BackMonday, 24 July 2017
Quentin Kenihan interviewing Kelly Vincent on Big
Quentin Kenihan | Big | ABC Radio National
Quentin Kenihan (Q) : Ladies and gentlemen welcome to another episode my name is Quentin Kenihan and I’m very fortunate to be interviewing my next guest today. The first time I met her this lovely woman was playing a devil in a stage play for a company called No Strings Attached and it was about repressed sexuality and disability and God and the meaning of life and I was so taken aback by this lovely performer, I had to get to know her, she’s so successful in her career not only as a playwright but as a performer but she is the only person in a wheelchair in any form of parliament in Australia, I’m talking to the member of the Legislative Council of South Australia Ms Kelly Vincent. Kelly, how are you?
Kelly Vincent: Q man I’m doing much better after that big introduction, you’ve boosted the old ego so thank you very much.
Q: You’re very welcome
Kelly Vincent: That’s very kind, it’s good to see you.
Q: Kelly, you’re 28 years of age and you’re almost a veteran in parliament now, you’ve almost done your first 8 years, and you’re going for re-election next year.
Kelly Vincent: That’s right
Q: when I first met you, you were 18 I didn’t know that you had aspirations in politics, to me you were just a very talented actor, playwright, burgeoning feminist, and we could all see that there was a light inside you that was going up but we didn’t know, well I didn’t know that it was part of politics. A) what drew you to performing and playwriting and how did that sort of transgress into politics.
Kelly Vincent: Sure, I’m not sure that I know the answer to that a 100% myself because writing in particular and to a lesser extent performing is always just something that came very naturally to me. You know as a kid I loved stories and I couldn’t wait to get home and read and that was really my favourite thing to do as a kid and then as I got older I started to realise that story-telling was a great way of sharing my experiences and showing other people the world the way that I saw it and also hopefully through doing that showing other people that they weren’t alone and that we have these experiences that are common to all or a lot of human beings, you know loneliness and struggling with sexuality as you said struggling with identity, forming who you are in the world and yet we all think that we all go through those things alone, when we go through them, but for me story telling was a way of dealing with that and hopefully helping other people to deal with it. And so, how that transgresses into politics, I guess you know I’m still very much driven by sharing stories whether it’s in speeches in parliament or speeches to community or in the bills that I’m writing, there’s always a story there about a person or a people who are struggling I guess much like the examples you just gave in the introduction to have their issues heard or voices addressed and so really I think it’s, it’s almost an extension of the same desire to share stories and help people feel more connected to community but it’s just taken a different path I guess.
Q: And you became a member of the Legislative Council in 2010 I want to say, yes? And it was a bit of an odd circumstance as to how that happened and not many members of the public know this story but it’s kind of a sad story but it does have a happy ending at the end of it and I was wondering if you could share that with us, of how you became the member for the Dignity Party.
Kelly Vincent: Sure, I’ll try and condense it down a bit for you, basically back in 2008, I was struggling to get the funding that I needed for a new wheelchair, at that time I’d been using the same chair for a long time and had outgrown it quite significantly and as a result I was getting a lot of pain and fatigue and so I started advocating to get this funding that I needed and had people join me on that sort of quest and through that I started speaking to Matt and Dave, or just Dave now I guess it is, on ABC Breakfast Radio, here in Adelaide, and started speaking at forums and conferences and that’s how I met Dr Paul Collier who ran Dignity for Disabled as it was then, the Party, who was the president and he was an amazing man, a historian among other things but he also acquired a disability when he was about 21, back in England in an accident, and I guess having been born able bodied, or non-disabled and then acquiring a disability he saw his world change quite a lot as a result so he wanted to advocate to I guess close those gaps between disabled and non-disabled experiences, and that’s why he got involved with what has now become the Dignity Party and so I met him through one of those forums, community forums that I was speaking at in 2009 maybe 2010 and he asked me to run as the number 2 candidate for the upper house ticket, for the party in the upcoming state election at that time, which I agreed to very happily, I was very happy to help out with this sort of important cause and for unexpected reasons he actually passed away, I think it was 9 or 10 days before the election, so it meant I became the, I guess the number one candidate by default, and was subsequently appointed to the parliament which, obviously he was a great mentor and friend and I absolutely wish that it had happened under different circumstances but it’s also a pretty amazing coincidence that it lead to not only an election but the appointment of a young, disabled, female, which are three groups which parliament are not very representative of, and yet.
