Disability timeline: Aotearoa New Zealand
1846
- Destitute Persons Ordinance
1850
- Lunatic Asylum Dept – system of lunatic asylums
1854
- Karori lunatic asylum; 1887 Porirua – mixed categories of undesirables – mental health issues, ID, alcoholics, elderly homeless people
1880
- ‘School for Deaf Mutes’ at Sumner, Christchurch
1882
- Imbecile Passengers Act – for undesirables – cripples, idiots, lunatics, infirm
1890
- Jubilee Institute for the Blind, Auckland – charity based initially
1899
- Immigration Restriction Act – went further banning the idiot, the insane, the contagious
1899
- St Joseph’s Home for Incurables – Wanganui Mother Aubert-Sisters of Compassion
1907
- Home of Compassion – chronically & terminally ill adults & children, Wellington
1908
- Separate ‘chronics’ or ‘incurables’ wards in old people’s homes
1910
- Hospital & Charitable Aid Boards amalgamated and ‘chronics’ wards become official care centres
1911
- Mental Defectives Act- classifies other into idiot, imbecile & feeble-minded
1914
- Education Act made it obligatory for parents, teachers and police to report ‘mentally defective’ children.
1925
- Committee of Inquiry into Mental Defectives and Sexual Offenders links intellectual impairment with moral degeneracy and potential sexual offending
1935
- New Zealand Crippled Children Society (CCS) founded by surgeons
1945
- Dominion Association of Blind, first major disability consumer group. Later became Association of Blind Citizens
1945
- Levin Farm mental deficiency colony, first North Island psychopaedic institution, established on site which was previously corrective farm for young male offenders
1949
- Intellectually Handicapped Children’s Parents Association formed
1953
- Aitken Report - Govt establishes residential ‘mental deficiency colonies’ ie institutions. Recommends 400 – 500 ‘mental defectives’ in each and parents encouraged to place children from 5yrs
1959
- Pukeora home for physically disabled young adults
1959
- Burns Report – rejects Aitken Report, recommends community services and community care and small neighbourhood hostels
1960
- Disabled Persons Employment Promotion Act establishes sheltered workshops
1971
- United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Mentally Retarded Persons signalled a new era of international disability rights including in NZ
1972
- Accident Compensation Act provides no-fault compensation and rehabilitation for injury caused by accident in New Zealand
1973
- Report of the Royal Commission into Psychopaedic Hospitals recommended closure of the big institutions and shift to community care; became government policy.
1975
- The Disabled Persons Community Welfare Act gave disabled people, who were not eligible for ACC, access to services to help them stay in the community. It also provided the first disability allowance, respite and carer support, and building access code 4121.
1981
- The United Nations declared 1981 the International Year of Disabled Persons. In New Zealand, funds raised by a Telethon external went towards the establishment of Teletext, Total Mobility services and other services benefitting disabled people.
1983
- The formation of the pan disability organisation the Disabled Persons Assembly controlled by and for disabled people. The same year parents with disabled children established their advocacy group Parent to Parent.
1987
- People First formed under the umbrella of the IHC (later, 2003, became independent).
1988
- The Royal Commission on Social Policy had a chapter on disability.
1989
- Section 8 of the 1989 Education Act legislated for the right for all disabled children to attend their local school on the same terms as other children.
1992
- Mental Health Act provided new processes including a complaints pathway,
1993
- Human Rights Act made it illegal to discriminate on the basis of disability. DPA worked in coalition with gay rights groups to win this human rights struggle for both groups.
1994
- Health and Disability Commissioner established with a code of patient rights
1996
- First disability survey following NZ Census
1999
- First Minister for Disability Issues (Hon Ruth Dyson).
2001
- New Zealand Disability Strategy published. The Strategy was based on the social model of disability, which makes a distinction between impairments (which people have) and disability (which lies in their experience of barriers to participation in society).
2002
- The Office for Disability Issues established. Its purpose was to provide a focus on disability across government and to lead the implementation and monitoring of the New Zealand Disability Strategy.
2003
- To Have an Ordinary Life Report and associated reports by the Donald BeasIey Institute outlined many issues concerning health and wellbeing of those with intellectual/learning disability in the post-institution era
2006
- Closure of last psychopaedic institution Kimberley
2006
- United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) completed. New Zealand and New Zealanders took a leading role in the development of the CRPD. New Zealand signed it at the United Nations on 30 March 2007, and ratified it in September 2008.
2006
- NZSL becomes third official language of NZ
2007
- Repeal of Disabled Persons Employment Promotion Act signalled the closure of sheltered workshops
2007 NZ won International FD Roosevelt Award for disability leadership.
2008
- Select committee report into quality of disability care and service provision
2011
- Enabling Good lives principles developed, leading to New Model and Mana Whaikaha (2017) demonstration projects
2013
- Disability Survey reveals 24% of population disabled
2016
- NZ signs Optional Protocol of CRPD meaning individuals can take cases to UN
2016
- Robert Martin elected to UN Committee
2016
- New Zealand Disability Strategy revised to enable New Zealand to better support disabled people to achieve their potential, and improve the lives of disabled New Zealanders and their families.
2018
- Royal Commission on Abuse in Care established
2020
- Sir Robert Martin becomes the first New Zealander with a learning disability to receive Knighthood