eight months ago, i was diagnosed with breast cancer. this diagnosis cameas the most extraordinary shock. not only for myself, but for my friends, my family, and my colleagues. the last eight months have been an extraordinary roller coaster ride, and one i'm still riding today.
i've experiencedsome of my darkest moments: feelings of despair; i've been confronted by my mortality; and there's been times when i've felt stranded on a tiny island, surrounded by quicksandin every direction. but alongside this, i have also experiencedmoments of incredible joy; of divine grace; and some of the mostincredible moments of kindness,
from friends, from family, and even from complete strangers. but during this time, perhaps one of the mostconfronting things for me has not been experiencingthe new zealand health system as a woman with breast cancer, but has in fact been experiencingthe new zealand health system as a partially blind woman with cancer. frð¾m the moment i received my letterinviting me to have a mammogram --
which i could not readbecause it was in size 10 font -- to the 50 or more appointmentsi’ve received over the last few months to see oncologists, radiotherapists, physios, gps, surgeons, you name it -- none of which i have been able to read -- right through to the many containers of medicationthat i have on my bedside table -- that i could not read, but had to administer to myselfto ensure that i kept going.
when i was 15, i was diagnosedwith a sight condition called stargardt’s. now, it’s quite a romanticsounding name, actually, because it means “star-gazer.†basically, when i look outat all of you here today, you’re covered in like a filmof beautiful stars and light. you actually look quite gorgeous,all of you today. but when i was told this, that i had this sight condition, i was also told some other things,
some of which i was okay with,because they were facts, other things, hmmm,not so, not so keen on. i was told i would not drive.hmmm, that’s okay. i was told i probably wouldn’trecognize people’s faces, not always a bad thing. (laughter) i was told i would never read a book, read the printed word, read letters, and, now that we’re inthe age that we’re in,
read text on electronic devices. again, i was okay with all of that, those were facts. but then people startedto tell me about my future. people started to say things like, "well, minnie, partially blind women don’t get to have a good job; partially blind women don’t get to earn a good wage; probably won’t get married; probably won’t have children; probably won’t own your own home;
and" -- this one, okay the jury’s out on -- "might die a little bit younger." and i thought, how can this be? i just can’t see very well. that’s all it is. what kind of a world are we living in? so, being the sort of person i am, i thought, "do you know what?i’m not okay with this.
i'm going to do something about this." and, perhaps, if i can dosomething about this for myself, perhaps, we as new zealand can do something about itfor all of those other people, out there, out here, today, living with some kindof access need or requirement. so, five years ago, to this very day, this is in fact the fifth year,that we launched a new organisation. be. accessible.
it's a social movement, it's a new way of thinking. it's a lens on the worldthat turns disability on its head. it's designed to be disruptive; it's designed to be positive, innovative; it's designed to encourage usto stop thinking about the deficit model -- i mean, how boring is that,just to start with. why wouldn't we start to think about ... accessibility,
possibility. that's where the innovation happens, that's where the excitement happens, that is where truesocial transformation happens. we needed to go for something bright, vibrant, positive: bright yellow. we needed a call to actionthat was simple: "let us all be accessible to the world." we needed to create a new language
that got away from a binary "us and them," "disabled/non-disabled." all of us, at some stage in our lives,will have an access need. today, 25% of new zealandershave some kind of an impairment. whether, like myself, it's a partialblindness or a sight impairment, maybe hearing loss, dyslexia, maybe we have some mobility challenges, maybe we're experiencing depression. whatever it might be,temporary or permanent,
it is a fact of being human. isn't it time we embrace that? isn't it time we started to think,hey, maybe there's something in this that can benefit all of us, and we can actually create a new zealand we are truly proud of, today. we decided it was importantthat we started to tell some new stories. you know, einsteinhad this thing he used to say: "if you want your children to beintelligent, tell them a story.
if you want them to be really intelligent,tell them another story." so, you know, einstein and i are like this, obviously, so i'm going to tell you a story. i imagine pretty much everyonein the room today has some kind of a device with themthat resembles a phone -- i don't think i can call them a phoneanymore, i'm not sure, but anyway, something 'phone-esque', shall we say. well, alexander bell was working --
one of the communities he was working with when he invented the telephonewas in fact the deaf community. he was exploring technologiesthat could act as amplification systems. where would we be today without that access innovation? i like this next story. pellegrino turri had a lover,and she was blind. he wanted her to be ableto write letters to him. he invented somethingcalled the typewriter.
