One of Aotearoa’s leading disability-rights advocates says the Waitangi Tribunal’s damning findings on the disability system confirm what tāngata whaikaha Māori and their whānau have been saying for decades — a system designed without them will continue to fail them.
Dr Huhana Hickey, of Ngāti Tāhinga, Waikato and Whakatōhea Ngāti Ira, is an academic, disability-rights lawyer and long-time advocate for whānau hauā and disabled people. She lives with multiple sclerosis, serves on the Human Rights Review Tribunal and was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to people with disabilities.
Her advocacy has consistently pushed beyond simply making existing services more accessible. At its heart is a demand that tāngata whaikaha Māori have genuine authority over decisions affecting their lives.
That kaupapa has been given powerful backing by Hauwhaikaha: The Disability System Report, released by the Waitangi Tribunal as part of the Wai 2575 Health Services and Outcomes Kaupapa Inquiry.
The Tribunal found the Crown has breached Te Tiriti principles, failed to adequately partner with tāngata whaikaha Māori, failed to properly address longstanding inequities and inadequately supported kaupapa Māori providers.
A system Māori have struggled against for decades
Hauwhaikaha is the culmination of an extensive inquiry involving 48 claimants, 13 interested parties and 11 weeks of hearings between 2022 and 2024.
The Tribunal heard that Māori experience significantly higher levels of disability than non-Māori, while tāngata whaikaha Māori also experience inequitable access to health and disability support.
The Crown itself accepted there is a higher proportion of unmet need among tāngata whaikaha Māori and that they are frequently marginalised within the health and disability system.
For Hickey, these are issues that extend well beyond government reports.
Throughout decades of advocacy she has challenged barriers in housing, transport, employment, healthcare and public spaces, while arguing that accessibility and inclusion must recognise Māori identity and culture rather than treating disability as an isolated issue.
Fragmented, complicated and difficult to navigate
One of the Tribunal’s strongest conclusions reflects an experience familiar to many whānau.
The disability system is fragmented, complex and difficult to navigate.
For people already dealing with disability, illness, financial pressure, inaccessible transport or housing and the demands of everyday life, navigating multiple agencies and eligibility rules can itself become another barrier.
For Māori living rurally, the problem can become even greater.
The Tribunal found shortages of services in rural communities can force whānau to travel further and carry additional costs simply to access support. It also heard evidence of racism and discrimination within the system.
This is where Hickey’s long-standing advocacy for accessibility becomes particularly important.
Accessibility is not simply about whether a building has a ramp.
It is about whether housing is suitable, transport is available, information can be understood, healthcare is accessible, technology works for disabled people and whānau can reach services when they actually need them.
The Tribunal says power itself is the problem
Perhaps the most significant finding in Hauwhaikaha is not about an individual programme or funding stream.
It is about who holds power.
The Tribunal concluded that the state disability system does not properly recognise or provide for the tino rangatiratanga and mana motuhake of tāngata whaikaha Māori.
It found the Crown historically failed to partner with tāngata whaikaha Māori in designing disability services, policies, strategies and action plans.
It also found Māori have not been adequately supported and resourced to participate formally in system design and decision-making.
That takes the debate beyond consultation.
Asking Māori what they think after a policy has largely been developed is not the same as sharing authority over its design.
For Hickey and other disability advocates, the principle has long been straightforward: disabled people must be participants in decisions affecting disabled people.
For tāngata whaikaha Māori, that principle also intersects with Te Tiriti, tino rangatiratanga and the right to develop Māori-led responses.
Kaupapa Māori providers need more than praise
The Tribunal also focused heavily on kaupapa Māori services.
It recognised kaupapa Māori providers as essential to delivering culturally appropriate support and sustaining hauora Māori, describing those providers as expressions of tino rangatiratanga.
But it found they are not receiving sufficient funding or support to meet the needs of tāngata whaikaha Māori.
That creates an uncomfortable contradiction.
