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)
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