28 April 2019
It will come as no surprise to anyone that I have recently become keenly interested in what it means to be a disabled person. Being a disabled person is only part of understanding what it means – another part of the understanding comes through knowing how others perceive disability and how that perception is expressed in society. There are rules about the care of disabled people, rules about accessibility, rules about who is in and who is out, rules about who pays, and rules about treatment. I don’t know most of the rules. I don’t know the individuals who provide the advice to the other people I don’t know, the lawmakers themselves. I don’t know where or how they obtain their knowledge. And finally, I don’t know, but I suspect that the majority of the people in each category are well-meaning and able bodied.
In itself, that bit about being well-meaning and able bodied isn’t a problem, but it does beg the question – how would it be different if the people making the rules or advising on what the rules should be were living with impairment?
I have been thinking about this for a while – wondering what difference it would make to take the insights of a disabled person into the creation of policies concerning disabled people. I have also been considering what difference it would make if that disabled person was me. Can I make a difference? Can I bring my policy experience and my insight together to have an impact? More than that, is it my duty to try?
I’ve been practicing the dark art of policy making for nearly 20 years, almost exclusively on the topic of nature. The natural world is something I care deeply about, and I honestly believe we’ve made a hash of it over the past 100 years or so. I don’t think I’m being particularly hard on myself when I say I’m not sure I’ve made a difference to the way people use or protect or interact with nature. Not sure I’ve made the world better; not sure I can lay claim to any actual improvements. That’s kind of how it is with policy work – the evidence of actual change is elusive. That doesn’t stop me wanting to try, and it doesn’t stop me answering with a very hopeful ‘yes’ to the questions in the paragraph above.
In a couple of weeks, I’m taking up a new position at ACC – the Accident Compensation Corporation, the New Zealand Crown entity covering all people affected by accidents in New Zealand. That’s right, the very group that picked up the tab for my medical care post-accident, that provided all my equipment to support my ongoing mobility needs, that continue to argue with me about housing modifications. That ACC. I’ll be working across three groups – strategy, policy and research. So much to learn. So much to discover.
My aspiration is to make a difference for people affected by impairment in New Zealand. I have no idea what shape that will take, but I’m excited about the possibility.