Tag: abc

Flying solo

I had three diary malfunctions this week. None as spectacularly catastpophic as Jannet Jackson’s super-bowl experience some years ago, but only because they were in front of a much smaller audience.

The first related to a presentation I was due to give next week which I had completely forgotten. I received an email on Thursday reminding me of the time and place. Yes, I replied, I’m all prepared for that one, and scheduled a couple of hours during the weekend to pull it together.

The second related to the screening of a new film, for which I was an interested audience member, but luckily nothing more. I turned up two hours late. Woops!

The third was more embarrassing. I received a text at 2,40 PM asking if I was still available for the 2,30 coffee we had arranged. Unfortunately I was on the other side of the city in a different appointment. Super Woops! Several grovelling appologies and a promise to buy the coffee next time later I had regained a little self esteem. You are probably reading this, and I am still very embarrassed. This is not what I usually do.

I’m finding it difficult to nagivate both to and inside my new temporary office at the Australian Law Reform Commission. Whoever designed the MLC Centre in that octagonal shape, with a multi-entranced and noisy food court as the main access to the building, and no labels on lift buttons or announcements in lifts, wasn’t thinking about the challenges it presents to guide dog users.

It’s a little more of an issue booking my own travel, and doing all of those really important tasks which my Executive Assistants at the Commission seemed to do so imperturbably and efficiently.

And – inevitably – I’m experienceing a small dose of relevance deprivation syndrome since I finished my term as Disability Discrimination Commissioner.

All challenges of operating differently, and flying solo.

But then I went back to that well-known aphorism- it’s not the problem that’s the problem, it’s your attitude to the problem that’s the problem. And I considered the bigger picture.

Despite the view of the Attorney-General that disability discrimination was diminishing, so we only need a part-time Commissioner, not much has changed. There is still no jobs plan for people with disabilities.
We are still refused airline travel if we happen to be the third person who turns up for a flight using a wheelchair.
Gaols are still viewed as an appropriate accommodation option for people with intellectual and psycho-social disability. Fifi thinks its ok to fake a disability, and then laugh about it on radio. And there is still no audio description on the ABC.

To use Stephen King’s well-known phrase “same shit, different day.”

So I just need to get over the challenges of flying solo, and get on with what I promised myself I would do. Keep working to improve the quality of life of Australians with disabilities.
I’ll play a leadership role at the Law Reform Commission, assisting to complete the disability and capacity inquiry, and improve the decision-making processes for people with disabilities.
http://www.alrc.gov.au I’ll contribute, through the board of Life Without Barriers, to improving the quality of life of kids in out-of-home care, asylum seekers, Aboriginal people and people with disabilities. http://www.lifewithoutbarriers.org.au I’ll contribute through the board of the Attitude Foundation to changing the way people with disabilities are viewed in the media- because changing attitudes changes lives. http://www.attitude.org.au I’ll just do it from a different place. And learn to fly solo.

The Sin Of Spin

Clarke and Dawes last Thursday synthesised the last few weeks of my life. If you value language and truth its worth meeting Mr Lars Torders. It’s on ABC iView. http//:::iview.abc.net.au/program/clarke

As a cricket tragic I never thought I’d describe spin as a sin. It’s not in the cricket world. But in the world where I work-
Australian human rights, politics and the media, the sin of spin has reached a new high for me.

Last week the Daily Telegraph (no link provided as I do not want to encourage you to read it) ranted. Surprise surprise you might say- isn’t this a daily event. This rant, which was actually a re-run from 2011 (originality runs out everywhere eventually) was about the huge increase in the number of people receiving the Disability Support Pension.

Rational analysis, however, shows that – when taken as a proportion of the Australian population – DSP numbers have not increased in the last decade, and dropped one percentage point in the last twelve months. Of course, as our population increases, the numbers on the DSP will increase- just as the number of tax-payers, employees, voters, or for that matter Daily Telegraph readers- will increase.

The Tele – in this same re-run rant – contrasted the so-called sins of these DSP recipients against the bravery of Australian soldiers, by use of the absolutely irrelevant fact that more Australians receive the DSP than had been wounded in wars. In the process, they slurred DSP recipients, and insulted many of our soldiers, who – as a result of their service- are currently in receipt of the DSP. But to not misrepresent the figures, and to take the feelings of those people into consideration would be to spoil a “good yarn.”

The Tele then went on to talk about how these DSP recipients lived in beach-side suburbs on the far north coast of NSW, trying to suggest enjoyment of “the good life”. If you can have a good life when you have a disability, and live on less than $20000 a year. They chose to ignore the fact that these places are some of the lowest socio-economic regions of NSW. And given that 45% of Australians with disabilities live in poverty according to OECD figures, its not surprising that they would live in areas where the costs of living are less.

But my favourite in the “let’s support our point with absolutely meaningless statistics” stakes was that NSW has the biggest number of DSP recipients. Well Hullo. NSW has the biggest population.

But life wouldn’t be too bad if the sin of spin confined itself to the pages of the Tele- everyone expects it there. But I have encountered it in a number of other places, which is far more concerning.

First, the Brisbane City Council. They impose a curfew on blind people by turning off the audio traffic signals at 9:30 at night, and back on at 6:30 in the morning. They don’t turn off the visual traffic information- just the audio. So anyone in Brisbane who is blind risks their safety if they venture out two and a half hours before Cinderella’s transport does a pumpkin imitation. They say that the noise of the signals disturbs the sleep of the good burghers of Brisbane. But in truth, if the noise-limiting controls are properly maintained on the audible traffic signals, they can’t be heard more than 2 or 3 meters away. Not too many of those good burghers hunker down for the night within a spit of the traffic light pole.