Government can recognise that Māori providers reach whānau differently and deliver culturally grounded services, but that recognition means little if those organisations are then expected to deliver more with inadequate resources.
For whānau, the consequences can be delays, fewer choices and services struggling to remain sustainable.
Cultural safety remains unfinished business
The disability workforce also came under scrutiny.
Māori and tāngata whaikaha Māori remain under-represented across the health and disability workforce.
The Tribunal found Crown training and professional development arrangements have not ensured workers are culturally competent, contributing to too many instances of culturally unsafe care.
That matters because disability support can involve some of the most personal aspects of a person’s life.
Trust matters.
Whanaungatanga matters.
Understanding whānau structures matters.
Language, tikanga and identity matter.
A technically available service can still be inaccessible if the person receiving it does not feel culturally safe using it.
Government can’t fix what it doesn’t properly measure
Hauwhaikaha also exposes a major weakness in disability data.
Despite longstanding knowledge of inequities, the Tribunal found the Crown has failed to sufficiently understand how well the disability system is performing for tāngata whaikaha Māori.
There are no nationally consistent data standards across Crown agencies that allow Māori disability health outcomes to be systematically and separately measured and reported.
That has consequences for accountability.
If government cannot clearly measure who is receiving services, who is missing out, where unmet need sits and whether outcomes are improving, it becomes considerably harder for Māori communities to hold the system accountable.
Better data is therefore not merely an administrative exercise.
It determines whether inequity can be seen.
Some Māori communities face particular barriers
The Tribunal made specific findings concerning Kāpō Māori, including Māori who are blind, deafblind, vision-impaired or have low vision; Tāngata Turi, Māori who are deaf or hard of hearing; and tāngata whaikaha Māori living with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder.
Those findings underline another important point.
Tāngata whaikaha Māori are not a single homogenous community.
Disability, age, location, language, gender, income and whānau circumstances can create very different needs.
A disability system capable of serving Māori therefore needs flexibility rather than assuming one model will work for everybody.
Abolition of Te Aka Whai Ora leaves another question
The Tribunal has also highlighted the consequences of dismantling Te Aka Whai Ora, the Māori Health Authority.
It recommends the Crown establish appropriate replacements for the monitoring role previously held by Te Aka Whai Ora under the Pae Ora legislation, covering the health and disability system and health services provided through prisons.
That recommendation is politically significant.
Whatever structure governments choose, the Tribunal is effectively saying that independent and effective monitoring of Māori outcomes cannot simply disappear.
Someone must be responsible for determining whether the system is actually improving outcomes for tāngata whaikaha Māori.
Co-design must mean sharing the steering wheel
The Tribunal recommends viable partnership models developed through co-design with tāngata whaikaha Māori.
It also wants Māori directly involved in designing and delivering the disability system, alongside reforms covering funding, data and accountability.
For advocates such as Hickey, the challenge will be ensuring co-design does not become another government buzzword.
True co-design means involving disabled Māori from the beginning.
It means paying people appropriately for their expertise.
It means accessible participation.
It means Māori organisations having resources and decision-making authority.
And crucially, it means government being prepared to give up some control.
From consultation to rangatiratanga
Dr Huhana Hickey’s decades of advocacy have been built around a deceptively simple idea: disabled people should be able to participate fully in society and have a meaningful say over the systems governing their lives.
Hauwhaikaha now places that principle squarely alongside the Crown’s Te Tiriti responsibilities.
The Tribunal has identified the problems.
It has identified the inequities.
It has identified failures in funding, cultural safety, data, representation and partnership.
And it has recommended a pathway forward.
The question now is whether another landmark report becomes another document sitting on a government shelf — or whether Election 2026 marks the point at which tāngata whaikaha Māori finally move from being consulted by the disability system to sharing power over it.
Because after decades of advocacy from leaders such as Dr Huhana Hickey, the message could hardly be clearer:
Nothing about tāngata whaikaha Māori should be decided without tāngata whaikaha Māori at the table.
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