Cuts to Disability Services Are Part of a Class War

Written By: - Date published: 7:30 am, March 19th, 2025 - 14 comments
Categories: act, activism, benefits, Christopher Luxon, class, class war, Coalition NZ, coalition of chaos, david seymour, Debt, debt / deficit, disability, economy, health, housing, human rights, inequality, national, national/act government, nicola willis, Politics, poverty, Privatisation, public services, tax, treasury, welfare - Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Over the last year, the Coalition has unleashed a series of cuts which have been devastating for the disabled community. These cuts are part of a class war — and it’s time to organise and fight back, writes Elliot Crossan.


March 18th is an infamous date within the disabled community. One year ago yesterday, Whaikaha — the Ministry of Disabled People — suddenly announced sweeping changes to flexible funding without consultation. Now-former Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds caused outrage when she tried to justify her actions by claiming in Parliament that parents and carers of disabled children were misusing funding.

Pictured: a protest organised last year by System Change Aotearoa against the government’s sudden removal of flexible funding. Photo credit: the D*List.

Further devastating changes have been announced since. Funding for equipment and housing modifications for wheelchair users was cut. A programme designed to top up the pay of 900 disabled workers to the minimum wage was scrapped. In August, the government removed responsibility from Whaikaha for frontline services.

The government is waging war on the disabled community. The results have been devastating — an outcome which was entirely predictable, given the funding and services being cut are essential for disabled people to live good lives. Incomes, support networks and mobility have all been negatively impacted. Far too many in the community are struggling with mental health problems as a result.

As a parent of a disabled child put it in Awhi Ngā Mātua’s community survey, released yesterday:

“These changes have done more than just cut funding; they have shattered long-term security, disrupted family continuity, and instilled fear where there should be confidence. The cost of these decisions will not just be financial—it will be measured in lost opportunities, eroded futures, and deepening inequality for generations to come.”

To add insult to injury, the government is now holding a community consultation which the D*List’s Henrietta Bollinger describes as having “the obvious intention to limit both who can access flexible funding and how it can be used.” Bollinger writes: “The options on offer and the narrow scope we are being consulted on seem like invitations to advise the Government on which of us is asking too much from life.”

The community is not satisfied. An open letter has been published by Awhi Ngā Mātua, signed by dozens of community groups, calling on the government to:

  • Apologise to disabled people and their whanau;
  • Ensure access to adequate mental health services;
  • Develop support services that work alongside disabled people, parents and carers.

This war on the disabled community is part of a class war. It is not an accident; it is not ignorance; it is not incompetence. It is the deliberate policy of a government which is advancing the interests of the top 1% at the expense of the 99%.

The Coalition is pursuing what economists call “fiscal austerity.” In simpler terms — Finance Minister Nicola Willis is trying to balance the government’s budget by cutting spending. According to Treasury figures, if adjusted for population growth, Willis is implementing the most savage spending cuts in the nation’s history.

Yet there is no government debt crisis that is provoking the Finance Minister to slash spending. Yes, debt went up during Covid — but we still have low government debt as a share of our economy compared to similar countries. Nothing is forcing Willis to cut spending to disabled communities.

Source: General government debt, OECD.

Even if there was a debt crisis, there would be an easy solution. The government could tax the rich to pay down the debt. A 2023 investigation by Inland Revenue found that the 311 wealthiest families in Aotearoa collectively held 85 billion dollars in net wealth, yet paid less than half the tax rate of the average Kiwi household.

If the rich paid the same tax rate as everyone else, the government could afford to expand funding for disabled communities. There would be no need for cuts. A wealth tax could ensure that Whaikaha was fully funded, and allow the implementation of the Enabling Good Lives approach recommended by disability experts.

Yet this government is doing the exact opposite — cutting disability services in order to fund tax cuts for landlords and property developers. If Willis’ cuts were actually about reducing debt, would there really be any spare money for her to dish out tax cuts to the rich?

These cuts are part of a war on working class people across Aotearoa. The Coalition’s austerity approach is not confined to disability funding. Other areas that are affected include:

The list could go on. Higher rates of poverty, homelessness and inequality will be the enduring legacy of this class war.

The disabled community is on the front line of each of these struggles. Poor access to healthcare, housing and benefits hits disabled people disproportionately. But make no mistake: it is the whole working class that is under attack from this Coalition.

It is no coincidence that the government is prioritising the interests of the wealthy above all else. National, ACT and NZ First all benefited from record high donations from big money interests in the last election.

Source: Why New Zealand political donations have more than tripled, RNZ.

The same agenda of prioritising profit over people is being played out in all areas. The Fast-track Bill and the repeal of the ban on new offshore oil and gas drilling both allow fossil fuel corporations to expand production in the midst of a climate crisis. The government is threatening to partially privatise the health system, meaning that communities will be forced to pay even more for basic health services. Again, the disabled community will be hit the hardest by further restricting access to healthcare.

