National Council of Women South Australia – Council Meeting
13/09/2012
Thank you for having me here to speak with you tonight, it is a great privilege.
Millicent had made the suggestion I talk about the good, the bad and the ugly, but that I should pick what I cared to talk of – so I think I will cover all of those issues, but I guess I want to talk about the connections in the disability community which keep us strong, and also look at how we can reach out further and create connections in the general public’s consciousness to bring about more change.
And while you are all here as members of an organisation that focuses on issues relating to women, I would suggest that many of the aims you strive for in relation to women are all so equally relevant in the disability community. The concepts you list on your website, like being equal before the law, being and acting as a voice of concern, are both things that we’re endeavouring to do within the disability community.
The disability community in Australia is strong, interconnected and smart. I think in the last decade we have mobilised and strengthened. However, I guess after visiting Scandinavian countries Denmark, Norway and Sweden last month on my first parliamentary study tour, I’m keenly aware of how advocacy in the disability sector here could be far more united, and that we could achieve much better outcomes.
But we have become organised to some extent, and because of that we have seen some very positive change.
Around the nation we have seen better resourcing of non-government organisations who fight for and provide for people with disabilities. We have seen the profile of disability issues not only grow in the media, but also transform.
In the eyes of the media – we are no longer just victims of misfortune. We are now seen as smart operators fighting a brave war for our rights. What’s even more important is that the media now know to ASK us about things, not to ask other people about us. We have a saying – nothing about us without us – and this is thankfully becoming more the case.
As a result, Governments are finding it harder to ignore us. In South Australia we’ve seen three consecutive funding injections in the last three budgets – with the 2012 budget commitments of $212 million over four years the biggest win we’ve had in more than a decade. We’ve seen greater focus on addressing crisis issues like lack of respite care. Nationally we’ve seen fantastic innovations like the introduction of a Disability Services Commissioner and a Community Visitors’ scheme in Victoria, and now a Community Visitor’s Scheme is in the process of being established here in South Australia.
We have, of course, also seen the current Federal Government make a promise to phase in a National Disability Insurance Scheme from July 2013 next year – a undertaking which I think is one of the most heartening I’ve heard in my lifetime.
These achievements, and so many more, are a result of the wonderful connections which have been made within the disability sector. Having strong and open connections between different advocacy groups has allowed our community to rise up and demand that we be listened to.
It is not always easy to make this kind of co-operation happen, particularly in the disability area where so many of us have different needs and different priorities. I imagine that most of you here have some understanding of social justice, and how diverse the needs are of individuals with a disability.
Yet, we have managed to realise this great achievement where we have been able to set aside our differences and campaign for the common good.
My experience as an advocate is an example of this very diversity at work. I, of course, have cerebral palsy and my needs are purely physical. But among those who I most often campaign alongside are parents of a child with autism, parents of a child with intellectual disability, a man who has a profound vision impairment, a person with communication difficulties and someone who is deaf.
All of our needs are different, but all of us take the opportunity to lobby as one. Advocacy must be about unity – otherwise it can never work.
People in the disability sector respect this. The most often heard thing in my office is: “I never want this to happen to someone else”. This happened just yesterday when a mother called to explain what her 17 year old son with autism had been through at his local school trying to access education that meets his needs. When people ring us about problems, they are not talking about me-me-me. They are talking about us, us, us.
I am so grateful for this common connection throughout the disability sector, because it means that when I stand up and speak in Parliament I can count on the support of my community. It means when I walk into a meeting with a Federal Minister, or get told by the Treasurer that his budget is disability friendly, when it clearly isn’t, that I’m not a lone voice speaking against the Government spin. I have a whole community behind me, and without them I couldn’t do it.
Of course, we don’t all agree all the time. And healthy debate and even argument is common place in the sector – but this too is a good thing. It means we all have the opportunity to use each other’s experience and knowledge to form better policy and push for a better outcome.
I welcome the arguments as well as the agreements. When formulating legislation I have a strong group of community representatives who I can consult with, and I know they won’t hold back. I can trust them to be uncompromising and harsh – and I can trust them to help me make the best legislation I can.
This trust and honesty is invaluable. And importantly, I can trust these same people to rally around me once the arguments have been had and support my final product – even when there are still minor disagreements going on.
It is also thanks to these internal connections that I am in the position I’m in today.
By the skin of my teeth and the tragic death of my colleague I became a politician – but it was the work of decades to get enough support for the seat which I occupy in the chamber.
That work was done by hundreds of great people in the disability sector. It was done by every so-called “regular” Australian with a disability who had the guts to stand up and say “this is not good enough”. It was work done by every advocate who spent hours bashing on politician’s doors with tragic tales to tell, and it was done by those who tirelessly volunteered to organise rallies and get-togethers to raise awareness. And by so many others.
This advocacy made the public aware enough of disability issues that I was able to clamber into Parliament, but this advocacy is exactly what we need more of to advance the rights of people with disabilities further.
Now we have made and maintained strong internal bonds in the disability sector, our next great challenge is to connect with everyone else.
Despite all the advances and work that I have just spoken about, most Australians don’t know the next thing about disability, or the disability services crisis which our country is floundering in.
