Bi-Annual General meeting this morning.  I would like to thank you for inviting me to meet with you all and to speak here.  

I would also like to thank the President, Kim Robinson and the Executive Board for their hard work over the past year.  I am also pleased to convey special thanks today to Kevin Stokes, for his important contribution on the Deaf Aotearoa Board for all of the past 21 years!

Since I took up the Associate Disability portfolio I have met with Deaf Aotearoa several times - both here in Auckland and in Wellington - and have been impressed by the valuable work you do, bettering the lives of thousands of New Zealanders who are deaf or hearing impaired. 

In September, some of my office staff members and I had the pleasure of receiving a sign language lesson in Deaf Aotearoa's Wellington office with Karen Pointon.  We enjoyed the lesson and I must say Karen is a great teacher and was very patient with us!   

A few weeks ago, I recorded a short video for the Office of Disability Issues' newsletter, which has been sent out this week.  Sara Pivac signed what I was saying to ensure that deaf people could have easy access to the information.  With the benefit of Karen Pointon's lesson I was able to, at least, do the introduction to this video in sign language myself !  

As Associate Minister for Disability Issues, I am committed to ensuring that disabled people in New Zealand on the whole are able to meet their potential and live with pride and dignity.

As you know, New Zealand has ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.  The Convention is underpinned by the principle, "Nothing about us, without us". This is a motto used by many disabled people, and it is a philosophy that I agree with.

Currently the funding for disability supports is from a range of agencies. 

• District Health Boards collectively spend just under a billon dollars a year, a majority of which is used to meet the needs of older New Zealanders and those with mental health issues, while the Ministry of Health provides $890 million a year to meet the needs of people with physical, sensory and intellectual disabilities who are under the age of 65.


• The Ministry of Education provides more than $400 million for early childhood and tertiary funding to ensure young people with disabilities are able to learn and participate to reach their full potential, while the Ministry of Social Development contributes more than $480 million a year for initiatives that assist families who are living with a person with disabilities.

This year the Government established the Ministerial Committee on Disability Issues, which is charged with the responsibility of ensuring the Government's multi-billion dollar annual disability support spend is meeting the needs of disabled people fairly and effectively.

The overall aim of the Ministerial Committee on Disability Issues is to provide coherent overall direction for disability issues across government. 

A key priority of this Committee is to take into consideration the views of disabled people and the wider disability sector on decisions that will affect them.

The Committee will oversee the work programme in response to last year's Social Services Select Committee inquiry into the quality of supports and services for people with disabilities.

In September the Ministerial Committee agreed to three key outcome themes in relation to disability issues.  We want:

Contributing citizens:  this means disabled people having the opportunity to achieve at school and work, to look after themselves and their family/whanau, and having equal access to justice.

Modern disability supports:  this means simple and easy entry, choice and self-determination, early support, and help to build resilient families and supportive communities - in much the same way as Whanau Ora.

Accessible New Zealand: this means accessible cities and towns, accessible government, and accepting communities. We realise that if disabled people are to have the same opportunities to participate and contribute as other New Zealanders they must be able to: get around, inside and out; be able to get information; to communicate; and to make decisions for themselves. They also need other people in their schools, communities and businesses to accept and welcome them, rather than  discriminate against them.

On the subject of information provision, I am pleased to be launching a sign language DVD which provides comprehensive information about Ministry of Social Development services, next week on 3 December, which you'll know is the International Day of Persons with Disabilities. 

Deaf Aotearoa worked together with MSD on this project and provided valuable input in the development of this material.  500 DVDs will be sent to Deaf Aotearoa to distribute, with others to be distributed by MSD.  The information will also be available streamed via a ‘youtube' style format on the MSD website. 

I would like to thank you for contributing to this project. The information on the DVD and on the internet will better enable deaf people to make full use of the support available through important services provided by such agencies as Work and Income, StudyLink and CYF. 

I know you all rightly take pride in the voice that New Zealand Sign Language has given deaf people in New Zealand, and I would like to touch on some key issues relating to the New Zealand Sign Language Act. 

You will be aware that the Act provided for a review, as soon as practicable, after April 2009. The review is to report on the operation of the Act since its commencement and on whether any amendments to the scope and contents of the Act are necessary or desirable.

I have discussed this with the Office for Disability Issues, and am able to announce today that the review is now scheduled on the MSD/Office for Disability Issues work programme for the second half of 2010, and that the deaf community will be involved as soon as planning for the review gets underway. 

On the promotion of New Zealand Sign Language, as you know, a major promotion activity has been through the valuable work you in Deaf Aotearoa carry out and your Sign Language celebration week each year. 

Another important promotion initiative has been the development of curriculum materials for New Zealand Sign Language as a second language by the Ministry of Education.

In addition, the New Zealand Sign Language Act requires key departments - eg Education, Courts, Police, Social Development and Employment, and Health - to have plans for improving access to their services by deaf people.  These plans are now required annually as part of departments reporting against the New Zealand Disability Strategy. 

The Office for Disability Issues is helping this along by bringing departments together to work jointly on improving such access - it has also invited members from the Deaf community along to provide input on this.

I know you are also interested in the issue of New Zealand Sign Language in schools, and particularly access to the curriculum through New Zealand Sign Language. 

The Government supports the provision of education services for deaf and hearing impaired children through a range of communication modes, of which New Zealand Sign Language is one. 

Education resources that can be accessed for the support of deaf and hearing impaired children include specialist teaching services, specialist support services and equipment.  However, the numbers of children using New Zealand Sign Language are small and the children are a highly dispersed population. This creates ongoing challenges for specialist education services to provide a fully supportive New Zealand Sign Language environment in all education settings.

With all these issues relating to New Zealand Sign Language, I can understand that you would like to see faster progress than you have seen in recent years.  I am keen to continue pursuing these issues.  Going forward I also see an important role for the Ministerial Committee on Disability Issues in addressing these issues.

Finally, I would also like to focus on another issue particularly relevant to you all here.  As many of you will know, earlier this month my colleague the Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Hon Steven Joyce, announced a 12 month extension of the current Telecommunications Relay Service - which offers nationwide text based services for the deaf, and for hearing impaired and speech impaired people - and funding to enable the government to negotiate for an extension of the Video Relay Service for the same period. 

A consultation process is now also underway which will provide significant input into the future of these services.   I have brought some copies of the consultation paper here for those of you that may have not yet seen it. 

You may make a submission in writing or in New Zealand Sign Language, and you may answer as few or as many qstions as you wish.

I'd like to encourage you all to take part and make a submission on these important services.  Submissions are due with the Ministry of Economic Development by 16 December. 

I am keen to hear your views on some of the key questions in the consultation document. I'm particularly interested in any feedback today on what telecommunication services you think will best meet your needs.  Some questions I would welcome your views on are:

• Is the video relay service currently being trialled meeting the needs of users and, if not, what changes are needed?


• Why do you think there has there been a relatively low take-up of these relay services and how could take-up could be improved?


• Are there services other than a video relay service - such as Skype, iChat, or new technologies - that would better meet the needs of the Deaf Community?

The Government will be considering the outcome of the consultation with policy recommendations for the future of the Telecommunications Relay Service in the first half of next year.  It is therefore most important, as I said earlier, that you all take the time to participate in the formal consultation process and make a submission - either in writing or in New Zealand Sign Language - in time for MED's deadline of 16 December.

I look forward to continuing to work with you all in the future to better the lives of deaf and hearing impaired people.

Thank You