By: DUNZ
Disabled United (NZ): 31 January, 2025
The new website will be ready soon. We need blind people who use JAWS and other screen readers to test the pages to ensure they are easy to use. If you can help, please contact DUNZ via the Facebook page or by phoning Mike Peters at 022-600-5006, the software developer doing the work.
Mockup of new home page
Last Updated 02/02/2025
RESOURCES
By: Tracy Peters & Carolyn Weston
Combined Disability Network: 02/09/2024
We need your support for the Invercargill Mobility Taxi trial.
Two disabled members of The Combined Disability Network will speak to the ICC Infrastructure Committee.
Tracy Peters and Carolyn Weston will advocate that the Invercargill City Council keep their promised trial of four mobility Parks for dropping off/picking up by hoist vans in the City.
We want as many disabled people as possible, including their family, friends, and supporters, to attend the meeting to support them and the trial.
The meeting is on Tuesday, 3 September 2024, at 3 p.m. in the Victoria Room, Civic Theatre Tay St.
Last Updated 02/09/2024
RESOURCES
By: Mike Peters
DUNZ-Invercargill Branch Committee Chair
DUNZ: 22/08/2024
The DUNZ-Invercargill Branch Committee met today.
Members
Vic West (Deaf-Blind) has joined the committee.
Another 5 people have signed up to DUNZ-Invercargill.
Sign of the week
The committee are all going to start learning some sign language at each meeting, taught by Roger Strong (Southland Deaf Community President)
Protest
A protest will be held on Wednesday, 4 September, from 10 am to 12 noon on the corner of Tay St and Ellis Rd, Invercargill. Melissa Corbin, Southland Outreach Campaign Organiser, will lead the protest's organization.
The date and time were chosen to support the protest being organised in Christchurch simultaneously.
Support workers
The Branch will seek to work closely with the support worker unions (E Tu, PSA, NZNO) campaigns to unionise the workforce and win pay equity. That means DUNZ-Invercargill will raise support for their campaigns from the disabled community.
Last Updated 22/08/2024
RESOURCES
‘I have never felt as disabled in my life’: Disabled community to rally against funding changes
By: Mariné Lourens
The Press: 24/06/2024
Christchurch resident Nevé Billing has had major vision impairment since she was 5 years old.
Christchurch resident Nevé Billing, 26, has had major vision impairment since she was 5 years old.
She is legally blind due to damaged optic nerves, but has never let her disability hold her back. She recently finished a business degree and is working part-time jobs while she looks for a full-time role.
Because of her vision impairment, Billing is highly dependent on Uber and other taxi services to get where she needs to go.
However, after Whaikaha, the Ministry of Disabled People, without warning announced cuts to disability services in March, she is no longer able to use her funding for transportation.
A protest was held in Christchurch in March this year after the announcement by the Ministry of Disabled people about the changes to its funding.
“I have never felt as disabled in my life,” Billing said.
“I like living independently and I don’t like relying on people, so if I can’t get a ride with someone else, I am just trapped at home.”
Whaikaha earlier announced it was changing purchasing rules for disabled people and their carers, limiting what disabled people can buy with their funding.
Since then the ministry has provided clarifications on the rules, including that ride and driver services can be used only “to access services or engage with the community, where this is a reasonable and cost-effective option”.
Billing said she didn’t think the people making the funding decisions realised how much disabled people relied on the funding to support them in ways they needed to be supported.
She said she had been dealing with visual impairment for most of her life and had always found “workarounds”, such as using her disability funding to get around independently.
“Now that I don’t have that anymore, it has made me feel extremely isolated and like I’ve lost my freedom and independence.”
Billing will join other Cantabrians with disabilities and supporters at a Disability Leadership Canterbury rally in Christchurch on Monday to protest against the funding changes and what she sees as marginalisation of the disabled community.
“The rally is to show that we are not going to just sit back and take this. They need to relook at the decisions that have been made around the purchasing guidelines.”
She said she couldn’t see any issue with the way the funding was structured before, and believed the changes were simply a way to make it more difficult for disabled people to access funding support.
“I don’t see why every disabled person can’t use the money that has been allocated to them for the things they know they need.”
