Clamping down on the disabled community

The government bookends a week of punching down on vulnerable communities by decimating the Ministry of Disabled People and it's support programmes/funding.

Happy Saturday Everyone!

It’s been a week of rough announcements, from beneficiary sanctions, two new Human Rights commissioners with vocal transphobic views, the proposed Treaty Principals Bill moving forward despite a scathing report from the Waitangi Tribunal for it to be abandoned, and Donald Trump fumbling around in his jacket to find his Tic Tacs to explain inflation.

I wish today’s comic wasn’t about another dark political subject (I’m working on another comic in my series of wholesome looks at growing up in Aotearoa for both my sanity and yours) but, there was another announcement this week that may have slid under the radar.

The government has decided that disability support services will be taken off Whaikaha the Ministry of Disabled People and folded into the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), and that they would also be halting the ‘Enabling Good Lives’ program.

As you are probably well aware, MSD has already borne the brunt of some massive cuts, so pushing this back on them seems like a terrible fucking idea, and as disability advocates will tell you, MSD is a “system that we already know does not work in the best interests of disabled people” hence why a Ministry of Disabled People was established in the first fucking place.

The government would know this if they bothered to consult with the disability community on this decision, but they (shockingly) did no such thing. As Disabled Persons Assembly chief executive Mojo Mathers put it bluntly, "It is devastating that such a major decision has been made unilaterally by the Minister and Cabinet based on views of a small group of people that did not involve disabled people and our community."

Which brings us to today’s cartoon: