Category: Human rights

My seat on the bus

“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: It would be a jolly site harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.” Change according to CS Lewis.

Stephen Hawking also believes in change. He said “I have noticed even people who claim everything is pre-destined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road”.

And David Mamet, through the script of “Wag the Dog”, thinks change requires co-operation. “For progress to occur, it is necessary for two generations to agree”.

In my view, change is easy. It’s awareness, and willingness to change, that require effort.

Seven-year-old Duncan’s parents are worried. He’s about to be suspended from school.

Duncan and his family live just outside a regional town in Victoria, Australia. He catches the bus to school each day – the first stop on the route is right outside his house, so he gets the seat right behind the driver. He returns on the bus at the end of the school day. He’s doing all right at school, and getting on with friends.

But the school says he has been violent towards other children on the bus in the afternoons. Duncan (not his real name) has autism.

The school Principal is supportive of Duncan’s attendance, but the school has a strong anti-violence policy with which she must comply. She can only conclude that the school day is too tiring for Duncan.

Mum and Dad both work, so can’t pick him up, and Grandma – who minds him in the afternoons – doesn’t drive. Parents and teachers have talked to Duncan about the problem, but the reports of hitting and pinching keep coming. Suspension seems the only option.

Duncan’s mum has read about the Convention on the Rights of People with Disability, the Victorian Charter of Human Rights, and State and Federal disability discrimination legislation. She knows how much Duncan loves school, and wants to do everything she can. As a last resort, she talks to a Disability Rights Advocate.

The Advocate contacts the Principal, and details Duncan’s rights to education, and the need for the school to provide reasonable adjustment for Duncan. The Principal agrees that the Advocate can observe Duncan for a day at school before she imposes the suspension.

The Advocate sees that Duncan is happy on the way to school, and during school. The problem only occurs on the way home, when all of the kids rush onto the bus, and Duncan can’t sit in the front seat. So, with a small change to routine to let Duncan get on the bus first, and sit in the front seat, his education continues.

Have you seen situations where a small change can make a big difference? Comment below!

This story was obtained from the Victorian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, and has been used by Disability Discrimination Commissioner Graeme Innes in a number of his speeches.

Graeme Innes thirsts for change, and is passionate in his belief that a successful sustainable society is a society which includes everyone.

White Cane Warrior

Kids can be hard to keep entertained on long summer holiday drives. Some parents resort to telling exaggerated stories of daring-do from their youth. It’s marginally better than I Spy or punch buggy (which consists of punching someone when you see a Volkswagen beetle).
One such story popped into my head as we stopped at the dog sitting on the tuckerbox five miles from Gundagai on our way to Melbourne recently. And I couldn’t resist re-telling it.
Part of my youth was spent as an activist in the disability movement, travelling around the country to various meetings and conferences. On one of these occasions, I was travelling back to Sydney from Wagga Wagga in a car full of my mates, and our various mobility aids – a couple of wheelchairs, a walking stick, and my own white cane. We decided – as you do – to stop for a hamburger at the dog on the tucker box café. (Please imagine at this point loud tuneless renditions of “the dog sat on the tucker box, and the protesting groans of eleven-year-olds).
We had found a table and ordered our hamburgers and milkshakes when a group of bikies arrived. Now, these weren’t bikers – that gruff, rugged bunch who look tough in their leathers and helmets, but underneath are just your average suburban boys with the need to bleed off a bit of extra testosterone. These were bikies – the sort who live outside the law, and communicate with grunts and rattles of the chains they wear around their necks. And their idea of fun that day was to harass the young woman managing the tucker box hamburger joint.
Now in those days I was a fighter for equality on the front line, not using the more conservative legal tools that I use today. And I was offended by the crass and sexist behaviour they were demonstrating. Their lewd suggestive comments, urged on by the support of their mates, were causing her a lot of discomfort.
But what could I do – one bloke with an aluminium white cane, whose pecs needed a lot more work, up against half a dozen tattooed gym-junkies with chains at the ready. So, I came up with a cunning plan.
They had parked their machines on either side of our car. So, borrowing the car keys from my mate in the wheelchair, I proceeded to walk to the car, white cane prominently on display, in full view of the marauding horde.
I tapped my way to the driver’s door, got in, started the engine and revved it a couple of times.
Balancing the opportunity to have some fun at the expense of the female hamburger operative, against the potential terminal damage to their prized modes of transport from my driving, the retreat was prompt and absolute. I’ve never known a group of motor bikes to leave more burned rubber in the car park of a hamburger joint.