Last Updated 25/06/2024
RESOURCES
By: Ke-Xin Li
Waikato Times: May 28, 2024
Helena Tuteao, pictured with dog Roxy, relies on others to drive her, especially for work with My Life My Voice. She’s now unsure if she can pay her carer to do that.
MARK TAYLOR / WAIKATO TIMES
Tighter rules around disability funding will leave people struggling for transport and time out, a Waikato group heard.
Many in the disability community found out through Facebook about changes to what respite funding can be spent on and were angered by suggestions from then Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds that some wasted it on “massages, overseas travel, and pedicures”.
It was a “traumatic, confusing, and stressful” March 18 announcement from Whaikaha, the Ministry of Disabled People, according to Helena Tuteao, who is on the Waikato Leadership Group of Enabling Good Lives (EGL).
The EGL approach includes “trusting disabled people and families to flexibly manage their lives and funds”.
Tuteao isn’t reassured by moves the Government has made since the announcement, such as clarifying the changes, removing Simmonds from the disability portfolio, and appointing a panel to review ministry-administered support services.
None of the panellists have a known disability and a findings report is planned before consultation, she said.
People shared their frustration, confusion and concerns about exhausted carers at a recent meeting of about 30 disabled people and carers in Hamilton. Their thoughts will be sent, in anonymised form, to decision-makers, Tuteao said.
A mother who spoke at the meeting said EGL gave her some independence back - and her name, instead of always being her daughter’s mother.
Twice a week, a carer would look after her daughter and the mother would use respite time to work.
“That’s my place where I get to be an adult.”
She could associate with others and do “a range of different things.”
The mother also paid for a monthly massage for her daughter’s carer a using the funding.
“[My daughter] has very complex needs and loves her [carer], but the carer’s in her sixties, we are all falling apart.
“I think caring for the carers is something that has been completely missed out with these changes.”
Helena Tuteao said Enabling Good Lives (EGL) gave her independence. She is now on the Waikato Leadership Group.
MARK TAYLOR / WAIKATO TIMES
For Tuteao, transport is a big concern. She was diagnosed with glaucoma as a child and is now completely blind.
She relies on others to drive her, especially for work with My Life My Voice, which requires her to travel to Auckland and other cities.
Under the new rules, she’s not sure if she can still pay her carer to drive her.
When she had a partner, she also saw unpaid responsibilities placed on them: “Effectively they turned my partner into a bit of a disability support, which of course, changed the dynamics of the relationship as well”.
Disability lawyer Nan Jensen said it’s unfortunate that the government is treating disabled people like they can’t organise their own finances.
It would be difficult for her clients to challenge purchasing rules, she said.
Nan Jensen and Linda Terry at the Hamilton meeting to discuss future steps to make the group’s voices heard.
KE-XIN LI / WAIKATO TIMES
She and others recalled the case of Janine Albury-Thomson, who killed her daughter in 1997, saying she was exhausted after being unable to get respite care.
That prompted changes to respite funding.
And the inappropriate spending comments made by then-minister Penny Simmonds were disrespectful and untrue, Jensen said.
She didn’t see how anyone could be spending wastefully given she was once followed up after refunding herself when she’d accidentally paid her son’s carer from her personal bank account.
Family representative on the Enabling Good Lives (EGL) leadership group Linda Terry said the announcement “diminished that trust that we have built up” in one fell swoop.
-Waikato Times
By: Nicola Owen and Melissa Peterson
Facebook: Sunday, 26 May 2024
There was a great disability rights protest in Auckland today despite the rain. Photos show a crowd of around 100 people with union flags and protest signs.
Paul Brown from Blind Citizens and DPACA at the Auckland protest on Sunday 26th May.
Danni from PSA at the Auckland protest on Sunday 26th.
Last Updated 28/05/2024
RESOURCES
DUNZ Invercargill: 13 May 2024
I was born with a rare condition, causing me to have brittle bones and be legally blind. Since I was a child, I have experienced a number of fractures. In 2021, when I had a major fall, I broke both my ankles and two bones in my right arm and also had several minor fractures. Nowadays, I walk inside my home with the aid of a walking frame.