Q: I knew Dr Paul Collier as well and knew what an amazing man he was, and when this all happened and when you were elected I felt, I did feel pride for you but I felt fear because I knew how young you were and I knew that everyone would use this opportunity to bash on your door and say advocate for me, you know from all walks of life and they did. But you handled it with such professionalism and poise just talk about those early times and struggles that you went through trying to get to grips with what that was like because you were really having trouble treading water for those first few, I’d say the first few good year to two years before you really found your niche and became amazingly successful at navigating the road of a parliamentarian.
Kelly Vincent: Thank you, you know it’s an interesting question, to think about what it was like because a) I was so busy and am so busy still experiencing it at the time that I don’t know how much sort of active reflection I’ve sort of done, I think we’re all living our own experience and when somebody asks what’s it like to be you know, disabled or female or whatever it might be, it’s difficult to explain because I don’t know anything different much as the same as I’m sure it would be for you. You know, I tried at the time to use that as an advantage because as much as you can say, this person is young they’ve got no real political experience, I tried in my own mind to sort of turn that around and say okay lets actually use this as an advantage as much as we can because, okay yes this means I’m inexperienced and you know I don’t know what all the rules are of parliament and that sort of thing but that could also be an advantage in the sense that, if I’m not tied up in what the rules are and how things are and the status quo that gives me more of an opportunity to come at things with a fresh pair of eyes and say okay how can I use my skillset and what kind of skills do I need to learn and who do I need to be seeking out for mentorship and guidance to do that. So, sounds strange but I kind of tried really hard not to come at it with too many expectations because I felt as though if I did, I would either be completely overwhelmed or just disappointed and disillusioned. So I tried to just take, which is still very much my philosophy, take every opportunity for what it is and do with it what I can and try to grow as a person as well as help other people to grow as a result.
Q: The show that you’re listening to is Big, my name is Quentin Kenihan and my guest this time is the member for the Legislative Council of South Australia, Kelly Vincent. Tell me about the Dignity Party and what are their platforms and what do they advocate for because here in South Australia we know you pretty well but the rest of the nation may not. So if you could tell Australia all about what the Dignity Party does I’m sure that they would love to hear all about it.
Kelly Vincent: The Dignity Party as it’s known now was founded as Dignity for Disabled back in a round 2003 by a mixture of both people with a lived experience of disability and parent carers of children with disabilities who were particularly keen on getting different accommodation or housing opportunities for their children because they realised that pretty soon they weren’t going to be able to provide for them in their own homes either because they were getting older or their circumstances were changing so we’re pretty diverse in that we are founded by both parent carers, family members and people with disability because I think those two sectors are sometimes seen as being at odds with each other. So I think that gives us a really solid basis but we also have a very strong record on advocating for the right s of all people who e disadvantaged or marginalised in Australian society, that’s why we’ve just changed our name to the Dignity Party to try and capture that work but whether it be because of gender or race or sexuality or any other thing we are, I think we have a proud record of supporting all those rights you know transgender rights, the rights of same-sex attracted people and so on in the parliament, but some of our more direct work a lot of which has been in the disability area, for probably obvious reasons include things like the Disability Justice Plan, which is now in legislation through what is called the vulnerable witnesses act, which puts in place measure to allow people with disabilities to communicate differently in court or in a police interview if they need assistance to communicate, they now have that right legislative, which is a massive step forward. Particularly given that statistically many, many people with disabilities experience abuse in fact Women with Disability estimate Women with Disability Australia I should say estimate that as many as 90% of women with intellectual disabilities will experience sexual or physical violence in their lifetime and..
Q: Now I’m going to cut you short there because as a child, I’ve made this public in my book, that I was sexually abused in a facility such as where we grew up and the trauma that I went through and the work that I’ve done to sort of grow through it, it’s a harrowing thing to do and the stuff that you’re actually doing for women is so amazing, where are we at with this, how can we help and what are the changes, that are going on, because for me my personal journey is, I am very empathetic towards it but because it’s so raw to me I find it hard to get involved, without it all coming back you know what I mean?
