A lack of partnership with disabled people and their whānau in the government response to COVID-19 “We don’t think we have seen partnership opportunities for disabled people and their whānau.” (Submission) The aspirations and needs of disabled people and their whānau do not appear to have been given prominence in government policy and decision making throughout the pandemic, and this has been amplified during the Omicron outbreak. Disability appears to have been an ‘afterthought’ in the pandemic planning around Omicron: “We don’t know of any inclusion in Omicron planning at these levels. There is nothing to show that the government response to Omicron used a disability evidence base for their Protection Framework or that agencies subsequently involved or considered a disability lens in any Omicron planning or interventions.” (Māori submission) “I think the government’s response and planning regarding Omicron has been generally incompetent and as usual the voices of [disabled people] have been the last to be heard.” (Submission) “We weren’t given the opportunity to consult in this rapid moving space. We could have…We could have moved at speed. If somebody had rung us up and said, ‘Can you drop everything and consult on these?’ We would have done it. The whole team would have mobilised and I would speak confidently for a lot of other organisations too. We weren’t given that opportunity because it wasn’t really seen as important.” (Submission) While this has impacted most disabled people and their whānau in some way, this ableist approach compounds with the impacts of racism for some communities: “It’s an overarching systemic thing that the system recognises disabled people as an afterthought and then parents and family and whānau, including Māori and Pasifika within that are left out altogether. As a result there are huge equity issues coming up.” (Submission) “Māori in general seem to always be forgotten, always grouped with Pākehā and other Pākehā groups when we should be talked to separately, not being clumped with everybody all at once I guess. It gets hard when you have one set of voices that are bigger than a majority and then you have a minority voice there as well that doesn’t usually get listened to sometimes I guess.” (Māori submission) 17