NZ first Deaf MP welcomes decision to fund notetaker

Deaf MP Mojo Mathers is welcoming a decision to provide her with fully funded support in the House as a "significant step forward for the disability community in New Zealand" reports TVNZ (09/03/12). 

Speaker Lockwood Smith this morning announced he had directed Parliamentary Services, which funds support for all MPs to do their jobs, to provide the legal authority to fund electronic note-takers for Mathers.

"This support will be in addition to that to which she is already entitled, to ensure she may fulfil her role as a member of Parliament," Smith said.
 
"The cost of these services will be met from the Parliamentary Service's baseline and is additional to the funding provided to support all members."

The decision appears to be a victory for Mathers, who had previously claimed that Smith had asked her to find funding for note-takers out of her Green Party's existing allowances.

"This decision means that aspiring MPs with a disability or hearing impairment will be able to run for parliament confident that they will get the support they need," Mathers said.

"It means that parties don't have to put people with disabilities low on their list or on unelectable positions for fear that they will have to cover the full cost of their participation."
 
The Greens obtained a legal opinion from Chapman Tripp which suggested the additional funding could be legally provided by a new allocation from Parliamentary Services, rather than taken out of existing allowances for individual members.

The advice was taken to a meeting of the Parliamentary Service Commission, which met on Wednesday night.

Smith said the commission had proposed a mechanism whereby the Speaker would have "the flexibility" to fund "the needs of any disabled or impaired members" out of the allocation he had to support all MPs.

"I am disappointed that we have not been able to find a solution that gave me that flexibility," he said.

After finding no resolution on Wednesday night, Smith had decided to find a way for Parliamentary Services to legally provide funding.

Smith said his office had been funding support for Mathers in the interim, but that could not continue. The new funding from Parliamentary Services would provide the permanent solution.

Separately, Smith said he wanted to develop a captioning service to make proceedings of the House more accessible to the hearing-impaired.

"I intend working with the Office of the Clerk to develop this service and will raise this with the Standing Orders Committee which deals with such matters," he said.