Our Thoughts: Accessibility Standards Bill

Moving in the right direction

If it gets through the political process, this Bill could help Aotearoa move towards clear, consistent standards. It isn’t perfect, and some details need clarification, but in our opinion, it certainly seems to be going in the right direction.

Disabled New Zealanders still face far too many avoidable barriers in employment, education, transport, healthcare, government services and digital technology. Legislation can give us consistent expectations, proper accountability and a clear way to see whether things are actually improving. Put simply, accessibility is essential. It shouldn’t be treated as a nice-to-have.

Accessibility is vital for disabled people

Accessibility benefits everyone, but disabled people must stay at the centre of this work. Older people, carers, families, people recovering from injury and people in regional communities all benefit from accessible services too.

But disabled people face the most persistent and unavoidable barriers, so they must be genuine partners in deciding what the standards require and how they are reviewed. Nothing about us without us isn’t just a slogan here. It’s how we get better results.

Disabled people must be genuine partners

For us, the Bill isn’t about politics. It’s about whether it will work in practice and help make Aotearoa more accessible for everyone. As a digital accessibility consultancy, we want legislation that is achievable for our clients, durable and focused on real outcomes for our community.

Disabled people need to be involved at every stage, from developing each standard through to putting it in place and reviewing how it’s working. Consultation can’t be a one-off submission round or a final check after the important decisions have already been made. When disabled people are genuine partners, the standards will be better and the whole framework will have greater trust and legitimacy.

That involvement also needs to reflect the diversity of disability communities, including tāngata whaikaha Māori and people with different access needs and experiences. People who face the barriers know where systems fail and what practical improvement looks like. Their knowledge should shape both the priorities and how we measure success.

Start with digital accessibility

The Bill in its current state covers lots of areas of everyday life, and every one of them matters. But trying to fix everything at once could leave us moving very slowly. We believe that digital accessibility is the best place to start because the tools, standards, expertise and testing methods are already there. In other words, this is one area where we can get moving now.

And here’s the good news: New Zealand wouldn’t be starting from scratch in digital accessibility. The Government already has Web Standards, procurement guidance, and CWAC monitoring. 

The current Web Accessibility Standard requires agencies within its scope to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 at level AA. That gives us a solid base for a wider Digital Accessibility Standard covering websites, apps, documents and other digital services.

Starting with digital accessibility would lower the risk and give us visible, measurable results. It would also help organisations understand what good practice looks like before standards expand into other areas. More public services are moving online all the time, so making them accessible from the start isn’t just timely. It’s necessary.

Proven international standards

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are already recognised and used by governments around the world. Building on them would mean less duplication, better support for organisations working across borders and easier access to established skills and resources.

There’s plenty we can learn from accessibility laws in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States and Europe too. We can look at implementation, monitoring and enforcement models in different countries to find what works for New Zealand. This means using what already works, adapting it for our context and avoiding the cost of solving problems that others have already tackled.

Standards must have accountability

Of course, standards only matter if they change people’s actual experience. That means they need to be mandatory, measurable and enforceable. Previous proposals have been criticised for creating advisory structures without clear outcomes, and this Bill needs to go further. Organisations should know what they need to do, how progress will be checked and what happens when barriers aren’t removed.

Enforcement should be fair and proportionate. A practical pathway could start with guidance and support, then move to improvement notices, required remediation plans, public reporting, procurement consequences and an independent complaints process. The details need definition, but we need to give organisations a reasonable chance to improve, while making it clear that carrying on as usual isn’t an option.

Social and economic investment

Accessible digital products and services support independence, dignity and participation. They’re also good for business: they can increase customer reach, improve customer satisfaction, widen employment opportunities and strengthen New Zealand organisations competing internationally. Accessible self-service can ease pressure on customer support teams too.

The biggest savings usually come when accessibility is considered early. It’s almost always easier and cheaper to build an accessible service from the start than to repair it after people have already been excluded. Clear standards would help the public and private sectors plan for accessibility upfront, rather than scrambling to fix one problem or complaint at a time.

Our view

We see the Accessibility Standards Bill as a welcome chance to move from good intentions to consistent action. We want a practical framework that grows over time, starts with digital accessibility, includes meaningful enforcement and is shaped with disabled people.

The good news is that New Zealand already has much of the knowledge and capability needed to get started in digital accessibility. We’re ready to bring our practical digital accessibility experience to the table and help turn this opportunity into real, measurable change.