This year, two New Zealand destinations featured in Time magazine’s list of the World’s Greatest Places to Visit. One was the Poor Knights Islands, where tour operator Dive! Tutukaka is the first entity in Aotearoa to be named a Padi (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) adaptive service facility. With the aim of making the sport more accessible to divers with physical, psychological or mental challenges, its facilities include full-access bathrooms as well as ramps for mobility access, wider door entrances, sloped floors and signs at an appropriate level for wheelchair users.
It’s promising that more thought is being given to how to make the famous Kiwi great outdoors accessible to all. According to a July 2023 Manatū Hauora Ministry of Health document, “disabled people make up a significant and diverse part of Aotearoa New Zealand, with 1.1 million people (24% of the population) identified as disabled”.
Given the figures, it’s a challenge that needs addressing. And with 25 New Zealanders about to compete in eight sports at the Paris Paralympics, the spotlight is again on athletes with additional needs.
Paul Speight is one New Zealander coming up with solutions. A keen sportsman, Speight has been a wheelchair user since 1975, when, managing a sheep station aged 21, he had a car accident that set the course for the rest of his life. “Back in those days, in a wheelchair, there wasn’t a hell of a lot to do,” says Speight.
Determined to change this, he went on to found Spokes N Motion, a company that specialises in designing and making recreational and professional sporting equipment for those who have disabilities or, as he prefers to say, different lifestyles.
Spokes N Motion’s range includes the electric assist all-terrain wheelchair eTrike ($19,000), the Hippolib saddle module ($5000), which allows disabled riders to ride horseback, and skiing equipment such as the Monoski Bullet ($12,000) – a “hot potato for the piste”.
Speight says he now has the equipment to take people on any of the high-profile tracks in our famous national parks. But there’s been pushback to making that happen.
“Why? [Lack of] knowledge and because they don’t want to learn. That’s the big thing about disabilities – I think people reject you or don’t invite you because they lack knowledge.”
Skiing is a passion of Speight’s. He was the coach and manager of New Zealand’s disabled ski team in the 1980s and led the team to the Paralympic Winter Games in Innsbruck in 1988. And he has campaigned, successfully, to make Ruapehu’s ski fields accessible to all.
Adaptive equipment is not a new discipline, although new materials have made lighter-weight items possible. Now living in Colorado, Speight acknowledges others before him who “redefined the wheelchair – people such as Marilyn Hamilton, the US entrepreneur who co-invented the “Quickie”, the world’s first lightweight wheelchair, after a hang-gliding accident in 1978.
But although the kit has got better, there is still work to be done, says Speight. “New Zealand was one of the first countries to advocate for inclusion for disability rights, but the mental attitude is not there.”
Psychology student and sports enthusiast Liv Fountain agrees. Born with spastic diplegia – a form of cerebral palsy that mostly affects her legs – she says she was excluded from sport at high school because of her disability. “I was sidelined from PE because it was too hard for the PE teachers to adapt the lessons.”
She says the technology exists with apps such as CoachMate, which demonstrate how to adapt different sports to disabled people. “I feel it’s important for able-bodied people to see how disabled people do sport and vice versa.”
Fountain, 18, is a member of the Halberg Foundation’s Youth Council, which advocates on behalf of young disabled people to provide them with more sporting opportunities. Founded in 1963 by Olympian Murray Halberg, who was left with a withered arm after a rugby accident, the foundation connects Kiwis with physical disabilities with the opportunity to play sports both competitively and non-competitively.
Having first learnt to swim through Halberg’s Get Active programme when she was 8, Fountain says the sport gives her freedom. “I can take my mind off everything and just focus on swimming.”
Youth Council member Dylan Lloyd, from Dunedin, is a third-year communication design student and part of wheelchair rugby team the Otago Wheel Landers. Played in teams of four on an inside court, wheelchair rugby is a sport for people with a wide range of disabilities, says Lloyd. “There are quite a lot of spinal injury players and people with cerebral palsy, like myself, or other smaller impairments.”
The foundation has supported his sporting interests. “I’ve had swimming lessons, and I had a trike when I was younger, because I couldn’t ride a regular bike. They’ve also funded an athletics racing chair for me.”
Negative experiences
Rebecca McDonald works for the disability specialist consultancy and talent agency All is for All, and was formerly with the foundation. Competing under her birth name, Dubber, she was a bronze medallist in swimming at the 2016 Rio Paralympics.
“I was born with my disability – lumbar sacral agenesis,” says McDonald, who lives in Tuakau, north Waikato. “My parents had no idea; they handled it like champs.”
Not everyone was considerate. “I know so many disabled people who’ve had negative experiences in sport and recreation. I got told point blank to my face that netball’s not a sport for people in wheelchairs.
“There’s this disparity with young disabled kids that they’re possibly not welcome in these spaces, because there’s this fear or challenge around inclusion. We’re stuck on this idea that we need separate opportunities – like separate swim clubs – and New Zealand just doesn’t have the population to sustain that type of programme.”
The way a football session might be adapted at the local sports club for a child who has broken their leg might translate for a child in a wheelchair, she says. “There’s a bit of problem solving, which as disabled people we’re really good at.”
McDonald has been a surf lifesaver, too, an activity she enjoyed with her father. “I’ve seen it; it can be done. They wanted me there, and they figured out ways to adapt.”
