Opening address to Julia Farr Youth Conference
14/04/2014
Thank you for having me here today to open the inaugural Julia Farr Youth Conference. I’d like to acknowledge distinguished guests, state and federal MPs, the organising Committee, conference delegates and very importantly, you all as young people with disabilities. I’d also like to recognise that we meet on the traditional lands of the Kaurna people and that this always has been, and always will be, Kaurna land.
I first became involved with Julia Farr Youth around the time of its inception – now six years ago, back in 2008. Through this involvement I have met some of the most passionate people I have could hope to meet. On a personal level, I enjoy contributing to the Julia Farr Youth Mentoring program as the mentor to a strong, articulate, intelligent young woman with disability. The mentoring program matches 11 to 18 year olds up with 18 to 30 year olds with a similar disability and interest to their own, so that they can learn different life skills and how to advocate for themselves as they grow into adulthood.
It’s a delight to be part of a new innovation by Julia Farr Youth and I am sure you will find each of the presenters as knowledgeable and interesting as I do, so it gives me enormous pleasure to welcome you all to this conference. If you are visiting from interstate, welcome to Adelaide, and South Australia. I hope you get to enjoy some of the good things my hometown has to offer while you are here!
In my role as a state MP for the Dignity for Disability party, the issues affecting young people make up a large part of my work. Of course many young people face various challenges like gaining access to adequate training and employment opportunities and affordable housing, for example. Add to these issues the extra barriers that having a disability may present, and things can become very complicated.
Youth unemployment is quite high enough, but, as some as you may be aware, workforce participation of people with disabilities aged 15-64 stands at just 54%. This compares with an 83% participation rate amongst people without disability. Insufficient support to complete training, inaccessibility of workplaces, and misconceptions about the abilities of people with disability are all factors that contribute to this. Dignity for Disability remains committed to lobbying and working with Government to ensure that all young people have equal access to not just employment opportunities, but the wider community.
To begin with, we need to address the issues of misconceptions of employing people with a disability. It is human nature to be resistant to change, and perhaps fearful, or apprehensive, of things that are new. But unfortunately the way this can manifest for people with disability trying to enter the workforce is a challenge.
Employers and recruitment firms tend to assume that employing a person with disability will be a big cost burden with loads of requirements. Generally, however, it’s not that hard – you might need to purchase an adjustable height desk, or ensure there’s access to an accessible toilet, or perhaps get a screen reader for a vision impaired employee. But the main characteristic, or feature, your workplace is going to need is to be open-minded and accepting of diversity, and prepared to accommodate different needs.
Purchasing a specialist software program for a vision impaired person is no different than if you need to buy a special graphics program because your office decides it’s going to need to produce newsletters. And adjustable height desks would actually be a bonus for your able-bod employees – they would be better off if they stood for half of their working day – it’s healthier for them too. Having an accessible toilet in your workplace and a ramp to get into your building also means parents and carers with prams can access your office, and older people that use other mobility devices such as scooters and walkers can get in. So, by making a workplace more accessible for people with disability, you also make it more accessible, more flexible, for the general population.
But that’s not the main benefit. People with disability are shown time and time again, in study after study, and report after report, to be more reliable and loyal employees. We take less sick days, and remain in the same workplace for longer. We are loyal to an employer that accommodates our needs, and we take pride in being dependable employees.
However, some of this commitment to a workplace may also be a fear of not being promoted or gaining employment in other workplaces or industries – and as young people with disabilities, this is something we need to ensure our workplaces understand – just because you’ve been progressive-thinking enough to give a person with a disability a job, does not mean you can deprive us of the right to fair pay, opportunities for promotion, and generals equal treatment and inclusion in the workplace.
This is an area I believe we, as the young generation of Australians with disabilities, really need to advocate ferociously about. It’s probably not that different to when women started to entering the workforce en masse about 40 years ago, or when migrants and refugees entered all workplaces on merit rather than having to run their own ‘ethnic’ restaurant in the community, as that was all that was acceptable. I believe the barriers that women and people of ethnically diverse backgrounds faced in gaining employment were similar – they were based on ignorance, fear and prejudice.
