Is the Total Mobility scheme no longer a Total Mess?

As disabled folk, it can be hard to work out what’s actually happening when it feels like we’re being bombarded daily with ableist headlines. It seems the current Government is hellbent on stripping away our rights at an increasingly worrying pace.

Just before Christmas last year, disabled people across the motu received a lump of coal in the form of funding “changes” (read: cuts) to the widely-used Total Mobility Scheme.

The Total Mobility scheme is a subsidised transport system for disabled folk and older people to whom public transport is not easily accessible. The scheme is funded by the Crown, the National Land Transport Fund and local regional councils. The subsidy rate was 75% until the December 16th announcement, when it was announced it would drop to 65% on July 1 2026. This would mean a 10% increase to how much the TMS user must pay for each trip. Furthermore, reduced regional fare caps would be introduced across the motu, meaning councils would be contributing less.

These changes were made despite the clear value of the scheme – there are over 120,000 registered TMS users, up from around 108,000 in 2022. “Turns out, the Government thinks we’ve been having too much community participation,” wrote The D*List editor Olivia Shivas last August. “Too many trips to the doctor. We’ve been going to our jobs too often.”

Thankfully, after a consultation period that saw 564 written submissions, the Government ruled out three of the six proposals from the Ministry of Transport. That means no trip caps, no requirement to produce evidence of an impairment before being assessed, and no compulsory periodic reassessment of current users – something that Total Mobility Scheme user Áine Kelly-Costello calls “undoubtedly a win.”

“This Government certainly doesn't have any record of listening to the disability community or any other marginalised communities for that matter,” they add, “so in a time of apparently unfettered cost-cutting at the hands of those with the least, this is a notable victory.”

Áine is one of the few people they know who is eligible for Individualised Funding that covers the remainder of their necessary transport costs – something they know not every disabled person has. “The point of the TM scheme was to make taxis affordable to those who need them more regularly, including for those without additional sources of funding,” says Áine. “By increasing taxi fares this year on top of high poverty rates in our disability community, the Government has failed miserably on that measure.”

Four of the six proposals put forth by the Ministry of Transport will be going ahead. These include the creation of a clear, national purpose statement; stronger incentives for wheelchair-accessible vehicles (WAVs); a review of standards and safeguards for Total Mobility providers and the creation of a public transport concession for TM users (including a potential free companion fare). These proposals (which you can read more about here) were established in response to the hundreds of community submissions, so if anything, we really have each other to thank for the progress that will be made.

Looking ahead, the Ministry for Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport will work in stages alongside both NZTA and the Ministry of Disabled People over the next year to make sure that the chosen proposals are implemented properly.

In the meantime, Total Mobility scheme users will continue to travel where they need to and mind their own business, in the hopes that the Government will too follow suit.

“We should be able to go shopping, get to the doctors and visit our friends without financial strain,” says Áine. “The Government cuts this year are making those things harder to impossible for too many of us.”