Disabled face public transport barriers

Difficulties accessing public transport and finding employment pose the biggest problems for disabled Rotorua residents, a disability support worker says.

IDEA Services Rotorua area manager Lianne Bryers said no Rotorua buses were accessible for people in wheelchairs, hindering their ability to travel independently.

"It's about people accepting that everybody needs to be accessing their community."

The 2012 monitoring report on disability rights in New Zealand was released last month.

Findings were based on feedback from 156 disabled people and focused on six main areas - health, employment, access to services and support, awareness around disability, social inclusion and barriers to making complaints.

The report found a major lack of disability services and awareness.

In each of the six focus areas, disabled people said their human rights were not being met, creating barriers to their inclusion in the community.

Ms Bryers said problems with transport and employment often isolated people with disabilities.

Generous members of the Rotorua business community had offered work experience for disabled people, but building on this had been difficult, she said.

"They require ongoing support to stay on task and to meet the requirements of the company that they are working for," she said. "The funding's not there for that."

About one in five New Zealanders are living with a disability, Statistics NZ says. Key recommendations from the report included: Changing the building code to include things like hearing loops, visual alarms and ramps; Forming a central agency to implement the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Person with Disabilities; Simplifying disability funding to make it more accessible for disabled people; Reviewing carer pay to ensure trained workers are paid more than untrained carers; Removal of minimum wage exemptions for some workers.

Labour Party disability spokeswoman Clare Curran said a disproportionately high number of disabled people were unemployed because of barriers to employment.

Her Green Party counterpart, Mojo Mathers - New Zealand's first deaf MP - said the Christchurch City rebuild was an ideal opportunity for updating building codes to improve access.

"Many of the recommendations, such as updating and strengthening the building code, will make a significant outcome to the lives of many disabled people."

Red Nicholson, a 26-year-old Auckland high school teacher who has cerebral palsy, said things like access to transport often made it difficult for disabled people to find work.

"You need to have reliable transport and you need to have money for clothes to dress properly for interviews."

Mr Nicholson, who uses a wheelchair, said service accessibility also caused problems.

"If you don't know the right person to call or the right thing to put in the application or that the support exists in the first place, it's hard to do anything.

"Half the battle is just navigating the system."

Deputy Health and Disability commissioner Tania Thomas said the report highlighted important issues facing disabled New Zealanders.

"We need to make sure everything we do about our services [and] the information we provide is highly accessible."