Over the past couple of decades, disabled people in much of the Western world have often sought, or agreed to, more individualised funding schemes in order to gain greater “choice and control” over the support we receive. But the autonomy, dignity and flexibility we were promised seems constantly under threat or out of reach, largely because of the perception that allowing us such “luxuries” is too expensive.

‘You cost too much. You're not welcome here.’ That's the message that many migrants and families receive when we try to settle in Aotearoa/New Zealand or Australia. If you have a disability, health condition, high BMI (in New Zealand), or other potential health needs, immigration rules in both country will likely judge you not as a contributing human being who should be treated with dignity, but as an economic burden.

I am writing to you because I know in my bones there will come a moment when I will feel vulnerable again. In that moment, I want someone to reassure me that we all forget useful things like phone chargers sometimes, and to tell me, only partly joking, that one hasn't truly been exploring till they've stood alone at night in an unfamiliar, deserted town path with no back-up plan.