How NZ’s proposed accessibility standard failed to include health

Callum McMenamin — 19 August 2026

Let’s investigate how the health system was excluded from the NZ Govt’s draft Digital Accessibility Standard

The problem

In a previous blog post, I explained (and complained) about how NZ Govt’s draft digital accessibility standard excludes the health system. Read A digital accessibility standard that (maybe?) forgot the health system.

This is a fairly glaring and obvious problem. I wanted to understand how it came about.

I decided to pretend to be an investigative journalist, and dust off the Official Information Act 1982 and start asking some questions.

I asked for any evidence that the relevant government agencies ever analysed why they exclude health from accessibility standards.

The OIA to Government Digital Delivery Agency

Here’s a brief version of the OIA I sent to the Government Digital Delivery Agency:

The response from Government Digital Delivery Agency

I asked if the GDDA had documents indicating they talked with anyone in the health sector, including the Ministry of Health, Health New Zealand etc.

See GDDA’s OIA response (PDF).

Their response? The request is refused because the information doesn’t exist.

Note: I am unaware of why the Ministry of Heather is involved in GDDA’s response.

I also asked if the GDDA held any documents showing that they analysed whether Health New Zealand or the wider health system should, or could be covered by the Digital Accessibility Standard.

Their response? The request is refused because the information doesn’t exist.

And finally, I asked if GDDA had analysed the draft Standard against the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Article 9 (Accessibility).

Their response? They pointed me to two public documents, neither of which answered my question.

The first was a blog post from July 2025 that mentions the UNCRPD only in passing. The second is recommendation 3.21, “Align with international standards”, which recommends aligning our accessibility standards with WCAG and EN 301 549. It only briefly acknowledges that the NZ Govt signed the UNCRPD, so we must meet these standards “without compromise”.

Both documents fail to describe analysis on how the UNCRPD Article 9 was considered. There’s a dark irony to the research recommending alignment “without exception” while exempting the entire health system through omission.

I asked for Whaikaha’s side of the story too

I was also a bit of a menace and decided to ask Whaikaha — Ministry of Disabled People for all of their documents and feedback on the draft Digital Accessibility Standard, to see if anyone in the disability ministry realised that health is excluded in the draft Standard.

Unfortunately, based on the documents available, Whaikaha did not raise any concerns, or appear to perform any analysis on which agencies are required to meet the digital accessibility standard.

See Whaikaha’s OIA response (PDF).

Conclusion

I find all of this a bit alarming.

Based on the evidence available, it is reasonable to conclude that the government has not even thought about why they are excluding health from accessibility standards.

It’s just been unknowingly accepted as the status quo, without any formal analysis on why this is the case, and whether it could change.

It appears GDDA has made good efforts to perform consultations with various groups, but nobody in these groups appeared to raise the right kind of questions. Based on what I’ve read, everyone got caught in the weeds rather than looking for big-picture failures.

This is part of the difficulty with consultation. There’s often a disconnect between lived experience and actual knowledge. Lived experience is, in many circumstances, indispensable. But actually deeply understanding the implications of technical standards filled with legalese needs more than just being a disabled person. It requires difficult technical research and understanding.

My view, is the legal implications of highly technical clauses in the Standard should have been made clear in the consultation process. Only a handful of people in New Zealand know what a “Public Service Act 2020 section 10(a) entity” means. Most of those people probably hold law degrees. This is why it’s critically important to explain important provisions of a standard in plain language. Most reasonable people probably believe “All public service agencies” includes the health system, as it’s part of the government — only lawyers and (some) bureaucrats will understand that health is not in that category.

So, I suppose this concludes the investigation for now. We now know why the government isn’t applying digital accessibility standards to health. It’s because the thought hasn’t even occurred (in writing), and nobody realised this was an issue.

— Callum