Access Matters

We are grateful to our friends at Access Matters Aotearoa for speaking at our recent hui about the #AccessDeniedDiaries campaign and The Accessibility for New Zealanders Bill which was read in Parliament this week! We have the Access Matters presentation from this session to share with you, please click the button below.

The Government’s ‘Accessibility for New Zealanders Bill’ has been introduced in the House of Representatives, and we encourage you to familiarise yourself with its content. The first reading of the bill was Tuesday 2 August, with Minister for Disability Issues Hon. Poto Williams in charge of the bill.

At this point in the process, the new legislation will only partially meet the need for accessibility in Aotearoa. In order to change this, it is important that as a community we speak up about our needs.

Access Matters have put together 13 key principles that the legislation will need to address in order to ensure an inclusive Aotearoa. You can read more at this link.

One of the simplest actions we can take is to participate in the #AccessDeniedDiaries campaign, and we urge anyone that encounters an access barrier to file an 'incident report' here. Doing this will help the team at Access Matters to collect information and data on access barriers in day-to-day life, which will support them to show why detailed and robust legislation is needed to achieve an inclusive Aotearoa.

Access Matters is also developing a toolkit to help people make a submission on the bill and we will share this with you when it is available.

If you’d like more information, everything you need is on the website: www.accessmatters.org.nz