20percent meets with the Internet Party

Posted on September 01, 2014

Apologies in advance for the background noise, unfortunately we were limited for places to have the interview. Even though the Internet Party has not released their disability policy, we still took this chance to see what Laila had to say. As the name of the party suggests, there is a huge focus on technology and Laila has outlined how she thinks it is going to benefit the disability community. We talked about whether our health system was ready to deal with an aging population, inclusive education and abortion.

The Internet Party appears to have a very democratic process when it comes to deciding their policies, this may be one reason why they have had a large membership sign up.

The Internet Party currently has the highest percentage of candidates that identify with having a disability, on record at 33%.

Transcript of the interview 

Loren: So first of all who is Laila Harré?

Laila: A life time social justice activist, a trade unionist, a feminist and somebody who really cares about the opportunities for young people in this country and can see too many people missing out on the opportunities that the digital age could be providing.

Loren: What strategies will the Internet Party implement to make sure we can deal with our aging population?

Laila: There are already strategies in place to manage the costs of Superannuation and so on. But I think people have grossly underestimated the threats and costs and effects of declining health among older people. That is a real concern to us, so our health policy is very strongly focused on two things. One is health prevention and on health promotion. The reality is, the only way we are going to manage the escalating cost of aging is through much better Public Health Policies. A treatment model isn't going to cut it. It won't be affordable to provide the same sort of treatment services at the same level with a much greater need. We must focus a lot more. The second priority for us in Healthcare is a rapid improvement in technology and using the power of the internet to improve the provision of health services.

Loren: What is the Internet Party going to do surrounding Inclusive Education?

Laila: Again our sort of point of difference is our focus on technology and using the opportunities provided by the internet to improve all our state services and to provide for innovation and economic development. For people with disabilities the opportunities provided by the internet and digital tools are really infinite. There is a huge opportunity for people with disabilities to innovate in that area. So there is basic stuff like making current digital tools and so on more accessible. For instances to people who are blind or have vision issues, but there is much more that can be done. That is a space for innovation that we think disabled people would relish playing in and we would want to actively support innovation within the disability community by disabled innovators online.

Loren: Would you consider making a separate funding pool for students who need sign language interpreters, different to that of ORRS funding?

Laila: In principle we would support any initiative which is designed to overcome exclusion and therefore to battle decriminalization in a public institutional system. So yes, enabling people, deaf people to learn seems a bottom line really from a Human Rights point of view and that obviously means much more resources for training, sign language interpreters and there would be significant opportunity to bring people into that system. We know how difficult it is within the Internet Party , because we have quite strong commitments to proving Sign Language and so on at meetings, how difficult and expensive it can be to access that resource.

Loren: That leads me onto one of the other questions I have been asked, is the Internet Party campaigning directly to the Deaf Community?

Laila: Like with right across all our ways of operating we are responsive to our members. We have some very active Deaf members and activists who are pushing for a highly inclusive approach to sign language interpretation, captioning and so on. So, yes we are responsive to that and this isn't a cynical effort to win votes, it is actually necessary to ensure the members, the people that are interested in us can access us and be engaged.

Loren: What is the Internet Party's stance on the abortion law?

Laila: We’ve been canvassing members, our policy process has been very demographic. We have a platform for people to introduce new policies and new ideas. And in fact I personally led the discussion within the Internet Party on this issue. I am in favour of women’s right to choose and I have initiated a discussion within our policy incubator which will have the effect of removing abortion from the Crimes Act. The response to that from our members has been some opposition, but a very large majority of people support decimalization abortion.

Loren: The final question is, if disability issues is the defining factor as to who they are going to vote for on September 20th, why should they vote Internet/MANA?

Laila: Because our policy on technology and innovation will open the door to people with disabilities to use the internet and to use government support for start ups and so on in a way that has never happened in New Zealand before. The opportunities for people with disabilities to develop services for people with disabilities, to develop non-disability related services because of the accessibility of digital technology is infinite. That's why I would vote for the Internet Party, because it's an opportunity to innovate and take control of this huge digital space that we all now live in.