The Treaty Principles Bill, as well as being a racist attempt to rewrite Te Tiriti o Waitangi, is another part of this agenda. Rupert O’Brien’s article in the Spinoff last year explains how the Bill is an attempt by the ACT Party to remove the barriers to privatisation and deregulation that the Treaty presents.

It is far too easy to feel depressed and powerless right now. We have a government that is prioritising the wealth of the top 1% over basic human dignity for the majority of society.

But we are not powerless.

There is a reason why the government is launching attacks on all fronts simultaneously. The aim is to confuse and distract the opposition. If every community is focusing purely on its own struggle, with Māori mobilising for Te Tiriti, climate activists fighting the Fast-track legislation, trade unions trying to prevent the rollback of workers’ rights, beneficiary and homeless advocates sounding the alarm about poverty, and the disabled community reeling from cuts to vitally-needed services, then each group can be overwhelmed in isolation.

This is what the Coalition wants. Luxon, Willis, Seymour and Co. want us isolated, fighting each battle on our own, writing petitions and submissions that they will ignore.

But we know the richest people in Aotearoa have more wealth than they could ever possibly need. We know that money could be used to reverse the cuts. So what would happen if we brought communities together to stand united, as the 99% against the top 1%, to demand that everyone in society is given the health, housing, education, incomes and support services that every single one of us deserves?

It is time to build a mass movement in the streets, in workplaces and across our communities to oppose the government’s austerity agenda. A mass movement to put people and planet before profit, to honour Te Tiriti, and to assert that we all have the right to live good lives. Existing movements need to stand together — because we have power when we stand in solidarity with each other and refuse to be divided.

If we’re going to build a better society that works for everyone, then we have to take back the wealth that is being hoarded by the wealthy few. We need mass protests, mass strikes and mass resistance to stop this coalition of greed.

This is a class war — and it’s time for the working class to start fighting back.



Elliot Crossan is a socialist writer and activist from Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. He is the Chair of System Change Aotearoa. Subscribe to his Substack page to read more.

14 comments on “Cuts to Disability Services Are Part of a Class War ”

  1. SPC 1
    19 March 2025 at 8:22 am

    It reminds one of the old limits on Pharmac, they made savings which left people either unable to work, or in a health decline, which increased government and health sector costs overall.

    Their instinct is to reduce spending, regardless of future impact.

    They would say those of society who lived their lives that way, were not being prudent, but this is their SOP when in government.

    They are not in government to demonstrate competence, but to manage a society threat to their privilege – social contract obligation to others.

    Reply
  2. Patricia Bremner 2
    19 March 2025 at 8:42 am

    A badge portraying a joined up battle for fairness against greed

    One of the 99%

    For a Fair Deal

    In 2026.

    Reply
  3. Kay 3
    19 March 2025 at 8:47 am

    Elliot, it's not just people with high-needs disabilities and their families. It's that eternal problem of ACC vs medical, in other words, the 'deserving' disabled vs the rest of us. It shouldn't matter if someone becomes wheelchair-bound from a car crash or MS. Or brain damaged from an accident or birth gone wrong/genetic condition. The practical realities are the same, but the medical patient is pretty much on their own.

    I'm in tears reading your post, partly from the whole unfairness and nastiness, but mostly because I've been left with permanent nerve damage from an bad back injury that ACC semantics said wasn't an accident, so the follow-up treatment didn't happen till the long term, damage was done. Had I acquired the same injury drunk-driving, there would be all the help under the sun. I can't even get help with vacuuming and making my bed from anyone, because of their very strict criteria due to rationing. In other words, completely abandoned by the system, and left with a permanent disability and chronic pain that didn't have to happen. And I'm far from alone.

    I am very depressed, and despondent. How could I not be? But as I replied in your other recent post about organising the resistance, it just isn't a practical reality for a lot of us, who could genuinely be punished for daring to protest.

    Seymour would like to give me $6K to buy medical insurance. Well, actually no. There's no way on earth he would provide that particular tax break to beneficiaries. But even if he did, there are so many of us who are completely uninsurable because of pre-existing conditions (a word of advice: if you don't current have health insurance and are free from anything pre-existing, then buy your health insurance now while you still can). Which would leave us only having a completely run-down public system.

    Reply
    • Elliot Crossan 3.1
      19 March 2025 at 12:09 pm

      Thank you for sharing Kay, and I am so sorry to hear this example of how fucked the system is. Re: organising the resistance — I recognise that the duty to organise falls upon those of us who have the time, energy and capacity to do so.

      Reply
    • thinker 3.2
      19 March 2025 at 6:48 pm

      I have a family member along reasonably similar lines.

      The/an irony is that Seymour's $6k wouldn't help much.

