Update (20 August 2026): Since publishing this piece, the Cabinet paper Approval of the New Zealand Disability Strategy 2026–30 has come to light, and it updates the picture in a way worth flagging directly.
The 63-to-30 figures in this post accurately reflect the December 2024 Cabinet decision: 30 of the UN Committee’s 63 recommendations progressing, 17 more “being considered” through the Strategy refresh with no firm commitment, and roughly 16 left with no stated status at all.
The new Cabinet paper shows that position has since moved. Of the 17 recommendations that were only “being considered,” the Government now says 14 have been given concrete actions inside the final Disability Strategy, and a further 2 will be progressed through work outside the Strategy — meaning 16 of the 17 are now covered in some form.
That takes the total number of recommendations with an attached action from 30 up to 46 of 63.
The number left with no action proposed at all is now 17 (not the roughly 16 this post originally cited) — one recommendation from the original “under consideration” group still appears to have fallen through without an action attached.
New documents released under the Official Information Act reveal that this Government has quietly cut the number of United Nations disability rights recommendations it is actively working on by more than half — and disabled New Zealanders deserve to know exactly what that means for their lives.
In August 2022, the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities reviewed New Zealand’s progress and delivered 63 recommendations for change. In July 2023, the then-Government agreed to progress 55 of them — an encouraging, if imperfect, commitment.
That commitment has since been quietly wound back. Internal Ministry of Justice documents show that in December 2024, the current Government “considered a new approach to progressing the recommendations based on its priorities and work programmes underway or proposed by responsible agencies.” The result:
30 recommendations are being actively progressed.
17 are merely “being considered” as part of the 2025 Disability Strategy refresh — with no commitment attached.
That leaves roughly 16 recommendations unaccounted for entirely, with no stated status in the documents released.
This is not a technical adjustment. It is a substantial reduction in the scope of the Government’s own commitment to disabled people, made without the kind of public explanation this decision deserves.
New Zealand won’t face another full UN review of its CRPD implementation until the combined 4th–6th periodic reports are due on 25 October 2030. Between now and then, oversight rests largely on:
The Independent Monitoring Mechanism (made up of the Human Rights Commission, the Ombudsman, and the Disabled People’s Organisation Coalition);
The Ministerial Disability Leadership Group; and
The public Human Rights Monitor, which tracks government actions against UN recommendations.
That website is one of the few tools disabled people and their organisations have to hold agencies accountable in the years before the next formal review — and it is worth using.
The most consequential piece of work disclosed in these documents is the Law Commission’s review of the Protection of Personal and Property Rights Act 1988 — the law governing decisions made on behalf of people who cannot make decisions independently.
The Law Commission’s report, delivered in January 2026, contains 175 recommendations, centred on a shift toward supported decision-making — helping people make their own decisions — rather than substituted decision-making, where someone else decides for them.
This directly responds to Article 12 of the Convention, which affirms disabled people’s equal right to legal capacity.
The Ministry of Justice supports reform. But disabled people should understand the limits of what has actually been agreed so far:
Cabinet has only agreed to accept the reform “in principle.” No specific recommendations have been locked in.
Officials explicitly recommended against accepting all 175 recommendations at this stage — much of the substance is still to be worked through.
The reform is described only as “a priority for the next Parliamentary term” — meaning there is currently no guaranteed timeline for legislation to actually change.
Critically, the Law Commission stopped short of recommending that substituted decision-making be banned outright, even though the UN Committee itself has argued such regimes should be replaced entirely by supported decision-making. This is a live disagreement between the Law Commission’s approach and the standard the UN has set — and it has not been resolved.
The use of force and deprivation of liberty under the current law is acknowledged as a sensitive, unresolved area requiring further consultation. It is not fixed by this reform process, at least not yet.
In short: the direction is right, but nothing here amounts to a firm promise of change on any particular timeline.
While the long-term reform process plays out, families are already feeling a financial squeeze. Ministry documents acknowledge that increases in Public Trust audit fees for court-appointed property managers, combined with the removal of a subsidy that used to offset those costs, have created real compliance pressures for families — a burden significant enough to have drawn public and media attention. This is a live, current problem, separate from and unaffected by the years-long legislative reform process described above.
The Government was legally required to formally respond to the Law Commission’s report by 17 August 2026 — a deadline that has now arrived and passed.
This is the moment for disabled people’s organisations, advocates, and allies to watch closely for that response, and to push for clarity on:
Which of the 30 “progressing” recommendations have concrete timelines, and which of the 17 “being considered” will actually happen;
What has happened to the recommendations that appear to have no status at all;
Whether the capacity law reform will be scheduled for the next Parliamentary term with real legislative commitment, or left to drift; and
Whether the Public Trust fee changes will be reviewed to relieve pressure on families now, rather than years from now.
Every one of these numbers — 63 down to 30, 175 recommendations still under negotiation, a 2030 review date — represents real decisions about how much support disabled New Zealanders get to make their own choices about their own lives.
Quiet reductions in commitment, made through internal Cabinet processes rather than through a public announcement, are exactly the kind of decisions that official information requests exist to bring into the light.
Disabled people and their organisations should not have to file OIA requests to find out that a Government commitment has been cut by more than half.
This information should be public, explained, and justified — not something advocates have to dig for.
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