the precursor to the keyboards that now sit within allof the devices we have here that we use every day of our lives. that is the story of accessibility. that is the story of possibility. that's what being accessible is all about. when we launched 'be.', we knewwe had a challenge on our hands. this entrenched deficit model is so ingrained in our society.
we knew we had to dosomething really radical to wake up new zealand society. we decided -- this is so counter-intuitive, but it made sense at the time -- we decided to launch'be. accessible' at the same time as the 2011 rugby world cup. you know, when you put two things togetherthat have never been put together before, you create somethingtruly new and exciting, and i believe that'swhat happened that year.
what we realised is we needed to start a different conversation; we needed a conversationthat was about economics. disability is often placedin the social services category. we wanted a conversationthat talked about something that we like to call: the yellow dollar. you'll all know about the green dollar, the pink dollar, well, welcome the yellow dollar. the access economy.
we knew that thousandsupon thousands of visitors would be coming to new zealandto experience the rugby world cup. so, our team got together, and said to the governmentand the rugby world cup team, "how are we going to host the thousands of visitorswith access needs, that will be coming to our shores?" remember, 25% of us have an access need. over one million locally,over one billion globally;
that's a big market. what we also told themwas that baby boomers have the highest rate of impairment. by the time we're 65,50% of us have at least one impairment. baby boomers are the fastest growing tourist market in the world, and they have the highestdiscretionary spend of any group. what if new zealand became the most accessibletourist destination in the world? that's the conversationwe started back in 2011.
today, in wellington, our little capital cityat the bottom of the world, there is a hotel: the cq hotel. now, they have embraced accessibility in a waythat we could have only dreamed of. they model what is possible when we commit and decide
we truly want to be a fully inclusiveorganisation, community, country. the gm told me the other day that they have seena 20% increase in revenue because of the accessibility features that they have included. but for him that was not the motivation. he did it because it was simply the right thing to do. to this very day,they have sign language menus, so that if you are deaf,you can go to cq hotel, and order in your own language, a meal.
i suspect it's the only restaurant,only hotel, perhaps in the pacific, south pacific, that does that. how extraordinary is that. all of their front of house staffhave learnt sign language, and each day, as partof their team building exercise, they learn another sign. a member of my teamwas visiting cq the other day, and they told herthat they had just been contacted by a woman in scandinavia.
she had contacted them and said, "i want to come and stay in your hotelthere in new zealand because i am deaf, and i understand that you have created the most welcoming hotel possible." that to me is social change. that is powerful. do you know, one of the reasons i hear most oftenfor not becoming accessible -- because i do get it quite a lot,i have to say --
"it's too expensive," "it costs too much." well, you know, i spent a lot of timein bed over the last eight months. so, as i lay there,thinking about all of this, i was confronted by another rather ... uncomfortable realization. the realization that, actually, we're paying a cost, right now. why aren't we having a conversation
about the cost of not being accessible? what is it costing all of us right now to be excluding people from employment, from health, from community? there are social costs. there are health costs. and, there are economic costs. we know that, right now,
the cost of having people unemployedwho could be working -- remember, i was toldi probably wouldn't work -- is close to $25 billion. i'm sorry, but if that is nota motivation to change, i don't know what is. i know from my experiencein the last few months, that unless we change, unless we truly -- each one of us -- commit to being accessible, and doing something about it,
we are destroying people's lives. it's a strong statement, i know that. but i can't help but think,what would have happened when i got my letterinviting me for my mammogram, if i hadn't had an assistant at work to read it to me, to book me in, to get me into the system, and get treated. that to me is confronting, reality.
as we sit here today with our amazing access innovations in our hands, in our pockets,in our bags, our smart phones, let them be a reminder to each of us of the power of accessibility. now, whether we are motivated by the fact that there is a massiveuntapped market out there, called the yellow dollar,the yellow economy, the access economy,and we want to be part of it;
whether we're motivated because the cost, of remaining the same,of maintaining the status quo, is simply too high to keep paying; or just because we know in our hearts, it is the right thing to do, i invite everyone, i implore everyone to join our movement of change, and to truly be. accessible.
thank you. (applause)