What was happening 30-40 years ago for women and CALD communities in employment, I believe is now occurring for people with disabilities – I will explain how. I work about 400m down the road to our east in Parliament House – a building that was completed in 1939. When that building, my workplace, was completed there were no women’s toilets. Why would there be? Although women in South Australia were allowed to vote from 1895, there was certainly no expectation that we’d elect women to Parliament! (Heaven forbid!) Finally, in 1959 women were elected to Parliament and they had to install a chick’s toilet!
Well, to some extent, history repeated when I was elected in 2010. Given an office on the lower ground floor, I had to go to the second floor to use an accessible toilet. There is only one small accessible lift in Parliament House, and it breaks down sometimes. I had to tell the powers that be that regardless of the lift working or not, I still need to wee! It had never been considered something that would happen – that there would be an MP or staffer that needed an accessible toilet. They did install an accessible toilet on the lower ground floor, and I could relax my bladder somewhat. This means not just me, but other people with disability that work in Parliament House and that visit Parliament House, can use an accessible toilet – as it should be. However, I still can’t go in the front door – and neither can anyone with a mobility aid – and for the last 20 months, anyone with a mobility disability has to enter Parliament House via the dingy, darkly lit Festival Theatre car park at the back of the building.
It takes me 10 minutes longer to get out of the building than anyone else that works there and there’s no specific plan if there’s a fire. I look forward to a new entrance opening this week, but decry the fact this will still not be the main entrance everyone else gets to use. So while some accommodations have been made in my workplace, and many others around Australia, there’s still a long way to go so we’re recognised as equal employees and workers.
This equal access to buildings is not specific to workplaces in Australia however. For those of you with special requirements when you travel, I am sure you get as anxious as I do about the state of your wheelchair or mobility aid at the other end of a flight, or concerned about whether a bus you catch will have a working ramp. I have lost count of the challenges I have faced at hotels and airline check-in counters across Australia since I commenced work as an MP four years ago. Repeatedly I’ve been told something is accessible, only to find it is once I get up the stairs, or if I’m carried into a bathroom. It’s infuriating and exhausting – and I’m sure all of you have your own stories of travel and building access disasters.
I know my mentee in Julia Farr Youth was trapped on a public bus one here in Adelaide one day for an hour after it broke down – this isn’t good enough. Unfortunately, it’s often not until an able-bod politician, journalist or judge acquires a temporary disability that the general community pays attention to accessibility debacles that are everyday experiences for many people with mobility, intellectual and sensory disabilities.
The most recent example I can think of has occurred here in Adelaide. We’ve just rebuilt our Adelaide Oval here across the Torrens River to accommodate AFL games. It’s cost South Australian tax payers $580million, including a $40million footbridge. Now, I won’t go into the politics of whether that money should have been spent on this infrastructure, or perhaps social services, because what’s done is done. But wouldn’t you think a brand new, expensive redevelopment would incorporate features of universal design and accessibility? And not just meet disability building standards but exceed them and provide enhanced capacity for people with disabilities to access this publicly funded infrastructure?
Well, apparently not. David Penberthy, a senior radio and print journalist in Adelaide, wrote a newspaper column last week on the newly re-launched Adelaide Oval. At present, Penberthy’s wife, Federal Opposition Minister Kate Ellis, has a broken leg and uses a wheelchair some days while her leg is in a cast. They attended a recent Crows AFL match and he found pushing Kate around Adelaide Oval an absolute nightmare.
This is yet another example of why our role as young people with disability is more important than ever – we need to be out there advocating to builders, developers, architects and designers about the realities of using mobility aids, showing what a room with a hearing loop needs, why an AUSLAN interpreter, why braille signs are helpful, why information in Easy English is necessary. Without our input, they just don’t get it right.
