Applications for the Election Access Fund are considered by an independent panel. The panel has community members on it with lived experience of disability and election experience. Their job is to advise us whether they think an application meets the criteria and is fair and reasonable.
To protect applicants privacy, personal details will be removed before an application goes to the panel.
There are four members on the Election Access Fund application panel:
Dianne Glenn, ONZM, JP - Panel chair
Dianne Glenn has a wide-ranging background, including in post-primary and adult education, governance as an Auckland Regional Councillor, Auckland Conservation Board member, an elected member of Counties Manukau DHB, and has been on national and international executive boards. She is an advocate for people with disabilities, establishing policy for NGOs, submitting to Select Committees and reporting to UN Monitoring Committees on discrimination and barriers experienced by people with disabilities/impairments.
She is a member of the Lottery Individuals with Disabilities Committee that provides funds for disabled people to continue to access and volunteer in their communities. As a member of the Southern Health and Disability Ethics Committee she reviews research applications to approve new and experimental medicines, devices or programmes. With an auto-immune disease in her muscles, she experiences difficulty in walking.
Dr Robbie Francis Watene
Dr Robbie Francis Watene is a disability advocate, scholar and leader from Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland. Born with a physical disability, she has been an expert advisor to the New Zealand government on various strategies and policies. She began working at the Donald Beasley Institute in 2018, where she is Project Lead for the Disabled Person-Led Monitoring of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
In 2018, Robbie completed her doctorate at the University of Otago National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, where her research investigated inclusive and accessible peace building and the experiences of disabled refugees and asylum seekers. She is also the co-founder and Director of The Lucy Foundation, an international social enterprise that has developed the world's first value chain of coffee that is entirely inclusive of disabled people - from farmer, to consumer.
Dr Huhana Hickey MNZM
Dr Huhana Hickey is a goal-oriented professional Māori woman, with proven success as a solicitor, educator, advocate, advisor, business owner and facilitator. She also has extensive involvement and governance experience of various community groups, trusts, management and committees.
Huhana is a former director on the Housing New Zealand Corporation board, and has been on the Human Rights Review Tribunal since 2010. She is also is President of the Māori Women's Welfare League Te Hokinga Mai branch for Disabled Māori women.
Huhana is a scholar of disabilities research and legal theory and is noted for the breadth of her published cross-disciplinary research. One of Huhana's goals is to increase the knowledge of indigenous peoples with disabilities along with increasing their profile and inclusion in all levels of society.