When every door closes: who pays for disability support?
By Debbie Ward, Disability Leadership Coordinator, CCS Disability Action
Published 22 September 2026
In the 2024/25 year, disabled people in Aotearoa asked one small Lottery committee for $28.3 million of help. The committee had just under $12 million to give out. Then, on 1 July 2026, it was closed altogether (Lottery Grants Board annual report 2024/25, Department of Internal Affairs).
Disabled people are among the poorest people in this country. We are also increasingly expected to cover the gap between what our support actually costs and what the state calls its contribution. So I have a plain question, and I would like a plain answer. Where are we supposed to find the rest of the money?
What actually changed at Lotteries?
Some background, if this is new to you. The Lottery Grants Board hands out a share of Lotto profits to community causes. Until this year, it did that through committees, and one of them existed solely for disabled people.
That committee funded things for a person, not for an organisation. Vehicles and vehicle modifications. Scooters. Assistance dogs. Mobility and communication equipment (Community Matters). You applied as yourself, for the thing you needed to get out your own front door.
It was never enough. In 2024/25 the committee received 1,096 requests and approved 550, with an average grant of $17,564 (Lottery Grants Board annual report 2024/25). Half of the people who asked were told no.
From 1 July 2026 that committee no longer exists. Six regional committees and one national committee took over. The Department of Internal Affairs said organisations supporting disabled people could apply for operational or project costs. On individuals, it said only that it was the "intention" that we could still apply, with the process and criteria yet to be worked through (Department of Internal Affairs).
Organisations, including ours, could already apply to Lotteries for salaries and running costs. If organisations are now the main route to things like a modified vehicle, disabled people need to see what that funding delivered for them, through transparent criteria and public reporting on outcomes.
That is a significant thing to leave unresolved. Officials saw it coming. A briefing dated 27 November 2025 recommended keeping the disability committee, because "specialist expertise is essential for delivering equitable and well-informed funding decisions". The same advice warned that without the committee, "advisory input would not be sufficient for robust and equitable decision-making". The Department has since confirmed that no modelling was done to understand the impact of the change on disabled communities (The D*List).
A decision was made against that advice. We are entitled to ask why, and to see the reasoning.
Why "a contribution" is the whole problem
Here is the part that rarely gets explained. Government disability funding is not designed to cover the cost of what you need. It is designed to contribute to it.
That is not my framing. The manual for Equipment and Modification Services says its purpose is to make "a significant, consistent and reasonable contribution" to disabled people's participation. It states plainly that the Ministry cannot fund all the needs identified by disabled people and whānau. It also says demand regularly exceeds the budget. If you choose equipment above the specification an assessor recommends, public funding covers only the essential components. You pay the supplier the difference yourself (Equipment and Modification Services manual).
Transport works the same way. From 1 July 2026 the Total Mobility fare subsidy dropped from 75% to 65%. Regional fare caps were lowered by around 10% on average (Beehive). For a trip under the cap, the passenger's share went from a quarter of the fare to just over a third.
Meanwhile, the Disability Allowance tops out at $82.85 a week, and only for costs you can verify (Work and Income).
Every one of those settings assumes something. It assumes there is a disabled person at the other end with money of their own, or a whānau with money of their own, to close the gap.
Who is being asked to pay?
The data on that assumption is unambiguous.
In the year ended June 2025, disabled people's median household income was $44,262, against $57,346 for non-disabled people (Stats NZ, via Whaikaha). The employment rate for disabled people aged 15–64 was 38.2%, compared with 78.5% (Stats NZ). More than half of us, 53%, live in households with not enough or only just enough income for basic needs (Stats NZ). Over a quarter of disabled children live in material hardship (Stats NZ, via Whaikaha).
So the group with the least is asked to top up the most.
The doors we are told to try
When the state's contribution runs out, the advice is always the same. Try a grant.
Try where, exactly? One analysis looked at more than 150 disability-related funding opportunities across more than 100 New Zealand funders. It found that disabled people are 17% of the population, while genuinely disability-centred grants make up 1.8% of the funding landscape. Only 1.2% of opportunities exist exclusively for disabled people. Almost no funds are disabled-led. For mobility impairment there is one dedicated fund, and it is only for children. There is no kaupapa Māori disability fund at all (Fundsorter).
Most of those funds are also for organisations, not people. The Rehabilitation Welfare Trust states that an individual cannot apply directly, and its average successful grant over two years was $960 (Rehabilitation Welfare Trust). The Frozen Funds Charitable Trust requires an application to come through a charity (Public Trust). And most charitable funders expect you to have exhausted state funding first (Fundsorter).
Work and Income is not the answer either. A Special Needs Grant is asset-tested, with a single-person asset limit of $1,411.22. An Advance Payment of Benefit has to be paid back (Work and Income).
Which leaves the internet, and a public appeal for a wheelchair-accessible van. That is not a funding system. That is a raffle.
But hasn't the money stayed in the system?
It is fair to say the Lottery money has not vanished. It is also true that Budget 2025 put $1 billion over four years into disability support cost pressures (Disability Support Services).
Both things can be true and still leave people worse off. Structure decides who is allowed to ask, who understands the request, and who gets a yes. A committee that knows a hoist is not an optional extra will not weigh it the same way as a generalist panel. Our chief executive Mel Smith said of Budget 2025 that it "keeps essential supports out of reach and continues a pattern of underinvestment that leaves too many behind" (CCS Disability Action).
What we are asking for
Three things, and none of them are expensive.
First, the Department of Internal Affairs should publish a clear pathway and clear criteria for individual disabled applicants under the new structure. Disabled people and disability expertise should sit inside those decisions. And the Board should report publicly on which disability grants are approved and declined, and on what they delivered for disabled people.
Second, the impact of removing the specialist committee should be modelled and published. It should have happened before the decision. It can still happen now.
Third, the Disability Allowance should be indexed to the real cost of disability, not to a general adjustment (CCS Disability Action).
Until then, the word "contribution" is carrying a great deal of weight it was never designed to carry. Somebody is paying the rest. It is us, and we have the least to pay it with.
Debbie Ward is Disability Leadership Coordinator at CCS Disability Action.
About CCS Disability Action
CCS Disability Action is the largest pan-disability support and advocacy organisation in Aotearoa New Zealand.
We support people with all types of impairments and have been working alongside disabled people since 1935.
We are at the forefront of service provision, advocacy and information sharing in the disability sector. We partner with disabled people, their families and whānau to enable them to have choice and control in their lives. Our vision is to see every disabled person and whānau hauā interwoven into the lives of their whānau and community.