Which just goes to show that brains can sometimes outwit brawn, and disability can have some advantages. At least, that’s the way I told the story to my kids.
Have you had to put up with a parent who thinks he tells a good yarn? Was I being brave or foolish? Tell me what you think.
Graeme Innes is Australia’s Disability Discrimination Commissioner, and an inveterate story-teller. He has kissed the Blarney stone and is prone on the odd occasion to leaven his stories with a small amount of exaggeration. An earlier version of this article was published in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Defining matters

I’m neutral on bumper stickers, I don’t hate them as the picture suggests. You can buy them from auto shops, or customise them from places such as http://www.ebay.com.au/bhp/bumper-stickers http://www.zazzle.com.au/bumperstickers http://www.cafepress.com.au/+bumper-stickers

I get the “baby on board” stickers – as a parent I’m strongly into protecting my child. I understand the “I shoot and I vote” sticker as a political statement- one with which I strongly disagree. And I am puzzled by the “Republicans for Voldemort” sticker found on a US bumper sticker site.

But I don’t get the idea of describing your family, and what is important to each of them, in a set of pictographs on the back of your car.

Variety is the spice of life http://www.thefreedictionary.com/variety+is+the+spice+of+life But for me they are like wearing budgie smugglers in public, keeping a snake as a pet, or eating raw fish- you go ahead and do that, but include me out.

Normally these stickers would not impinge much on my life. As someone who does not see, they are just like the blizzard of advertising billboards which fill blank spaces everywhere- I go through my life blissfully unaware of them.

However my wife Maureen, http://www.twitter.com/gizmoshelley bless her, has a wonderful nack of inserting the visual information I miss into our conversations. I really value this, because otherwise there is knowledge and awareness of society, pop culture, and our surroundings generally that I would just not have. Although a little less of the botanical explanations would be great please Darling.

My erudite wife doesn’t do it in a “here’s an announcement about something which would not have been a part of your life if I had not told you” kind of way. She just weaves it into the conversation, in the same way I might weave in something read in a newspaper. It’s just a natural part of the interaction and sharing which is one of the continuing strengths of our relationship.

Several weeks ago, Maureen commented on the family pictograph stickers on the car in front. “That’s a typical family,” she said. “The dad plays golf, the mum cooks, the son plays the guitar, oh, and the daughter uses a wheelchair.” She continued the conversation by remarking on the innate sexism in the story that was told- the dad is notable for what he clearly enjoys (playing golf) and the mum for one of her contributions to the family (working in the kitchen).

However, my mind went in an entirely different direction, and I was overwhelmed with sadness. My sadness related to the daughter.

Everyone else in the family was marked for what they enjoyed, or what they did. The daughter was marked for her disability.

One take on this might be that its good that the disability was out there and on display- not hidden away as it has been for many years. But that’s not my take.

My take is incredible sadness that the daughter herself, and-or the family who are probably her greatest supports, define her by her disability. The most important thing about her, the thing that they choose to put on public display on the bumper of their car, is not her violin playing, her love of One Direction or Justin Beeber, it is her disability.

What makes me even more sad is that this is a reflection of our society. As the 20% of us in Australia who have a disability http://www.abs.gov.au/disability-statistics – or perhaps the less than 20% who have a visible disability – go through our lives, this is usually the way we are defined. Not as Stella http://www.abc.net.au/rampup the witty and thought-provoking journalist, but as Stella who uses a wheelchair. Not as Ron http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_McCallum the professor of law, who is expert in industrial relations and chaired a UN committee, but as Ron who is blind. Not as Tim http://www.twitter.com/withtimferguson that really funny guy who was part of the Doug Anthony All Stars, http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doug_Anthony_All_Stars but as Tim who has MS.

These three, and many others, are doing a damn good job of breaking down that stereotype. But its still true that the biggest barrier Australians with disabilities face is the attitude barrier.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not proposing that we go back to the bad old days – still current for some – of hiding disability by locking people away in bedrooms or institutions. Disability is part of us, and needs to be included within our diverse Australian community. But it should not define us.

I continue to strive for a time when – if we pull up behind that car again, and if my wonderful wife shares her view of that part of the world with me – the daughter, too, will be living the dream rather than defined by a small part of the reality.

Should disability define us? Is society right to refer to our disability first? Tell me your thoughts.

Graeme Innes is Australia’s Disability Discrimination Commissioner, and is occasionally known to rant about issues brought up in casual conversations. His utter lack of knowledge and interest on matters botanical is an occasionally appearing cloud in the otherwise sunny skies of his marriage to Maureen.