by frog
Earlier this week Metiria released the Greens’ disabilities policy. It’s a typically detailed policy that covers a wide range of issues, and thus, because it doesn’t deal in flashy tax cuts or giving cops guns it has not received the sort of media attention and public debate that some less considered policies have. (Although the NBR picked up on Metiria’s call for a disabilities commission to provide independent advocacy and oversee the implementation of the disabilities strategy and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities)
I like the policy’s focus on children. For instance this from Metiria’s speech:
All children have the absolute right to attend their local school and have the resources to enable this. Schools must be accountable for the way they use disability funding. ORRs funding must be doubled and the SEG grant ringfenced. CCS Disability Action’s recent campaign Early Family Support has highlighted the fact that if a whanau has proper access to community services, their lives as a whanau can be significantly better simply because they have the support they need for an ordinary life.
The policy would also support the 2006 IHC Code for Schools and ensure that schools come under the New Zealand Disability Strategy implementation and reporting process. It would provide further support for families struggling to cope with children with high needs and difficult behaviours including initiating a review the Child Disability Allowance with a view to increasing its levels. I’ll be interested to see other parties’ disabilities policies in the coming months.
Published in Health & Wellbeing | Justice & Democracy | Society & Culture by frog on Thu, July 24th, 2008
Tags: Child Disability Allowance, disabilities, Education, Metiria Turei, New Zealand Disability Strategy, ORRS, schools, SEG, United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
This was good stuff until I got to the part about yet another addition to the trough – this time another commission.
At what point will enough be enough? A 50:50 split between public and non-public employees? We can’t afford the happy sinecures for ex-members and their mates we have now! AS more are developed, so more people will head off to greener (i.e. lower taxed) pastures – making what there is even less affordable!
I believe this type of thinking is exactly what puts people with an ecological conscience AND a capitalist nature (they’re NOT mutually exclusive) off the NZ Green party.
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Strings – what is being proposed is a small Commission with an advocacy and ovesight role – probably no more than a Commissioner and half a dozen staff.
If it is effective in its proposed role, it could result in a significant reduction in the number of staff employed by the Ministry of Social Development and ACC dealing with “ambulance at the bottom of the cliff” issues relating to disability.
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Oooooooooo, mate, I really doubt that such a utopia is posible in Today’s public service. Let’s just look at the requirements.
A Commission chairman,
Two other commissioners to ensure a single person can’t make a unilateral decision.
An Executive assistant
An Accountant
A website manager
A communications specialist (doubling as a writer of political briefs and Answers)
A receptionist/typist
Right, if the Chair and Commissioners make up just 1.4 FTEs between them (that’s like, a full time chairman and one day a week commissioners) we have 6.4 FTE’s already, and no one doing the advocacy and investigation work yet.
As I said m8, I’m sorry. You see, I’ve worked with over a dozen Government Agencies, and SWMBO was a civil servant for many years; this is how these things work. Remember, there are DOZENS of NGOs that assist the disabled – as an example therre is the Rugby Foundation, which has a special relationship with people injured, and especially disabled, while playing God’s Game. I’m certain they, and every organisation like them, will want to have input to, and be invited to make representation to, this commission, and so the empire starts to grow.
The current Health and disability commission has 51 people in “Offices” plus a “Director of Advocacy contracts with independent advocacy service organisations” and a “Nationwide Health and Disability Consumer Advocacy Service” the numbers in which are not included on the website. http://www.hdc.org.nz/images/hdc/orgchart-jun08.pdf
These 51 include people such as a “Resource Despatch Assistant” (I think we called them mail clerks when I was younger
So there we are. There is already a Disability Commissioner, co-existing in the same body as the Health Commissioner, if we split the role, I guarantee there will be no reduction in the existing authorised establishment, and a new one, with no less than 8 people involved as ‘overhead’ and an unknown quantity, spread around our major population centres, of front-line staff. Lets call it just $10million per annum. I know that’s only $5 per worker per year, but that’s ANOTHER $5 and I’m already paying for two Civil Service Senior Managers as it is!
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Will the Greens push to ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as well?
