Submissions

NZSTA members, alongside the NZSTA Board and expert advisers, regularly advocate for people with communication and swallowing difficulties internationally and nationally.

If you are aware of other policy or legislative issues on which NZSTA could comment, please get in touch with the NZSTA executive director. 

NZSTA collaborates with other allied health professions; joint submissions are available on the Allied Health Aotearoa New Zealand website.

Submissions include:

2025

• Joint letter to Hon Simeon Brown: Health sector concerns with flawed regulatory review process and call for proper
  consultation
• Letter to Hon Simeon Brown about the  'Putting Patients First' consultation and sharing the NZSTA Business Case.
• Submission on Putting Patients First: Modernising health workforce regulation.
• Submission on Universal Newborn Screening and Early Intervention Programme (UNHSEP) Service Standards
• Submission on Disability Support Services Consultation
• Submission on Taxation and the Not-for-Profit Sector Consultation
• Submission on Proposed Changes to Funding for Resource Teachers: Literacy and Resource Teachers: Māori

2024

• Submission on Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill
• Letter to Hon. Erika Stanford regarding the proposal for changes to the Education and Training Act 
• NZSTA signed up as a signatory to the open letter to Christopher Luxon: Stop the Treaty Principles Bill
• National Cancer Research Network
• Health Select Committee Inquiry (aged care sector's capacity & neurological cognitive disorders)
  • Oral submission on 18 September 2024 - watch the first ten minutes

2023

• Adult Decision  Making - Law Commission Review
• Therapeutic Products Bill
• OPEN LETTER: Continue work on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

2022

• 2022 Accessibility for New Zealanders Bill

2021

• 2021 Pūaotanga: An independent review of primary school 

2020 and earlier

• 2020 Submission on the Education and Training Bill

2019 and earlier

• Health and Disability Services Standards Review
• System Health Quality & Safety Commission (HQSC) and Nutrition Technical Advisory Group submissions regarding IDDSI implementation at a national policy level
• 2018 The Importance of Speech, Language and Communication to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: A Summary of Evidence (International Communication Project)
• 2018  Ministry of Education Draft Action Plan
• 2018 Public Consultation on Telecommunications Relay Service
• 2018 RACP Consultation on AFRM Draft Policy Paper: Rehabilitation medicine physicians delivering integrated care in the community for stroke
• 2018 Bakels New Zealand – Colset starch thickener
• 2018 Ministry Briefing Communication Access – Meeting with Hon Carmel Sepuloni, Minister of Disability 
• 2018 ESD for stroke public Consultation on Telecommunications Relay Services
• 2017 Medicine physicians delivering integrated care in the community
• 2017 Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Bill 
• 2017 Clinical Network for Paediatric Tube Feeding “Readiness Tool” for use in infants and children who are being tube fed” 
• 2016  A good start in life: Develop policy options to improve government support for parents, family and whānau of disabled children aged 0-6 years
• 2016 Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder Action Plan
• 2015 Captioning in New Zealand
• 2015 Parliamentary Inquiry into the identification and support for students with the significant challenges of dyslexia, dyspraxia, and autism spectrum disorders in primary and secondary schools
• 2013 National Health Committee position on Ventilation tubes for the treatment of otitis media
• 2012 Green Paper for Vulnerable Children 
• 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2019 Pharmac funding for thickeners
• 2010 Health Passports
• 2010 Department of Labour Essential Skills in Demand List 
• 2008 Changes to the IPRC Act – ACC Regs Consult