Then we had the Queensland judge who decided that a Deaf woman could not serve on a jury because she sought to use an Auslan interpreter. He said that not being able to hear, she would “only” receive the evidence through lip-reading or Auslan. This wouldn’t be good enough, and any way there was a problem with having a “thirteenth person” break the sanctity of the jury room. This could some how “corrupt” the jury process. In fact, studies done both at Macquarie University in Sydney, and Gallaudet university in the US, have found that Deaf people- using lip-reading and Auslan – have a better understanding of the evidence in criminal trials than do hearing jurors. So more spin to suit the negative assumptions made about people with disabilities.

But what pushed my credulity meter way into zone red were the explanations given in Senate Estimates this week of the governments decision to make a $400.000 annual saving by having one less Commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission when my term ends on 4 July. Firstly it was asserted that this decision was not targeting the Disability Discrimination Commission position- even though it was known to government which position would become vacant first. Secondly, the position was not being abolished (technically correct, as this would require an amendment to the Disability Discrimination Act- although let’s start carefully monitoring all consequential amendment bills. Thirdly, the position was not being down-graded- it was going to be filled by one of the other Commissioners on a part-time basis, as well as doing their primary job.

The position is now full-time, filled by a person with lived experience of disability, and a detailed knowledge of the disability sector. In July it will become part-time, filled by a person without lived experience of disability, and who – whilst very knowledgeable in their own sector – will have little knowledge of the disability sector.

Check your dictionary of choice, and tell me that is not a down-grade. And while you’re doing that, keep one eye open for aeronautical Peppa.

All this spin, and who is disadvantaged. The four million Australians with disabilities, 45% of whom live in poverty, who are employed at a rate 30 % less than the general population, who have half the general pass rate at year 12, who disproportionately appear in the justice system as victims and offenders. Added to all of that, we experience the sin of being viewed in a negative and limiting way- we’re not even good enough to sit on a jury and judge our peers. And the spin exacerbates the sin.

So of course we don’t need a full-time Disability Discrimination Commissioner with lived experience of disability. I’ll just go back and watch more Clarke and Dawes on iView.

A Commissioner For Left-Handers

Dear Adam Creighton,

I have seen you on ABC’s The Drum on television. I know that you are economics correspondent for the Australian, have worked for the Reserve Bank and the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, and that you studied at Oxford.

I am writing to you about your recent comments regarding whether we need a Disability Discrimination Commissioner. You said “lots of people are discriminated against. Why don’t we have a gay rights commissioner, or a left-handed commissioner, or a short persons commissioner, or a commissioner for people who aren’t good-looking.”

As a person with a disability I am hurt and saddened by your comment. Hurt because you trivialised the significant issues impacting on the day-toDay lives of Australians with disabilities, and the work a Disability Discrimination Commissioner does to address them. Saddened because your comment demonstrates your total lack of awareness of the magnitude of these issues.

I’d like to meet you, and introduce you to some of my friends. Let me tell you about us.

I qualified as a lawyer, and then failed at around 30 job interviews because employers could not understand how a blind person could do such a job. My first job was as a clerical assistant in the public service. That was some time ago, but not much has changed.

Let me introduce you to Josh. He is an excellent app developer, with several successful apps. But he can’t get a job because his autism limits his communication skills, so he is no good at job interviews. I work with government and private employers to change this situation.

The recent budget makes my work harder, because Josh will have his Disability Support Pension re-assessed, and may loose it. But he will still struggle to find a job. The government budget contains a welfare plan, but not a jobs plan for people like Josh.

Then there’s Marlon. He spent ten years in Geraldton prison without being convicted of a crime. He was found “unfit to plead” as a result of his cognitive disability, and the West Australian government regards prisons as appropriate accommodation options for such people. I campaign to change these laws.

I work with Arthur, who has an intellectual disability, but has found a part-time job stacking shelves in a supermarket. He earns enough not to be on the Disability Support Pension. He has a recurring health complaint, which requires regular doctors visits, pathology and other tests. The $7 a time he will have to pay for these visits means he will struggle to pay his rent.

There’s Julia who wanted to catch a bus from Sydney to Canberra, but could not because the buses did not carry people using wheelchairs. I work on laws to change that.

There’s Stephanie, supporting her teenage son through high school. But the budget changes to education mean that the extra funding he needs to be successful in a regular school will not go ahead. I work with government to increase that support.

Then there’s Stella. She’s a journalist, comedian and great communicator who gives people with a disability a powerful voice by editing the ABC Rampup site. It was defunded by the government in the budget, and the ABC cannot pick up the funding. Stella may be left-handed, but she also uses a wheelchair.

There is Pat, in her seventies, and still supporting her two adult sons who have mental illness. The National Disability Insurance Scheme, which the government is continuing to roll out on time and in full, will ease some of that load. But I still need to educate police, so that they encourage her sons to go to hospital when they need to, rather than using brute force.

So that’s what a Disability Discrimination Commissioner does. 37 % of discrimination complaints relate to disability, 45% of people with disabilities live in poverty, we are 30 % under-employed compared to the general population, far more of us are accommodated in institutions or prisons, we experience higher levels of domestic violence, and the government systems to support us are broken and broke.

Gritty Australian cricket captain Alan Border, a left-hander I note, played some very tough innings. But I don’t think he ever faced an innings as tough as the one Australians with disabilities face every day. My job, as Disability Discrimination Commissioner, is to make that innings a little easier.

Mr Creighton, to quote from my friend Rachel Ball at the Human Rights Law Centre, “it is easy to stand atop a mountain of privilege, and tell those at the bottom of the mountain that privilege is irrelevant.”

Graeme Innes

Disability Discrimination Commissioner

(This article was first published in the Sydney Morning Herald)