To obtain my disability support services, I receive Government (Individual Funding). This money is sent to my Host Agency, who pay my support workers, who I employ to assist me with various tasks and activities. Due to unforeseen circumstances, such as staff leaving and finding a replacement, I don’t always use my annual budget. Last year, with some of the residue of my funds, I purchased a new magnifying lens for my reading glasses as the old lens was overdue to be replaced. I also upgraded my computer screen reader. Adaptive technology to enable blind people to use computers, etc., can be very expensive. I felt satisfied and rewarded that I could independently purchase this disability-related equipment.
On 18 th March 2024, the Government announced changes to the rules around funding disability support. These changes were made without any consultation with the disability community and no thought was given to how these changes would affect us.
As I recently had to replace a support worker, I know there will be some residue in my disability support funding, and I was going to purchase a new walking frame because the one I have is unrepairable and worn. I need a tray on my new walking frame because when I carry things such as cooking or baking containers on my current walking frame seat, the containers slide off and hit my legs or feet. The walking frame I require would have cost me $330.00. But now, due to the Government’s thoughtless rule change to my funding, I can no longer purchase my own walking frame.
Four weeks ago, the woman who works in the local Disability Equipment Shop sent a form to the Southland Hospital therapy department requesting that they replace the walking frame I have. You may think this solves my problem, but it doesn’t really. I have no input into the type of walking frame I need, no option in what colour I may like and more importantly, no idea when this walking frame will arrive at my house. It will just arrive.
I am angry, insulted and in despair that I am not being treated as a responsible adult who can make informed decisions for myself. New Zealand’s Government has signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with a Disability, meaning I have the same human rights as all other New Zealanders. I should be allowed to make my own informed choices over what I purchase and where I purchase disability equipment from. Talk about monopoly!
Since 1991, I have served and continue to serve on several governing boards. For 7 ½ years, I worked in health and disability ethics, and now I am treated without respect. I want to be able to purchase my own disability equipment (with the checks and balances there were) without people telling me what I can or cannot purchase.
Nothing about us without us.
Last Updated 13/05/2024
RESOURCES
DUNZ: 27 April 2024
In the wake of recent developments, a national meeting of DUNZ members using Zoom is being organised over the next 2 weeks using different time slots.
The March 18 announcement of changes to how we can use our funding evoked outrage within the disabled community.
To reach the broadest possible audience, DUNZ uses everything that works.
Most disabled people don't use Facebook. It's also a barrier for many blind people, older people and those without access to technology.
Zoom is the best option for a meeting at the moment. The Zoom Free Basic Plan can host a meeting.
Over the last few weeks, people from the disabled community have been joining DUNZ using the online join form.
This Zoom meeting is for those who have offered to help. The invite will be sent.
Mike Peters will give a 10-minute summary, including visual slides for the deaf community.
The Zoom meeting will be repeated at these times on different days to ensure all members have a chance to participate.
An additional meeting with members of Blind Citizens NZ (BCNZ) could be held using Zoom, which is very accessible.
An additional meeting with members of the Deaf Community could be held using their preferred communication system.
Last Updated 28/04/2024
RESOURCES
Report on local community event
By Jonathan Godfrey
Saturday, 6 April 2024 11:13 amJonathan is the National President of Blind Citizens NZ. He has held the positions of Member-at-Large and Vice President and was elected to the position of National President in 2017. Jonathan is employed as a lecturer in statistics at Massey University.
OPINION
Hi all,
A community event was held yesterday here in Palmerston North relating to the recent changes in funding supports. I’m writing this message because it is another example of community action. OK, it doesn’t get TV news time and no politicians got involved, but it did give real people who are affected to be part of a community-led initiative. It also made the Manawatu Standard. The text of that article follows my comments.By Carolyn Weston
27/03/2024 Disabled United
Opinion
When I heard the announcement that Government was restricting disabled people’s access to fund equipment and how we can spend our Individual Funding, I was dismayed and confused.
Recently, I attended a forum about “Engaging Good Lives” informing us we now have self-determination and can make our own choices about our lives.
Last year, I purchased a special lens for my reading glasses and upgraded my screen reader for my computer with my funding allocation but today I can’t do this anymore.
For me, adaptive equipment and other blindness supports are equally important as my need for a wheel-chair or walking-frame. Government expects us all to interact with the internet and bank, pay bills, attend meetings, etc online but I and other blind people can’t do that without adaptive technology.
Let blind people take our rightful place in today’s society.