“Blind people speaking for ourselves” has been a core feature of what Blind Citizens NZ is, and what it has always been, probably even before anyone decided it would make a good motto. It speaks of both our collectivism and our rights as individuals.

In my last column, I talked about the introduction of the Disability Support Services (DSS) Bill, which has now had its third reading in Parliament. Plenty of disabled people and families made submissions: three and a half thousand written submissions, many of them from people whose lives are directly affected by what happens to DSS. Once it receives Royal Assent, the bill becomes law and we’ll be talking about the DSS Act. Several political parties have already said that if elected there will be changes, perhaps a repeal process. No matter what your personal choices might be at the General Election later this year, I bet most people reading this column don’t like the idea that disability rights will continue to be a political football.

The Blind Citizens NZ submission affirmed the need to have a proper legal foundation for the provision of DSS. Unlike the Minister though, we didn’t think it needed to be a rush job.

We believe that an apolitical solution could have been formulated, one that also had greater support of disabled people and whānau.

We rejected those aspects of the bill which we believe do not uphold the rights of disabled people. Those rights are conferred by NZ’s ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and other human rights instruments. We sought inclusion of the UNCRPD as an explicit reference in the legislation; the Select Committee thought otherwise.

The submissions we make are based on agreed policies where possible and long-held organisational principles when our policy documents don’t cover specific issues under discussion. For example, Maritime NZ has been working on policies for ferries and the like. Maritime NZ worked with the DPO Coalition and each DPO was able to nominate a person to a working group to help develop a range of ideas on which Maritime NZ would then consult more widely.

Blind Citizens NZ does not have a policy on anything relating to boats of any kind, but we do have documents on land-based public transport, access to information, and a view that disabled people should be able to travel by boat alongside our non-disabled peers and family members.

Similarly, we don’t have any policies on the use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI). One of the remits coming to our AGM in October includes a reference to automated decision-making by Work and Income.

I admit that at first, I had my reservations about the framing of Gen AI being included as a bad thing for Work and Income to be using. In DPO Coalition discussions with Ministry of Social Development (MSD) officials, we were assured that the use of automated decision-making would speed up the process of successful applications and that no machine would reject an application without a human being involved in the process. It was painted as a way to get the good outcomes faster and that safeguards were in place to prevent adverse outcomes.

I am a huge fan of Gen AI. It is making my life easier and more productive. I use it to support my employment, my leisure activities, the sheep-breeding programme, farm chores such as fertiliser optimisation, and sometimes even things I do for Blind Citizens NZ. I will probably ask Gen AI for suggestions on how to make this column more readable for example. I will be given advice by the Gen AI tool of my choosing, but I will then also have to choose how I will use that advice. The end-product has my name on it. I am responsible and I cannot blame Gen AI for any clangers I let through.

What we’ve seen unfold recently though, is that MSD has relied on Gen AI in ways that officials were not capable of working with. Gen AI created a deluge of work that the humans couldn’t cope with. It is what happened next though, that troubles me. Instead of the machinery leaving well enough alone, it seems that in the end, the machines did get to make decisions without humans being involved. Call them benefit cuts or failure to receive entitlements, the outcome is the same – people were denied their rightful payments, and now Gen AI is getting the blame. The people who were opposed to the use of Gen AI are saying, “I told you so”.

But hang on just a moment. Those machines were controlled and designed by humans. Humans chose how to deploy that technology, and humans specified boundaries within which the Gen AI had the power to act. If MSD hasn’t controlled its use of Gen AI properly, then surely it is on MSD’s humans to explain their actions. Maybe it’s also time for the Minister of Social Development to take more responsibility too.

Government has a new agency to assist its other agencies in coming to grips with the continually-changing digital world we are operating in. The Government Digital Delivery Agency (GDDA) is an important agency for us as blind people, not just because it might have some role in the use of Gen AI, but also because it is the agency responsible for the accessibility of Government websites and other digital technology.

Recently, the GDDA wanted people to have our say on its ideas for a new “Digital Accessibility Standard” (DAS). The DAS will replace the existing Web Accessibility Standard and be in place in early 2027. The DAS is an exciting initiative, or could be if it actually has teeth.

After all, we might have had website standards for many years, but we still see a significant proportion of Government websites that just do not meet the Government’s own standards.

One of the nicest things I’ve seen coming from the use of Gen AI is an increasing awareness for meeting accessibility needs. I can use Gen AI to not only tell me what must change about the presentation of a given website, but also to tell me what actual changes are required under the hood to get those changes in place. If the developer wants, the right Gen AI tool will also do the editing of the underlying code for the website. I therefore suggest that fixing basic accessibility requirements for websites has become considerably easier than it was before Gen AI was there to help. In addition, if improvements in websites are possible, then change is also possible for other documents such as those needed for education and other scenarios.

Part of the fascinating discussion with the GDDA people on the DAS during consultation was their initial assumption that Gen AI could solve other problems that exist. In particular, creation of the various alternate formats we make use of.

At first they thought that Gen AI could speed up the production of Braille and make use of digitised audio to replace human narration. This might be a reality in five- or ten-years’ time, but it is not a reality today.

I believe the key individuals at the GDDA heard the evidence presented to them and ultimately recognised that their ideas needed to be withdrawn. As it happens, many of their assumptions hinged on the ability of end-users to make the Braille or audio for ourselves. We stressed that the tools used by professionals to make Braille and audio are not able to be used by anyone who is totally reliant on Braille or audio.

The last item I wanted to highlight in this column, and it links to the last one, is that according to Internet NZ, over 10% of New Zealanders are not getting online. They quite clearly are not all blind, but many folks from our community are totally reliant on the flow of information coming to them in hardcopy Braille or audio of some form.

Blind Citizens NZ spends a considerable amount of money to make sure our people get information in their chosen format. If you receive this magazine by email or are reading it online, it costs practically nothing. If you receive it in hardcopy, then it was printed or embossed and posted to you at an ever-increasing cost. Anyone listening to the audio either got it on a dedicated telephone-based service called TellMe or was sent it on a physical medium. I am not criticising anyone for their need to receive a physical item.

However, I ask those of us who receive the cheaper option to keep something in mind. To ensure everyone continues to have a say, Blind Citizens NZ needs to keep members informed.

We will therefore, continue to communicate our actions and activities to all members and to offer means for members without a digital presence to have their say.