Kelly Vincent: Yes, of course, absolutely.
Q: But, like I’m cool with it, I’m cool to talk about it but you know what I mean, like, it’s very raw and I was just wondering what do you… how are we going forward and advocating for these changes because it’s such a horrific thing.
Kelly Vincent: Absolutely, and you know some of the change we have already made in legislation include that communication partners scheme so assisting people to communicate, there’s also things like you know If you have a disability that affects memory, the trial can be brought forward so you can have a better chance of recalling all the facts of the case, so that your evidence can be more worthwhile. So there are lots and lots of measures now in legislation thanks to this disability justice plan but I think you raise a really valid point Quentin, which is legislation can only ever be one part of the conversation and we have to have this underlying cultural shift also. And one of the things I’m really passionate about in term of shifting mindsets is enabling more people with disabilities to get access to accessible and readily available sex and relationships education. For example, anecdotally it’s something that a lot of us miss out on in school for various reasons I was one of them myself. And of course if you, I think this happens at least partially out of a desire to keep people with disabilities safe, or out of an assumption that we’ll never get into relationships and all those very ablest stereotypical ideas that are out there. But it’s my unfortunate observation that it’s actually the direct opposite that is true because if you want to go and have sex or be in relationships or even if it’s just friendships, this isn’t going to stop you from doing that, all it does is stop you from doing it safely, so we absolutely need to go right back to education and how we actually …
Q: yeah, go back to square one
Kelly Vincent: yes, exactly, go back to square one. And how are we empowering people with the right tools to even recognise abuse when it does occur and actually know what a healthy and respectful relationship looks like. Because whether or not you have a disability or whatever stands in your way because of the way society responds to you, you have a right to that information about your own body and your own life chances so, the legislative changes are fantastic and I’m very proud of them they’re probably the thing of which I’m most proud so far, but we still have to have this whole conversation.
Q: Speaking about conversation and education, now I’m an employee of the ABC I can’t comment, but what did you make of Pauline Hanson’s comments about autistic children needing to be segregated from the other kids. I mean, it was pretty shocking.
Kelly Vincent: It is absolutely shocking and it’s not only shocking it’s blatantly untrue. You know Q, I’ve just spent the past 2 years chairing a committee into the educational experiences of students with disabilities looking at these exact issues, how do we better respond to the needs of students who need to learn differently for whatever reason. And quite a few teachers gave evidence to that committee, and interestingly not one of them came forward and said anything like you know we just need to get rid of these kids and move them on into so called special, segregated settings. They’re actually crying out for the additional training, teach me how to teach these kids, teach me how to be more diverse in my thinking, give me different resources to use to better educate these kids, teach me how to be more inclusive of these students. So, absolutely we need to be doing a better job but we don’t do that by segregating and alienating people in the same way that we wouldn’t fix racism by shifting all the black or Latino or Italian people off into one school and leaving all the white kids in another school that’s not the way the world works, and the other point I could make, well I could make a few other points too, but you know, under the united nations convention of the rights of people with disabilities, to which Australia is a signatory, so under the law, under the UNCRPD, under the education standards, we have a legal obligation to provide students with disabilities with an equal, inclusive education. So we have a parliamentarian here, in Pauline Hanson who is actually ignoring legal obligations and if nothing else I think that’s pretty concerning coming from a member of parliament, basically ignoring the law, and I guess the last thing that I could say just briefly, because I could go on about this for a long, long time. Is to hear her make comments along the lines of and I’m paraphrasing her here but, you know we need to get these kids out of our schools so that our kids can flourish and succeed, well I’m sorry but one in five people in our community have a disability, and so kids who are autistic or have Asperger’s are our kids!
Q: This is Quentin Kenihan, the show is Big, and I’m here with the member for the Legislative Council for Adelaide.
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Q: Kelly Vincent is part of the Dignity Party, Kelly I want to change tracks because you’re so busy but you still find time to have fun. You’re a scuba diver!