I see it as our job to change this fact. So, now we must shift our focus from gathering an inner strength to creating an outside movement.
I believe that it is a truism that we all become activists in things which have touched our lives, because it is very hard to fight for something which you do not intimately understand.
I’d be interested to talk with some of you later and find out what attracted you to joining the National Council of Women– I’m sure many of you will have had a personal connection, some memory, event or figure from your life which made you think it was a worthwhile path. This is how most of our lives are lived.
As such, I speak to lots of events like this one – events where we all are already on the same page. Events where everyone knows and understands there are problems in the disability sector, and knows something must be done.
This, of course, is great for me – because it’s practically a guaranteed round of applause and a guaranteed audience of people who are listening. But what I really want to do, and no offense to you guys, is preach to audiences of the unconverted – because we need to enlist more hearts and minds to make more progress.
Out there in the land of people who specialise in things other than disability and related service are good, caring people who would be appalled by the way some Australians are forced to live.
If one of these accountants or lawyers or tradies were to find themselves having a cup of tea with an Australian with a disability who only had the opportunity to shower twice a week, it would no doubt open their eyes. But these stories aren’t reaching the public’s ears.
One of the barriers we face in making these outside connections is the scale and history of the problem. Disability services have long been in crisis, and people with a disability are used to being short changed. We are still at the stage of being grateful for any services we receive– rather than expecting to have our basic needs taken care of.
I would liken the problem with disability services to the problem with raising awareness of homelessness. Lots of people are aware of the homelessness problem in a vague way, but it is far-reaching, complex and expensive to fix, and the average citizen doesn’t know what they can do to help. They are looking for leadership at the highest level to show them the way to solve this enormous social issue, and that leadership is not being delivered.
Additionally, it is well known that homelessness is a problem practically all around the world – so there is no real expectation that we could be doing better.
Similarly, there is a vague awareness that people with a disability get a rough trot. But, people don’t know the ins and outs of the problem; they just know it has been a problem for a long time, and that it is a problem all around the world. It’s not that they don’t want the problem fixed – it’s just that no one is telling them what has to be done, and how it can be done.
In Australia, you can contrast this against so many other issues which have captured the community’s imagination. There’s climate change for example. Now, I am a passionate supporter of action on climate change, but I believe it has gained so much traction in the public debate because it has relatively simple solutions. It can be boiled down to an equation: the problem is carbon dioxide gasses, the solution is to create less of these – and the most effective way to do that is to limit personal and industry production of these gasses.
This is a clear, direct solution which can easily be practised by individuals.
I’ve also pondered around the contrasting reactions to two Four Corners programs on last year. The first Four Corners program was the now infamous episode which featured footage from within Indonesian abattoirs of Australian cattle being brutally and unethically slaughtered. As we all know, this program was followed by enormous media coverage and a huge grass roots campaign which resulted in a short term ban on live exports, and a long term tightening of export standards. It’s an issue that is still getting plenty of media hits today – some 16 months since the program first aired.
There was a contrasting silence when Four Corners aired a program about the sexual abuse of children with disabilities a couple of months later. The issue is just as heart-wrenching, the program was just as well put together – the audience presumably just as politically engaged, but the response was entirely different.
Why is that? Because, there is no easy solution to the problem of sexual abuse of children with disabilities. We can ban live animal export and be sure that we are significantly contributing to solving the problem of unethical slaughter of cattle – but no such single move will address the issues of abuse and people with disabilities.
This abuse issue is like everything else in the realm of disability, it is complicated. And the way to fix the problem involves leadership across many portfolio areas. We need treasurers, social policy leaders, individual advocates, health experts, the judiciary – people from almost every sector – to co-operate so that a solution to the disability crisis can be found.
This is because you can’t compartmentalise disability.
It doesn’t matter if I’m on holiday from being the Dignity for Disability member of Parliament, I still have cerebral palsy. Even if I decide to go to Bali to sit in the sun and drink cocktails on my week off, I still have cerebral palsy. And because disability is like this, because it is part of someone’s whole life, we need disability to be considered in every service delivered.
Public transport is not a disability-related area, but good public transport policy will include provisions to include people with disability. Similarly, the arts is not a disability sector, but South Australia needs to make sure our famous arts festivals are available to people with a disability or we run the risk of being hollow in our commitment to inclusivity.
This is the kind of detail and complexity that can be overwhelming for the broader community when they are confronted by disability issues. It’s a rabbit warren of problems which seem to have no solution.
So it is my belief that to make better and broader connections in Australia we need to advocate for solutions, instead of continuing to attempt to raise awareness of problems.
This is not a major shift, and many of you may already be using this approach when having conversations with friends or family. But we need to start doing it on a big scale.
So far, I have been most successful in getting media attention for the large tragedies which I have unfortunately needed to highlight during my tenure as a member of the legislative council. When something really gruesome or especially sad happens, the media’s ears prick up because they know that people will want to know why something so awful could be allowed to happen. This is fair enough – but when I want to draw attention to a preventative solution, it’s a struggle to raise interest.
