Groundbreaking Accessibility Standards Bill proposed by NZ First MP Jenny Marcroft

Callum McMenamin — 8 July 2026

New Zealand lacks coherent accessibility standards for disabled people. NZ First MP Jenny Marcroft’s proposed Accessibility Standards Bill aims to change that. These are my high-level first impressions of the Bill.

What’s happening?

On 8 July, a surprising email hit my inbox from a Parliamentary staffer.

Jenny Marcroft, a New Zealand First MP, is introducing a Member’s Bill: the Accessibility Standards Bill.

You can read the proposed Bill here: Accessibility Standards Bill (PDF). NZ First has also published an announcement: Establishing an accessible New Zealand for everyone.

Note: In this post, I am giving my high-level first impressions on the Bill — I will write a more detailed analysis later on.

Accessibility is incredibly important for disabled people. Without accessibility, disabled people get excluded from living their daily lives independently. For example, we need to ensure blind people can use supermarket self-checkouts, we need to ensure our TV shows have captions, etc.

Accessibility relies on standards. Standards define what makes a system accessible to disabled people. NZ has lacked a proper system of setting standards and enforcing them.

What does the Accessibility Standards Bill do?

Currently, NZ has no system for legally recognised accessibility standards across all areas of life. Accessibility standards are currently implemented in a highly fragmented, disorganised, and confusing way. For example, the standard for NZ Government website accessibility is a directive from Cabinet back from 2001. How dusty is that!

In my view, the proposed Accessibility Standards Bill is elegant. It broadly achieves the objectives I’ve been advocating for over many years.

In essence, the Bill does the following:

1. It creates a system for setting accessibility standards: the responsible Minister can direct the NZ Standards Executive to develop or amend accessibility standards. The Disability Rights Commissioner can recommend that new standards be created.
2. Its potential standards cover many areas of life: including banking, transport, education, digital, etc.
3. It involves the community in standards creation: Relevant disability representative organisations must be included in new standard development. Entities the standards apply to must also be consulted.
4. It sets clear timeframes for updating standards: Standards can become outdated over time, and the Bill sets a minimum review frequency.
5. It requires the creation of ‘Accessibility Plans’: Specified organisations have to actually write down and publish their plans for complying with accessibility standards, updated at least every 5 years.
6. It creates feedback processes: Entities that standards apply to must have feedback processes for accessibility complaints and feedback.
7. It explicitly states the Human Rights Commission’s role: The Bill articulates that accessibility non-compliance complaints can be directed through the Human Rights Commission’s pre-existing complaints process.
8. It requires the Human Rights Commission to take an active role: The Human Rights Commission is required to publish guidance, advice, and information about standards compliance, and to drive awareness and education activities.

What’s wrong with the Bill?

Overall, I am actually thoroughly impressed with the approach taken by this Bill. I think with some more consultation with the community, it can be shaped into a highly effective and practical law.

It’s far better than the previous government’s attempt with the Accessibility for New Zealanders Bill — which basically only established a working group.

The main issue I have with the Bill is its definition of disability is very narrow. It only includes physical and sensory disability — a UN-aligned definition would be far better. It doesn’t make sense to leave out things like learning disability, neurodivergence, etc. While this is a fairly serious flaw, I think it’s easily resolved.

Some of the language used in the Bill is not entirely correct, for example the usage of “persons with disabilities” instead of “disabled people” is a bit jarring. Not the end of the world, however.

Final thoughts

Honestly, I’m a bit flabbergasted. I thought this kind of law would come out of a left-wing political party. But here we are, getting a progressive piece of accessibility law out of New Zealand First, of all parties.

I’m going to be engaging constructively with Jenny Marcroft MP, who is responsible for the Bill. I’ve got a meeting next week to share my experiences and thoughts with her.

I suppose the biggest lesson for me, is to really appreciate that we do have MPs who do amazing work, even if we don’t personally align with their political parties. As I get older, I increasingly see the value in looking past the left/right political divide. We need to focus more on what unites us. We don’t want to spiral into the dark places some other democracies have.

To be clear, I don’t speak as someone aligned with the New Zealand First Party. I personally disagree with many of their policies. However, based on my initial impressions, I think this proposed law is a practical and elegant way to push the human rights of disabled people forward.

So, thanks Jenny Marcroft. I may disagree with your party in most things, but in this case, I think you’ve delivered a proposed law that genuinely makes me hopeful for the future.

— Callum