OPINION
Now, that might be an inflammatory thing to write. But if you take a look at how disability is viewed in parliament, the sometimes questionable things our leaders say and do, and how the disabled community is treated (and often ignored) by the government, I think it’s a fair question to ask.
Just looking at the last year or two alone, there is plenty of evidence. Take a look at the Disability Royal Commission, for instance. It took advocates decades of hard work to get it to even happen. Once it did, thousands of us gave evidence about our experiences of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation over the four-and-a-half years the Commission ran for, myself included. Hearing our stories was harrowing–but finally, people were listening. And it felt like maybe this would be the start of positive change.
But even with the gut-wrenching Final Report in September 2023, which summarised the horrors our community is facing in all areas of existence, the government’s response was disappointing, only enacting a measly 13 recommendations out of 222. This is compared to the Mental Health Royal Commission and Aged Care Royal Commission, where all or most recommendations were accepted.
So why is disability seen as less?
It makes no sense to me. How can you read the stories and statistics from the Disability Royal Commission, and not take more action? For example, it’s said more than half of disabled people aged 18 to 64 have experienced violence–a rate that is 38% higher than non-disabled people.
That disabled girls are twice as likely to experience abuse before the age of 15. That 90% of women with intellectual disability have experienced abuse.
That it’s seen as acceptable to pay disabled people as little as $2.37 an hour, for the same work non-disabled people would get minimum wage for.
Like that disabled people are being significantly discriminated against in education, healthcare, employment, transport, and in the community, and it’s even worse for those who have multiple levels of marginalisation.
The government couldn’t even commit to criminalising forced sterilisation for disabled people. Imagine if you went in for a surgery or treatment, and came out unable to have children without your consent, just because you’re disabled. Messed up, right? Apparently not enough for the government to change it.
But when we look at who is actually leading us, and what they think about disability, the message becomes clearer. While we do have advocates and allies fighting for us, as well as Greens Senator Jordon Steele-John, the only person with a visible disability in parliament, we also have people with some truly horrific opinions of disability.
Exhibit A: Pauline Hanson, Senator for the One Nation Party. She’s publicly made comments that disabled kids are a strain on schools and teachers should be in separate “special classrooms”– but this segregation is where a lot of abuse can occur, and it hides away disabled people as “other”. It’s no surprise though to hear this when she’s been framing disabled people as burdens since the 90s, and 2023 was no exception when her party released an abhorrent video about disability and the NDIS. She said horrible things about disabled people, and our life-saving NDIS: calling us a scam and a burden, along with some truly awful, hateful words and images. Yet there were no repercussions. There never is.
That’s why it feels like such a betrayal that NDIS Minister Bill Shorten teamed up with Pauline, pushing harmful narratives about the budget blowout of the NDIS, and rushing decisions and changes, because waiting and actually working with the disabled community would cost too much. Advocates begged the government to listen, but of course they didn’t. Instead, he called us “extremists” peddling “fear and misinformation”, and rushed changes that cut $14.4 billion from the NDIS over the next five years. Changes to the supports we can access have wreaked havoc across the community and clearly shows the apparent lack of disabled people involved in the process. Despite many advocates and organisations speaking out, we’re largely ignored.
But here’s the thing: yes, the NDIS is costly. But it’s also life-saving and life-changing, and people who aren’t disabled have no business making decisions about our lives. By the way, Australia spends over $53 billion a year on defense, and no one calls that a budget blowout. Each member of parliament costs the Australian community around a million a year in wages and expenses–why aren’t we talking about that as a way to cut costs? Because it’s much easier to pick on a marginalised community that traditionally hasn’t been able to fight back. Classy.
Also, let’s not forget that the NDIS is one of the biggest contributors to the Australian economy, delivering $2.25 billion in economic value for every billion spent in the scheme. It isn’t just support for us: it’s supporting an entire industry, including so many small businesses, creating a wealth of jobs. Despite its problems (including the fact that many disabled people still can’t access it), the NDIS makes such a difference to so many people: something politicians conveniently forget while calling us scammers.
Instead of supporting us, they’ll happily spend a billion dollars to hire more than 1,000 NDIS staff as “needs assessors”, re-assessing around 1,200 participants a week, with almost half of those people being kicked off the NDIS. A lot of those being exited off are neurodivergent, and 80% of them are kids. The government is framing these assessors as a positive thing for participants—but a lot of the specifics are unclear, which is incredibly unnerving. A lot of advocates have warned about the significant harms this will cause, especially when Foundational Supports isn’t even ready yet. How can you put disabled people through extreme stress, extra testing, cutting supports, or kicking us off all together and call it a positive thing? Do you know how much testing we had to go through to access the NDIS in the first place?
It’s gut-wrenching to think of all the people and their families whose lives have been thrown into chaos because of this. It makes me so afraid I could lose my life-saving support too—support I couldn’t live or work without. And it’s so frustrating, because if the government could just work with the disabled community—beyond tokenism—we could create a lot of positive change. We could save money, and set up a better system. Because there are so many ridiculous things we as participants know cost a whole lot of money, not to mention a lot of price-gouging and the infamous disability tax. Oh, and the fact that the NDIS spends millions and millions of dollars every year fighting disabled people on their appeals—in recent years, this figure has been over $40 million annually. But that’s a whole other article.
Even outside of the NDIS, it’s clear there are poor attitudes towards disability. Earlier last year, so many disability organisations had their funding slashed, including Women With Disabilities Victoria, which had 48% of their funding taken away, until disability advocates fought for it back.
Attitudes about disability are so poor that it’s even seen as acceptable for the leader of our country to make jokes at our expense. Like Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s question to a reporter if “he had Tourette’s or something”, while laughing. Of course, Albo apologised. But the fact that he felt comfortable enough to make a joke like that in the first place is telling.
It’s really not good enough.
We need more disabled people in government and leadership spaces. We desperately need our “leaders” to learn about disability, and unlearn their stigma and ableism. Disabled people can genuinely change the world, and it’s time we’re seen as the assets we are, not the burdens they portray us to be.
Zoe Simmons is an award-winning disabled journalist, copywriter, speaker, author and advocate. She writes to make the world a better place.