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The line I wish to question is this one
“All children have the absolute right to attend their local school”
While the idea is nice overall, shouldn’t the line be something like this
“All children have the absolute right to attend the best school that fits their own individual needs”
If I were a child living in Otara, I wouldn’t want to attend the local schools, since my chances of failure would increase exponentially and my opportunities would slam shut. Instead of going to Hillary College, one would prefer to see their children go to Auckland Grammar, Epsom Girls Grammar, or one of the better schools in Auckland where they can have a decent shot at life.
The attempts at encouraging students to go to their local school by the present government (which I presume you support), have only resulted in rent and house prices increases in certain suburbs of Auckland. How fair is it that two people living next door to each other have house prices of a $50k difference between them because one is in one school zone, and the other is in the other school zone.
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While I support the principle of giving everyone the rights to the same schooling options, I have to question the economics of adapting every school to cope with children with every possible disability. To me, it might make more sense to have certain schools specialise in certain areas of disability while other schools specialise in other areas. This would allow schools to have specialists and specialised equipment in those disabilities rather than having each school cope with each disabled student as best they can with generalists rather than specialists. It would also be easier on the teachers and allow the development of specialists.
In some cases, this might mean that a child has to travel further to get to school. If that child has a disability, there is a higher probability that they are transported to school rather than walking or cycling, so this wouldn’t be much of an issue. After all, there is already a high rate of children being transported to and from school.
Trevor.
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Frog
All I can say is that I wish I’d had the time to read and comment before someone published it.
Any time there is any statement that X has any absolute right to… it is wrong. It is absolute nonsense to assert an absolute right and there is absolutely no excuse for such a thing to be promulgated as our policy.
BJ
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With Trevor and BJ on this one.
While it all sounds warm and good in principle. The reality is that the economy cant afford what you are proposing. Just like every hospital cant (for compatency, staff skills and economy) have a specialised burns, heart, kids, spinal, etc. units.
So all schools cant have ALL the services that All the local kids need. Some specialised services need to be concentrated to get the right staff, with the right equipment, the right facilities working at 100% efficientcy and sustainability to provide ALL kids with the aids that they need.
Just like smaller schools send their kids to centralised dental clinics.
You would be better having regional centres of excellence to provide services and propose a funded transport system to get the kids there.
I would include in there provisions for gifted kids. Not just those with disabilies.
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frog
It seems that the Green Party’s excuse will have to be that “we FAILED this
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Woops! The above should have read:
frog
It seems that the Green Party’s excuse will have to be that “we FAILED this
time because bj was just too busy to tell us what to write”.
On reflection it is probably better that I leave the next paragraph out!
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One of the inequalities in the existing schemes is the difference in treatment of a person with a disability caused by an accident compared to a person with a similar disability caused through genetics or disease. Argueably, catching a disease is accidental, or being born with the wrong genes is accidental. However in our existing setup, a person suffering an accident is supported back into work. A person suffering from MS, CP, MD or a range of other diseases or who is blind, deaf or otherwise disabled through genetics is pretty much left to fend for themselves, particularly once they get older than school-age.
My understanding is that ACC wouldn’t mind taking on some of these people. If they are already set up to support accident victims suffering from a range of injuries causing blindness, deafness or other impairment, it wouldn’t take much to support people suffering the same conditions due to other causes, and then ACC wouldn’t have to evaluate people to determine whether the cause was an accident or not.
Trevor.
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I should have taken time to look at it as well – ‘absolute’ bothers me a bit for much the same reason. A simple right to attend your local school is enough I think to generate constructive debate with the school about the best way to provide for the child with a disability. Most schools won’t force you to go elsewhere if they can help.
Our local school was a rural one, the next nearest some 50kms away, so children with disabilities (like my youngest) had to pretty much cope with being in a classroom and a teaching situation that didn’t allow for them. To their credit though, and this can usually be offered even by small schools, the school made good use of dedicated teacher aides for students needing that help, whether for learning or physical disability.
In my experience, the biggest problem for the child is not the facilities but the school population as a whole – ‘different’ kids get picked on and bullied and this is what makes school a hateful exerience for them. For a start, anti-bullying programmes need to be set up in all schools, with teachers and parents all being prepared to work towards including all students, whatever their ability.
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Eredwen
You were right the first time.