      The private sector would exclude your disability from any policy created after you incurred it

      Reply
    • weka 3.3
      19 March 2025 at 8:21 pm

      thanks Kay. I became long term unwell as a student, so even if ACC had accepted medical disability the income payout would have been 80% of whatever the student dole was back then. Fucked up on so many levels. Successive governments are responsible, NACTF are doubling down hard on what was done before.

      To my mind NZ is quite a tolerant place for some disabilities, but generally we are pretty crap as a country and making sure disabled people are ok.

      Reply
      • Kay 3.3.1
        20 March 2025 at 7:42 am

        Yes, I remember that sort of situation. I first became unwell at uni and had to leave. I was entitled to the full sickness benefit, but someone there decided that since I hadn't been working, then they'd only give me what I was getting on student allowance. I've subsequently had it confirmed several times by WINZ that they were 'wrong'.

        So the State still owes me $1800 in 1987 money, plus interest.

        Reply
  4. PsyclingLeft.Always 4
    19 March 2025 at 9:01 am

    Elliot Crossan. Re your Post. Timely that i got an email from Emily at Action Stations . An open letter to….this class war NAct1 govt and specifically on

    The Government must apologise to disabled adults, children and their whānau

    https://our.actionstation.org.nz/petitions/the-coalition-government-must-apologise-to-disabled-adults-children-and-their-whanau-and-carers?

    And on Public Transport..of course essential for all, incl Disabled.

    Stop the proposed public transport fare hikes

    https://our.actionstation.org.nz/petitions/stop-the-proposed-public-transport-fare-hikes

    Even small things like signing…count. Stand up . Fight back !

    Reply
  5. Champaign Socialist 5
    19 March 2025 at 9:43 am

    The disabled are a voting minority so it's possible, electorally, to f*ck them over and not lose an election. Same with Maori. This is standard right wing economics – nothing unusual at all – isolate and economically attack minorities. Tick.
    Does anyone else notice the similarity between the NZ coalition government and the UK Labour government – they appear synchronized in policy and action.

    Reply
  6. thinker 6
    19 March 2025 at 6:27 pm

    I don't know if another correspondent can give me the proper wording to an old Brian Easton quote, but it goes along the lines that, when the people who make decisions are removed from the people who experience the outcome of those decisions, it encourages poorly-developed policy.

    I read it once, years ago, but that, and Pastor Niemollers saying about resisting fascists are probably the two most accurate quotes I've ever heard.

    I might not have been left of centre; much of me aligns to the kind of intergenerational family accountability that we find, say, in Asian countries.

    What keeps me left of centre is the typical ignorance of what it's like to be working and non-working class, from the right. I'm a frst-generation kiwi; I saw my parents struggle to build a life here and I haven't got many hobbies, such is the effort I've made to build on what my parents started.

    I feel sick when I hear people on the right spouting the rhetoric that were all born with the same chances; tell that to someone whose family, extended family and wider community wrote them off from the day they were born. Partly, because those people really believe it.

    Even to those of us fortunate to be born to comfort, wealthy, sorted, in a country like ours they generally don't need to go many generations before their ancestors knew how to wield a spade or how to choose between what should be necessities.

    Wealth and comfort should be a privilege not a birthright. Someone working in a warehouse is no more a loser than another persons ancestor who worked the land or laboured for more than their fair share of hours, to give their ungrateful descendant a better life than they themselves enjoyed.

    There ought to be a rule of parliament that Ministers of something need to devote a percentage of their time at the front line of their subject, arriving unannounced. Visit a random school, having had no breakfast, and eat the food that's the fruit of your policies (if it arrives). Go to a rural area and attempt to find medical help. Visit a food bank that's managed so well on it's miniscule share of the $10 million you're going to take from the budget.

    Reply
  7. weka 7
    19 March 2025 at 8:25 pm

    Let's not forget that in March last year they were saying it wasn't a cut.

    I'll go one step further than the post. Watching what is happening in the US, I think what is happening in NZ is attacking the most vulnerable and opening the door for that causing far far more harm if we go down the fascism path.

    In the UK, Starmer's Labour are in the process of cutting income from disabled people. That's a nominally centre left government not a RW one.

    In NZ we still have some choices and I really hope more progressives vote left of Labour next time, but I suspect they won't. People are stressed and afraid and will want to protect their own despite their liberal politics.

    Reply
    • Kay 7.1
      20 March 2025 at 7:35 am

      There's been nothing more interesting than meeting people who went from a healthy, comfortable existence to finding themselves disabled overnight, with no recourse to ACC so they have to discover the joys of WINZ, and inevitably cry that they didn't think it was this bad. No doubt they fell for the propaganda of our cushy lifestyles. More likely though, it never occurred to them to find out how it really is, because they never thought something would happen to them.

      The UK situation is absolutely terrifying, and horrific. I have friends there who will be affected, so it feels a bit more personal for me. And I haven't forgotten how our last National overlords were starting to copy the UK system here as well (sanctions, unnecessary assessments etc). had they got a 4th term, we would've been completely fucked.

      Reply

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