Parents often have to become fierce advocates, she says. “My mum did that for me when I first joined a competitive swim club. She just showed up with me. You’ve got to go up against those opinions that your child doesn’t belong or that other people are going to suffer by having them there.”
McDonald says her ambition to become a Paralympian began to take shape with the help of physios, coaches and teammates. After placing fifth in her two events at the 2012 games in London, she focused her training on swimming at Rio.
Six weeks out, however, a spate of health issues – including osteochondritis dissecans, which required surgery – saw her dream at risk. But she triumphed, and came third in the 100m backstroke. “My parents and grandparents were there; they were so proud.” Her medal was presented by Kiwi swimmer Duane Kale, “an incredible Paralympian and human. That was that moment for me.”
There’s still a sense of conflict between disability identity and sport, McDonald says. “There’s this weird tug of war between the two where we assume they can’t coexist; that you can’t be disabled and an incredible athlete. You can be both.”
Another side of life
Paul Speight admits that before his accident he knew nothing about disability. “I had no involvement with people of different lifestyles,” he says. “You don’t realise there’s another side of life unless you’re involved, unless you’re introduced to it.”
Before he moved to the US, Speight visited hospitals and rehab units counselling the newly injured. There’s an obvious mental adjustment as well as a physical one, and for many, a return to work they once enjoyed can be difficult, even with the best will. “There’s no reason someone shouldn’t employ [a disabled person],” he says of employers’ reluctance. “You probably sit on your backside. I do exactly the same thing, so what’s the difference?”
Regarding anti-discrimination laws, Speight doesn’t miss a beat. “People get around laws.”
Even for a confident person, a lack of acceptance and inclusion can take its toll. As Dylan Lloyd says, “Often, people with disabilities have to go that little extra bit to prove to themselves – or other people – that they’re no different from anyone else.”
There is still underlying exclusion, he says, particularly when the disabled person is the only one seated while people stand about chatting. “Instantly, you’re at a disadvantage. It changes when everyone is sitting at eye level.”
“You live with it,” Speight reflects. “I’ve been in a chair now for not quite 50 years; it’s water off a duck’s back.”
Lloyd manages the Wheel Blacks and New Zealand Wheelchair Rugby social media accounts and believes more mainstream coverage of para athletes would help shift stereotypes. Interest in the sports is definitely growing, he maintains. “The Paralympic qualifiers were held in Wellington and were broadcast live on Sky, which is massive. “And why shouldn’t it be? Just because we’re at parasport doesn’t mean we don’t train as hard to get there. Sport is sport. You’ve still got to train, you’ve still got to compete. There’s so many great para athletes out there, but people just aren’t aware.”
Big-name athletes
McDonald stresses the importance of visible role models. Para athletes such as swimmers Dame Sophie Pascoe and Cameron Leslie became household names for their achievements. “The Paralympic movement is growing in relevance each cycle and athletes around the globe are becoming more and more recognisable,” she says.
“There’s this weird misconception that disabled people are super fragile. For the most part, disabled kids are some of the most resilient people you’ll ever meet.”
One of the biggest barriers to inclusion can be cost. Says Lloyd, “Wheelchair rugby requires a separate rugby chair that is built for contact, and they’re not cheap. The chair I’m looking at getting funding for is $15,000.”
Liv Fountain agrees. “Sometimes, that piece of adaptive equipment is the only thing that’s preventing a disabled person from participating in sport.”
Sponsors are critical: in Aotearoa, the Lion Foundation, Flight Centre Foundation and Mondelēz International work with organisations such as Halberg and the Ministry of Youth Development, but there’s often a gap that needs to be covered by personal resources, for example, meeting the $19,000 cost of a Spokes N Motion e-trike.
Speight also feels the financial squeeze. “Every company that makes this sort of equipment is small. We don’t have big budgets to market and sell stuff.
“These days, there’s not a thing you can’t do – it’s all out there. I can take you paragliding in a wheelchair. I can take you diving, sailing, mountain climbing.” However, “there are still a lot of people out there who don’t have that access. I see it in New Zealand, Māori, the Pacific Islands, there is a great disadvantage.”
Under the Building Act 2004, people with disabilities must be able to “carry out normal activities and processes in a building”. The relevant sections also refer to “reasonable” access, which, as a 2014 report by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and the Office for Disability Issues noted, could include those pushing strollers or older people who have the same requirements as those with disabilities.
But the execution can fall well short, as Lloyd found when he attended a wheelchair rugby event in Auckland. There was the mandated accessible bathroom, but with a doorway too narrow for a person in a wheelchair to use.
“Everything was set up once inside, but they forgot how this person is getting into the bathroom.
“I’m lucky enough where I can get out of my chair and hold on to walls and walk to places, but when it’s a wheelchair rugby event and 70-80% of the people are in wheelchairs, not everyone has that luxury.”
Lloyd often wonders, too, if anyone with lived experience was consulted at the design stages of some buildings, like “the amount of accessible accommodation where the cupboards will be high – all your plates, cups – because that’s the standard format for all the hotel rooms”.
Speight’s vision is a poignant one. “I would like to live in a world where I wouldn’t have to look for a disabled sign. I should be able to walk into a building and everything should just be there.” l
The 2024 Paris Paralympics run from August 29 to September 9 with nightly coverage on TVNZ1 and TVNZ+.