The next area we need young people with disability advocating on is invisible disability. Last week, I opened the Ostomy Association of South Australia’s new distribution centre and me talking about invisible disability struck such a chord with them, such a raw nerve, many of them cried. If you’re here today and you have a stoma, a colostomy or urostomy bag, I know I’m telling you nothing new, or perhaps if you have a mental illness, a physical disability that isn’t immediately obvious, a brain injury or you’re not neurotypical – again this won’t be new.
Using a wheelchair has its own challenges of course, but at least when I walk into a room, people are aware I might have some extra accessibility requirements, they might make incorrect assumptions, but at least when I use an accessible car park, no one yells at me – they can see why I’m using it. But if you have an invisible disability – especially one with a stigma attached – it can be really hard. It’s hard telling people – “oh I have a disability that means I end up psychotic twice a year and detained on a mental health ward” – or “I have a poo bag after having bowel cancer.” It’s the sort of revelation that can cause people to take one step back and approach you with caution! It’s these invisible disabilities that we as the youth disability community needs to counter every day – just because I might be deaf, doesn’t mean shouting at me is going to enable me to access your service.
Ignoring me because I have a ‘scary’ mental illness isn’t going to help me be included in the community. It demonstrates that it is essential that we’re ‘out and proud’ with our disability – whether it’s visible or invisible. It’s not to say that our disability defines us – but that’s it’s a part of us. For me being a woman, a red-head, a book-lover and a Francophile are inalienable parts of my identity – but also is the fact that I have CP and am a wheelchair user.
I also think there is an essential importance that we, as youth with disabilities, are involved in politics. This isn’t just to advocate on issues such as the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, or AUSLAN interpreters in university lectures – it’s to campaign on ALL issues that affect Australians. As an MP, I don’t just have views on individualised funding and wheelchair spaces at music concerts, I also believe the Great Barrier Reef should be protected for future generations, that global warming is real and that same sex attracted Australians should have the right to marry each other. I believe: Australia should stick to its obligation under the UN Refugee Convention; more women should be in Parliament and be CEOs of companies; and that indigenous Australians should be recognised in our Constitution. I am sure that you all of views on these matters too – they might be different to my views – but you have a right to hold those views and they don’t necessarily have anything at all to do with disability.
We had a state election here in South Australia a month ago. At d4d’s election night party, many stories were told to me by volunteers that had been handing out How to Vote cards on Election Day and polling booths around Adelaide. Two stories stick in my mind that show how important it is that we, as young people with disabilities, are politically active. Firstly, our volunteers found that whenever a person with a visible disability – says a Guide Dog, or mobility aid, arrived at the polling booth they were directed to our volunteers – other political party helper assumed that a person with a disability would vote for Dignity for Disability. How bad is that?
People with disabilities have different views to me, or d4d. They might want to vote for the Greens because the environment is their most important issue as a voter, or for Tony Abbott because they believe in what he has to offer the electorate. It would be good to see all political parties in Australia represented in Parliament by people with a diverse range of disabilities.
It would be ideal if a political force such as Dignity for Disability did not need to exist because disability was incorporated into every aspect of every political party’s philosophy, policy and operation. But this is not the case.
The second story that concerned me was that it was expected that d4d volunteers would provide assistance and access to the polling booths on Election Day – whether it to showing someone where the ramp access was, or providing assistance to a visually impaired voter. This is the job of the Electoral Commission – and in fact a d4d volunteer would be in breach of the Electoral Act if they did assist a voter in filling out the form once someone was inside the polling booth.
Yet the general public seem to think people with disabilities voting is somehow a special occurrence that d4d somehow have to assist with. Until voting and participation in our democracy is seen as an inalienable right for people with disability – whether they have an intellectual disability, are blind, or have other disability – we won’t see disability included in all public policy decision making to the extent that it should be.
I intend to keep lobbying to see all of these reforms – and I hope I see you all out on the hustings campaigning with me (or against me if you hold a different view!) I look forward to catching up with you, discussing your ideas, and hearing about your passions in the next two days at this conference.
Thank you.
