CURRENT election trends could see New Zealand’s first deaf MP voted into Parliament.

If the Greens get over 12% of the party vote, Mojo Mathers would become not only our first, but the fourth deaf person in the world to be voted into a national parliament.

Standing in the Christchurch East electorate and at number 14 on the party list, Ms Mathers says she has been involved in activism and politics for ten years now.

She says she would use interpreters and notetakers at government meetings, but does not see this as a disadvantage.

“I don’t anticipate that I will find anything in Parliament more of a challenge than what I have already had to deal with,” she says.

A major issue she wants to deal with as an MP is disability, with a recent Human Rights Commission review identifying the disabled as the most disadvantaged minority in New Zealand.

“There are issues that are common across a wide range of disabilities – such as finding it harder to get a quality education, and good employment, dealing with negative attitudes from others, people making assumptions about what you can and can’t do”

Particularly, she believes funding for special needs education is ‘woefully short of what is needed’, and many children are missing out on an education because of this.

She would also like to see government funding cover a wider range of employers, because there are well qualified disabled people struggling to find a job.

“I would like to see captioning become much more widespread. One thing that really frustrates me is the number of DVDs of New Zealand movies that do not have subtitles despite being made with government funding.”

Ms Mathers is also concerned about current eligibility for invalid’s benefits, as it is very stressful for those on the benefit for a good reason to regularly have to prove they qualify.

She has been a member of the Green party since 2002, and first stood for election in the Rakaia electorate in 2005, followed by Christchurch East in 2008.

Born in London in 1966, she emigrated to NZ with her family in 1981 at age 14.

She is a mother of three, and believes in reducing her impact on the environment through such means as being vegetarian, buying fair trade and using public transport.

Image credit: Green Party website http://www.greens.org.nz/candidates/mojo-mathers

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