Posts by Hilary Stace
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Hard News: This Is Not A Complicated Issue, in reply to Chris Waugh,
Mojo M is English and so not a native speaker of NZ Sign Language. She was taught oralism in the UK - ie to lip read and speak. Most NZers were also taught that way until only about 20 years ago (to the extent of being punished for signing). Why should she have signed her maiden speech when NZSL is not her first language? Although apparently she does use it, especially with the local community.
(I noticed the NZSL interpreter signing her maiden speech was Dr Rachel McKee teacher of NZSL at Victoria University.) -
Hard News: NZ On Screen: The…, in reply to Russell Brown,
I've probably mentioned it before but his 2004 documentary on the aftermath of the closure of Templeton provides gentle insight into our sad history of institutionalisation. I would expect all his work to be as wonderful.
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Hard News: This Is Not A Complicated Issue, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
The point is that both the NZ Disability Strategy and the UN Convention assume the 'social model' of disability whereby society/politics/law causes disability, rather than the 'individual' or 'medical model' whereby people have broken bits that require fixing.
Language usage - of disabled person (meaning by society), people with disability or people with disabilities - is something disability studies academics and disability activists argue about, while still speaking the same social model language. I can give you some references to papers about the semantics if you would like.
@Islander. I read that years ago but must put it on my reread list.
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Hard News: This Is Not A Complicated Issue, in reply to Helen Miller,
NZSL used to be taught at night classes in many venues. The cuts to community education funding by the Government three years ago has meant the death of night classes in many cities and regions, and there are hardly any places left offering such accessible NZSL classes. This, together with cuts to educational support for Deaf children, has led to a reduction in the numbers of people wanting to train as qualified NZSL interpreters. Sad. Just imagine if we were all taught NZSL at primary school – how useful it would be for so many situations.
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From page 1 of the 2001 New Zealand Disability Strategy:
Disability is not something individuals have. What individuals have are impairments. They may be physical, sensory, neurological, psychiatric, intellectual or other impairments.
Disability is the process which happens when one group of people create barriers by designing a world only for their way of living, taking no account of the impairments other people have. Our society is built in a way that assumes that we can all move quickly from one side of the road to the other; that we can all see signs, read directions, hear announcements, reach buttons, have the strength to open heavy doors and have stable moods and perceptions.
From the website of the Office for Disability Issues at www.odi.govt.nz. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is there too. We ratified the Convention in 2008; just do the implementing please.
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one day we’d have an MP who was on the autism spectrum, and out about it
I think we've had a few of those over the last 150 years, just not diagnosed, nor, of course, out about it.
I know of several, both diagnosed and out, who have ambitions in that area, and would be very good.
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Last year the parliamentary select committee that deals with elections considered how to make the whole election process easier and more accessible for disabled people. I was there when Deaf advocate Kim Robinson made his submission about the requirements of the Deaf community. It is a a pity that the committee didn't also decide what needs to be in place should a real Deaf person be elected.
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McCahon at the Auckland City Art Gallery. Are there not 12 hours of daylight?
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Thanks Jackie. It is very useful for Public Address readers to visit Auckland as so much of PA is about specific Auckland places and events and as it not like any other part of NZ (for example the long way you need to go to get anywhere and the crowds everywhere) it is helpful to actually experience it. My rave above was a collection of several trips. For example the civil union was a day trip from Wellington via cheap flights and the first time I had ever been to famous Waiheke (which was wet and windy), and that Dunedin visit was for a conference. Latest trip was a brief spontaneous one for a family event. Flights are quite cheap if you are lucky, but it means every plane is full and you can't choose your seats.
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No more roaming around NZ now, but been a few places in the last 6 weeks for one reason on another (lucky me). Scariest was being underground at the Waitomo Caves after the guide had just told a ghost story, the rest of the party moved on and the lights went out. Most embarrassing experience for being a New Zealander was at the cafe at the busy Waiouru Army museum which had run out of cutlery and serviettes by 1 pm and had very dull and overpriced food and unhappy and overworked staff. Best food experience: dinner on the verandah at my sister’s Grey Lynn house – warm and no wind. Evidence of the divide between the rich and poor was the ugly, mainly unoccupied mansions surrounded by tall spiked fences, at Mount Maunganui, followed by the $16.2 million dollar yacht for sale in the Wynyard Quarter – compared to (for example) some of the houses in South Dunedin, and beggars on Queen Street and Lambton Quay. Best cultural experiences: Auckland City Art Gallery (esp the McCahons), the Chinese Lantern Festival, a bi-lingual civil union on Waiheke Island, and a public lecture on the bioethics of ageing at the Otago Medical School.