Kelly Vincent: I am, well scuba diver is a bit of a strong term, I go to a program called immersion therapy, so the idea is that it takes place in a swimming pool but you can use scuba equipment, so you can swim underneath the water with the oxygen and stuff and people are getting some amazing results. It was actually founded by a guy called Pete Wilson who himself has a disability from a work related incident and he found that scuba diving was really beneficial to him in his physical recovery, so he thought, right how can I take this concept and make it into a therapeutic but actually really fun program where people don’t actually feel like you’re doing physio or OT or anything sort of more strictly therapeutic or kind or boring like that. You’re actually just there hanging out with people, having a swim and doing cartwheels under the water and getting amazing physical work outs as a result. And it’s also working with people with mental health issues as well, like people on return to work for work related stress because of the deep breathing you can do underneath the water so it’s a local program achieving some fantastic results and I’m really apart from my personal benefit that I’m getting out of it I’m really proud that a South Australian product is doing so well and they’ve just won an award at the most recent national disability awards for the Determined 2 program. So, it’s absolutely fantastic.
Q: Well speaking of awards, nice Segway by the way..
Kelly Vincent: That wasn’t deliberate!
Q: you won an award, it was the Zonta award for women’s human rights I believe it was, am I correct?
Kelly Vincent: It was it was…
Q: Tell me all about this because it’s so amazing!
Kelly Vincent: It was so lovely, the Zonta Club which is a women’s sort of society here in South Australia, has an awards night, where they hand out awards in different categories, I think there was a science one, a research one for example, all these different categories you know community service. And I was absolutely thrilled to bits and just so honoured to get the human rights award this year for the work that I’ve done in parliament, and absolutely the change that I’m able to make for some of the most marginalised people in society is award enough. But when somebody takes the time to recognise you, like I got to take my mum to town hall and my best friend and they got to see me get the award, and it was just so touching and so lovely and I’m so thankful for it, and also you know so very humbled to be there with some pretty amazing other women who are so much further down their career pathways than me and I sort of you know it’s very, very humbling and I’m very thankful.
Q: One of the things that I’ve been asked to do in the past is to do various little access audits to places around South Australia or Sydney or things like that. How do you think Australia rates as far as access to places, as far as other places around the world. Because you’ve had the chance to travel certain places with your work and you’ve seen how you know, we can get on and off planes and how things are difficult for us. What’s Australia like as far as, up there or down there as far as the levels of access that we have?
Kelly Vincent: I mean I think that there are things we do well and there are definitely things we could improve upon, you know for example I think we could learn a lot from places like Nordic countries, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, where not only is what we would consider stock standard accessibility in design legislated, but universal design principals are actually legislated and without going into all the detail of the seven principals. Universal design is basically about going beyond compliance and beyond how do I avoid getting sued, to how do I actually build a building or a public space or a park or a product, thinking from the outset, who’s going to be using this product and how do I build it or design it in such a way that it will be accessible to all of those audiences, so for example it might be things that are height adjustable, that can be used by children and adults or shorter people and taller people.
Q: And as you’ve probably noticed the work desk here at the ABC is height adjustable
Kelly Vincent: Absolutely and I’m very…
Q: Which is very cool, because I’m high, you’re lower
Kelly Vincent: Yes and we can see each other
Q: And we can see each other! How cool is that!
Kelly Vincent: Which is making a nice change I can say that, again, this is a great example, everyone benefits when we put this things in place, you know, and one of the things that we’ve really been pushing is a bit more universal design in government housing market. Even just really simple things like wider doorways, step free entry’s, toilet on the ground floor in the case of a town house so that at the very least if you do break a leg, you’re not having to scramble up and down the stairs just to go to the loo.
Q: Been there, done that!
Kelly Vincent: yeah! Reinforced walls so that at the very least if you’re not going to have a handrail there at the start you can put it in if you need it down the track, particularly now that we have an older population, more and more people are surviving accidents and injury and that sort of thing, it makes absolute sense to invest in getting this right, we’ve actually been successful in getting some amendments about universal design into state planning law but we’ve got a way to go with the implementation and we’re disappointed I have to say to see the government at least partially buy into some of the rhetoric around the cost of implementing universal design because actually research shows that for the vast majority of projects, implementing universal design principals actually is often cost neutral, because if it’s accessible more people come there, more people spend their money there, so you get your money back. So its cost neutral, or it adds between point five of a percent so half a percent or two percent of an entire project, so in the context of building say an Adelaide oval or a new royal Adelaide hospital this is you know small change for a big investment in you know getting people to be able to continue to use those services.
