My Personal Statement on the Disability Support Services Bill

Every Disabled Child Deserves the Opportunity to Succeed

As the CEO of Children with Disability NZ, I want every disabled child in New Zealand to have the same opportunity that I had—the opportunity to succeed.

My views on the Disability Support Services Bill are not based on politics. They are based on lived experience.

Just after my tenth birthday in 1970, I was involved in a serious accident that changed my life forever. I spent years in hospital and missed several years of formal schooling. While other children were learning in classrooms, I was surrounded by doctors, nurses and medical equipment.

Instead of reading comic books, I read medical books. I became fascinated by how the human body worked and developed a love of learning. Those years in hospital were incredibly difficult, but they also shaped who I would become.

When I eventually returned to a normal school, many people probably expected very little from me. I was now a disabled child, and attitudes towards disability were very different in those days. Yet I surprised people.

My reading, mathematics, science and biology were all well above average. At the age of sixteen I left school and began an apprenticeship. Over the following years I qualified as an industrial wireman, then upskilled as an appliance serviceman, and later as an electronics serviceman.

Those achievements taught me something that I have never forgotten.

Disability does not determine a person's potential. Opportunity does.

Throughout my life I have experienced ableism. Too often, people have assumed that because I use a wheelchair or have a disability, I am less capable or somehow a burden on society. Those assumptions are wrong.

Disabled people are not defined by what they cannot do. With the right support, many can study, work, innovate, volunteer, raise families, contribute to their communities and enrich New Zealand in countless ways.

That is why I am deeply concerned about the Disability Support Services Bill.

In my view, good disability support is not a luxury. It is an investment in people. The right support enables disabled people to participate in education, employment and community life. It also enables family carers to remain in the workforce, protect their own wellbeing and continue providing invaluable care.

When support is reduced or becomes harder to access, the consequences do not simply disappear. They often reappear elsewhere—in increased pressure on families, poorer health outcomes, reduced workforce participation, greater social isolation and higher long-term costs for government.

I believe New Zealand should be investing in disabled people, not reducing the opportunities available to them.

As someone who has lived with disability for more than five decades, I know what can happen when a disabled person is given the chance to succeed. I have built businesses, qualified in skilled trades, become a professional website designer, and today I have the privilege of leading Children with Disability NZ. Through our growing network of disability-focused websites, we work every day to promote inclusion, share knowledge and help create positive change.

None of that would have been possible if I had been written off because of my disability.

Every disabled child deserves the opportunity to discover what they are capable of. Every family deserves to know they will not face the future alone. Every carer deserves recognition for the extraordinary contribution they make.

The decisions we make today will shape the lives of disabled New Zealanders for generations to come.

I hope Parliament will listen carefully to disabled people, family carers and the organisations that represent them. The strongest disability support system is one that is developed with the people it exists to serve.

My message is simple.

Do not judge disabled people by what they need today.

Judge them by what they can achieve when they are given the opportunity.