Luckily, the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) has come along. This fantastic concept, which has been thoroughly researched and developed by the Productivity Commission, is a great single solution to a range of complex problems.
Of course, the NDIS is in itself complex, and somewhat difficult to explain, and it won’t solve every problem. But I think it could be the solution which mobilises the wider community to support people with disabilities in their search for better rights.
Now we have a solution of sorts, the issue is getting enough air time and audience ears to make the solution seem worth fighting for. The current challenge is now to find a funding source for the scheme since it is likely to cost upwards of $10 billion a year to fund. Presently, the state and federal governments have only guaranteed initial seed funding for trials amounting to less than $2 billion over four years. While this sounds a huge amount of money, there are actually some quite obvious government rebates we could access to finance it.
Currently, according to The Australia Institute’s research, the federal government spend $30 billion of taxpayer money on providing superannuation rebates for the wealthiest half of the population – and this will increase to $45 billion a year by 2015. By cutting the rate of these super tax concessions, we could fund not just the NDIS, but also Denticare and the Gonski education reforms. Food for thought, perhaps.
In my office we are trying to engage leaders who can activate different segments of the community. I have spoken to heads of the Anglican Church, leaders in Catholic media, key players in the union movement and senior people in the legal fraternity with the hope that these communities, who are used to fighting for causes, can be convinced to help us in our fight.
The response from the leaders has been overwhelmingly positive, and we have events and other initiatives in the pipeline to reach out into the broader community.
I think if we can start reaching out into pieces of the community like this, we will start to see the pace of change pick up. Instead of having the relatively small disability community attempting to push our leaders into making some progressive choices, we will have the whole country asking why they can’t do better.
In Rotary Clubs, Scout groups and sporting organisations across the country there are captive audiences with community spirit, who just need a little information and insight to become disability advocates.
I think that if we begin to confidently make these connections then policy will begin to catch up with the speed of our thinking in the disability sector.
Education has a major role to play in this future too. Already we send people into schools to speak about all kinds of things, from drugs and alcohol to the risks of dangerous driving.
If we can integrate disability awareness into the education program then the hurdle we struggle with of people not being connected to the issue will disappear. Disability will become an aspect of their schooling and maturation.
I think that better education of social justice issues could be instrumental in ensuring that these problems do not get the same treatment as they have in the past. Of course, many people are educated alongside people with a disability and this has been shown to have a very positive affect on their consideration of disability issues into the future. Every now and again I am asked to go and address a school or a group of young people, and I am always overwhelmed by their very welcoming and interested attitude.
Even more opportunities like this, which are an opportunity for people with disabilities to speak directly to a young audience could be helpful.
Perhaps if we can better integrate people with disabilities into the workforce, then pro-active education won’t even be as necessary. Learning from a teacher with a disability would teach children many things implicitly, and would go a long way to removing the stigma around disability.
If barriers between people with disabilities and the workplace are removed, we will have to worry less about spreading the disability word into henceforth untouched sections of the community – because people with a disability would be doing it themselves.
Currently, my office receives many calls from frustrated people with great qualifications – some of them at the Honours or PhD level, who can’t find work. After several knockbacks despite good qualifications and experience, it’s hard not to think that the reason they can’t get work is their disability, it’s very depressing and difficult for them.
If we can overcome this problem, foster workplaces which are accessible and inclusive – and not scared of disability, then all of the people in those workplaces will benefit.
A quick story to illustrate my point. In my office earlier this year we had a trainee, Steve. Steve is a person of short stature, but mostly he’s a good guy with a great sense of humour who works really hard. His last workplace was a restaurant, who hired him after being approached by a job placement agency. The restaurant were a little worried about Steve being able to do things like reach the counter where the food was served, but once they saw how willing and easy going he was and how great he was with customers they stopped worrying. I’d put money on the workers in that restaurant and many of the staff having learnt a lot about disability and its myths, just from hanging around Steve-o.
We all know that people with disabilities have just as much to give as people in the wider community, but getting them into the workplace will show that to everyone. It will also have what I like to think of as the “d4d” effect.
After I started working in Parliament House, every decision began to have a disability consideration tacked onto it. Suddenly they had to build a toilet that was accessible on the floor I was working, and automate the big heavy door at the accessible entrance. They have to think about the height of tables in Committee rooms, and whether in fact I can even get to the Committee room. Having mentioned these things I would note, with some dismay, that the currents renovation of Old Parliament House mean that I, and anyone else with mobility or access issues, must enter Parliament House for 18 months through a poorly lit, hidden away underground car park. At least by early 2014 we will have a more accessible parliamentary building for all of us.
When other MPs introduce legislation they will often make a speech which contains a reference to how their Bill will affect people with a disability and if theirs doesn’t mine will. My presence hasn’t necessarily changed what people do, it’s just added another dimension to their thinking. I believe the same would be true if more people with disabilities were in diverse workplaces – those around them would automatically start considering disability in their day to day decisions.
So, this I believe is the next great challenge for us – to reach out to all of Australia and engage them in being part of the solution to the disability crisis. Through workplaces, schools and pro-active engagement of community groups we can sell a solution which everyone can get behind. Thank you very much for having me with you this evening.