The party should as a whole, be smart enough to NEVER assert an “absolute right” to anything in any policy. It SHOULD be smart enough to do that without my pointing it out. If it isn’t then maybe you should address your ire to those who made the error rather than the “bearers of bad tidings”. Believe me, I do NOT want to read all of every policy.
respectfully
BJ
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I agree with BJ when ever you have an absolute right to something in policy you are passing the cost associated with that right onto a future generation of New Zealanders who haven’t even been born. You don’t have
the authority to do that Frog.
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bj,
I will stick to my second version!
When reading your comments, such as:
“It SHOULD be smart enough to do that without my pointing it out”
… I do try to keep it in mind that you were brought up as a New Yorker(?)
(I have hopes that when your Kiwi-raised kids reach adolescence, they may well “sort out” their American father’s embarrassingly arrogant utterances” … and label them as “an inappropriate way of trying to communicate in Aotearoa NZ” …
Why not save us all the trouble and work this out for yourself ?
e
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eredwen,
I think you have just failed the “how to make friends and influence people” course.
And you are a teacher?
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
And a Green party member full of tolerance?
Patronising is a word one could use the describe your intolerance.
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I find bj to be one of the most agreable on this blog, and he certainly communicates better, and is more polite, than most new zealanders ive met
after all, there is no such thing as an absolute right, all rights are partial and a construct of society
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Sapinet, hope I am too. I try really hard to refrain from personal attacks, but I do have a rather black and sarcastic sense of humour.
Hope everyone understands it is not a personal attack when I post something in that genre, but just me exercising a sense of humour that some others may not appreciate.
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Gerrit
I agree with you re your Eredwen comments, I would add a few more “choice descriptions” but I am not sure thats going to get us very far.
Its all very well preaching love and tolerance however it does not seem to be something that she practices.
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Toad
Can I make a sarcastic post about your batting talent?…..lol
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This is a mite touchy.
Eredwen is someone I respect quite a bit so when she says I am being arrogant in telling the Greens what to do… *not that they’d ever listen to me
… well it IS actually sort of true. I DO give the party a harder time than most members would. I expect more from it in some ways… and I call things as I see ‘em…
… I see that as my responsibility and that IS an arrogant point of view.
In this case I expressed that something that we said we should not have said… not what we should say or do… a subtle difference but not inconsequential. The general rule of never speaking of “Absolutes” is not that hard to apply and certainly not unknown to us. I was astonished to see that word in a policy.
respectfully
BJ
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Anyone costed that part about all new houses meeting disability requirements? I can see that really adding to the cost of some houses on a hill.
Trevor.
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Thank you bj !
I’m glad to know that we understand each other.
I have no problems with members of the Green Party “telling the Greens what to do” (or not to do)!
My point was:
“Green Forum” and other internal means of communication are the appropriate channels/vehicles for “telling Greens what to do”.
In your current case however, a quick email to Metiria Turei MP or her secretary would have been the most appropriate/effective response!
“frogblog” is a public forum and therefore NOT the place to discuss an internal matter or correct the wording of a Press Release.
These distinctions are best adhered to (especially in Election Year.)
e
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true, but the forum is very much dead. with the exception of my comment and that of tuatara whom i pointed there; the thread remains untouched.
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BJ, eredwen, sapient and other Greens contributing on this thread:
Drafts of the disability policy document were released to Green Party members for feedback 16 May 2007 – 27 June 2007 (draft 1), 19 July 2007 – 1 September 2007 (draft 2) and then an amendment document to it 18 October 2007 – 30 November 2007.
There was, in fact, quite substantial feeback provided through the Party’s provincial Policy Networkers (although, Sapient, I acknowledge that there were only 4 responses through Green Forum).
Policy has to be finalised at some stage, and I think there was ample opportunity in this instance for members to provide feedback on drafts – it can’t be relitigated forever just because members who have previously failed to engage subsequently decide they want to.
Any member can, of course, attempt to initiate a review of policy at any time, but the Party’s Policy Committee would be unlikely to commence one this close to an election other than in very exceptional circumstances.
I can agenda a discussion workshop on it at the Party’s Summer Policy Conference early next year if you like.
And, eredwen, I agree it is best that internal Party policy discussions occur though internal Party processes, rather than here in public view – but felt I needed to respond to the concerns raised here.
Cheers
Ivan Sowry
Green Party Policy Co-convenor
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BJ the voice of reason, once again.
eredwen is a teacher?!?!
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Ivan,
Thanks for that timely information !
e
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