Minister Brooke van Velden ignores advice to retain the Lottery Individuals with Disabilities Committee

Earlier this year, the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) announced the disestablishment of the Lottery Individuals with Disabilities Committee. It claimed this decision was made to streamline the application process and “allow for more strategic funding decisions”. However, documents we received after making an Official Information Act request tell a very different story, where community lived-experience and internal expert advice were brushed aside.

Over the past year, the demand for funding through the Lottery Individuals with Disabilities Committee has been undeniable. In the financial year 2024/25, the Individuals with Disabilities Committee was allocated $10,295,975. There were 1096 applications but only 550 grants awarded.

Applications from disabled communities make up 20% of all applications to the Lotteries grants. Even with dedicated oversight and expertise, less than half of all applicants received funding. Dissolving specialist committees removes a crucial layer of informed decision-making for a much-needed source of funding.

Discussions regarding the fate of the Lottery Individuals with Disabilities Committee trace back to November 2025. We now know that at the time, DIA Minister Brooke van Velden was given explicit advice to retain that specific committee.

In an Internal Affairs briefing dated 27 November 2025, key DIA staff recommended retaining three specialised distribution committees: The Lottery Individuals with Disabilities, Lottery Oranga Marae and Lottery Community Facilities committees. Right throughout the briefing, it is strongly recommended to keep the Individuals with Disabilities Committee because “specialist expertise is essential for delivering equitable and well-informed funding decisions”.

As part of the rationale for this recommendation, the briefing was acknowledged and the Minister was thereby made aware that “different people with different strengths require different approaches and resources.” The briefing continued: “IWD committee members are appointed with sector knowledge in mind which enables more equitable decision-making. It would be difficult to uphold this with a more generalist committee”.

If the Individuals with Disabilities Committee was cut, the briefing explains that “advisory input would not be sufficient for robust and equitable decision-making”.

The briefing highlighted that the Individuals with Disabilities Committee served a core purpose requiring “subject knowledge expertise and/or lived experience that is unlikely to be available on a committee where the purpose is broad… and could not be appropriately provided via advisory input”.

In another briefing dated 30 March 2026, the Minister was advised that cutting specialist committees may “raise concerns from sectors that rely on funding from those committees". As a result, DIA staff said they would find ways to support those sectors: “We have considered the broader funding needs and will prepare communications material and provide advisory support to these sectors.” Despite this, no clear or reassuring information has been provided to disabled communities whether their individual requests could be funded by a Lottery Grant. It is still not clear how DIA will provide “advisory support” to disabled people.

Then in the additional briefings, the recommendation to retain the Lottery Individuals with Disabilities fund starts to be watered down and the language moves away from funding individuals. It is highlighted that this was done at the request of the Minister.

In a summary of findings and related decisions from a review back in May 2024, the findings note: “The Lottery Individuals with Disabilities fund does not closely align with the intent of the Gambling Act 2003. The fund’s awarding of grants directly to individuals poses a challenge to the Act’s requirement for lottery funding to be distributed for ‘community purposes that are of a public nature”.

It is also proposed that the Lottery Board “does not fund direct services provided to, or costs incurred for, a specific named individual”, which is exactly what the Individuals with Disabilities Committee funds are used for.

In the final briefing we were sent, DIA staff were clear about who was making the final decision: “We note you [Minister Brooke van Velden] wish to disestablish the specialist committees…”

She is again advised: “Strong communications and advisory support will be important to manage the disestablishment of the specialist committee, as the sectors they service may be concerned about losing access to funding. The Lottery Grants Board could also consider some transitional measures, such as ring-fenced funding for affected sectors, to ease the transition process.”

With regards to the risks associated with disestablishing specialist committees, the Minister was warned “communities could be detrimentally affected by the change”; disabled people are specifically mentioned as one of those communities.

“The sectors that are serviced by the specialist committees may see the changes as detrimental. Some stakeholders in these sectors rely on the stream of funding that comes through those specialist committees, which may not be guaranteed to the same extent through the new committee structure.”

The Minister received a clear recommendation to retain the Individuals with Disabilities Committee. Whaikaha also provided feedback on how vital these grants are for funding modified vehicles and essential accessibility equipment, given Ministry funding allocation does not cover the full cost. Despite this advice, DIA confirmed: “there was no modelling done to understand the impact of the change on disabled communities”. That means Minister Brooke van Velden made the decision to scrap the Individuals with Disabilities Committee, against expert advice, and without any real consideration about how this would harm our community.

Earlier this year, in a Gazette notice dated 15 May 2026, it was announced:

“Under section 280(5) of the Gambling Act 2003, I hereby disestablish the following committees: Lottery Individuals with Disabilities Committee [among a list of other committees]. The disestablishment of the above-named Committees is effective from the 1 July 2026.

Hon Brooke van Velden, Minister of Internal Affairs.”

As disabled people, decisions made about us without us are frustratingly familiar. The fact is, the Minister was told that this decision would disadvantage our community, yet she did it anyway.

Without adequate funding for modified vehicles, many in our community risk being stuck at home. Without grants for essential mobility aids and adaptive equipment, navigating our community safely becomes significantly harder. And in general, regional committees lack the lived experience required to understand the nuances of disability costs, leaving applicants facing greater unpredictability.

By stripping away lived experience from the grant distribution process, the system moves further away from the communities it’s meant to support. We were told this would enable more “strategic” decisions, when it was known all along that the “strategy” would detrimentally affect us, our needs and our lives.