My Account
People with a disability were encouraged to step up and put themselves forward for more public roles in local government and elsewhere at an Auckland Council panel last month.
With the recent formation of the new Ministry of Disabled People and local elections on the horizon, Council’s Disability Advisory Panel on July 7 discussed how to encourage disabled people to step into leadership.
Three disabled leaders were invited to speak about their personal journeys and insights on the barriers to disabled people becoming leaders.
Accessible media company Able’s chief executive, Dan Buckingham, said “tall poppy syndrome” was not uncommon for disabled people and there were too few leaders with disabilities.
“We need to lift our expectations. We as a group need to lift each other up,” he said.
Buckingham said disabled people sometimes had limiting beliefs, such as thinking they were incapable of working a full-time job.
“A lot of us are not even aware of the limitations we place on ourselves, because of what society reflects back on us.
“We have been spoken for and about for far too long … Have high expectations of what you can achieve and what your life can look like,” he added.
World Blind Union president and panel co-chair Martine Abel-Williamson said when she was growing up there was never an assumption that she could not do something.
“As a four-year-old, my mum asked what I wanted to be. I said I wanted to be a vet and she never told me I could not be,” Abel said.
“If you do not put your hand up, you do not know if you are going to make it.”
Abel said disabled people needed to be where the action was happening so they could “feel like they are at the table, rather than on the menu”.
“One of the biggest barriers is the low expectations we have of ourselves.”
Disability Rights commissioner Paula Tesoriero said leaders set the culture and it was essential for disabled people’s voices to be represented.
“Local government is an area I would really like to see more disabled people around the table. It is literally where the rubber hits the road,” Tesoriero said.
“The new ministry offers really significant opportunity for disabled people – a genuine partnership with disabled people.”
Tesoriero, who is a former Paralympic cyclist, said when she was younger, she tried to distance herself from anything ability related.
“You do everything you can to try to be included,” she said. “If I continued to hide my disability, I would have never had the confidence to ride at an elite level or serve on boards for sports disability organisations.”
Nominations to become a candidate in this year’s local elections close on August 12.