Q: What I want to know, is that you are up for an election next year, it could go either way, you know what these things are like, if you win what are your plans for the future and if you don’t win, do you have plans for afterwards?
Kelly Vincent: Well my plan is very much at the moment focused on winning the election, I wouldn’t be in this race if I didn’t plan to win ad want to keep doing the work that I’m very proud of, that I haven’t finished doing yet because, you know I’ve often said to myself that I think my job will be done whether its having a disability or having some other form of difference, is no longer in and of itself a full time job in this country. And what I mean by that, I’m sure you would well know this yourself Q is that so many people with disabilities and other barriers as well spend so much of our time battling bureaucracy, making appointments, checking up on things just to get fair and equal access to the world that a lot of other people can take for granted. And so my job is really about levelling out the playing field for all people in our society and unfortunately I think you only need to look at a newspaper to know that we aren’t there yet, so I want to stay in there, I want to make sure we’ve got things right implemented with this disability justice plan, that we can continue with the parts of the plan that we haven’t implemented yet, I want to make sure that people get access to information that they need in emergencies in different languages including sign language, which is something that again we have made some changes but we need to move on with, I want to make sure that same sex attracted people have the same right in this state including the right to get married, I want to make sure that young people have job opportunities in this state, and one of the things that we’ve really been pushing, you know and sorry for being so South Australian central because it’s a national program
Q: No, no, no
Kelly Vincent: But being a state parliamentarian I’m very patriotic, you know with the closure of Holden and Mitsubishi and moving away from the auto-motive industry, how can we use those existing skills to look at things like building mobility aids, building equipment, building technology for things that are going to assist more and more people in the future so you know there’s so many opportunities that we still need to look at in health, in the health system, one of the areas that I’m very passionate about for pretty obvious reasons is mental health, particularly some of the most maligned mental health diagnoses including things like Border Line Personality Disorder, which is categorised by very unstable sense of self, unstable relationships, self-harming, you know all those very serious stuff, and yet for years we’ve been waiting for this government to properly come out with a plan that’s been in the works for so long and respond to the needs of these very marginalised people so that they can recover, they can be supported, and I know it can happen because I’ve met people who have recovered, and are now full time employed.
Q: That’s so cool
Kelly Vincent: So, absolutely I we invest correctly in the health system, in disability, including things like medical cannabis. And this week I’ve been successful in getting some amendments through the upper house, to make sure that people who need to drive using an approved, legal, medical cannabis product, can’t be disqualified from their driving licence as long as they’re certified medically safe to drive. I’ve been really disappointed in the government’s rhetoric because they’re talking about people driving high and all this sort of stuff which is absolute rubbish because medical cannabis generally speaking is not psycho-active it doesn’t have the properties that will get you high and yet the government is continuing this naïve, narrow-minded war on drugs, blanket war on drugs view, that doesn’t take into account that this is a legal substance, it can be safe and we need to be mature and move the conversation forward, so that people who are already very sick and in pain, and are facing a lot of marginalisation, don’t have further barriers to getting to a medical appointment, to looking after our families, to doing our job. So, yes I’ve achieved a lot but there’s still a lot to be done.
Q: It sounds like it, Kelly, I’ve got to wrap you up, I’m sorry.
Kelly Vincent: I know sorry, typical politician!
Q: Typical politician, I know, but that’s great. Kelly thank you so much for being a part of the show. Ladies and gentlemen I could talk to Kelly forever and Kelly could talk my ear off forever, but we’ve got to go. It’s been so great having you on the show.
Kelly Vincent: I always love seeing you Q, thank you so much
Q: and good luck for the election and I hope that you win and continue to do the great work. Ladies and gentlemen this has been Kelly Vincent the member for the legislative council for South Australia, I’m the Q man and I’ll catch you next time, BYE, BYE!
