I was surprised recently to learn that If you have a disability and use a wheelchair or similar mobility device and use a modified vehicle you may be eligible for a 100% discount on your annual vehicle registration fee. This is my latest bureaucratic Journey.

In some way’s it's never been easier to have a disability than in 2023. In most ways of course, there is never a good time to have a disability, but when technology and equipment are made available for the use of people with disability, we have equitable choices to help us live life the way we want.

We can sleep on beds that make sure we are refreshed as much as possible for the day ahead, and we can comfortably socialise and enjoy …

The principles of an inter-abled friendship are similar to any great friendship, they can take a bit more work depending on your disability journey. Yet there can be differences, subtle and more obvious. Brought on by cultural ableist attitudes and general ignorance of what disability means - especially as there are so many disabilities.

Before I was diagnosed with a progressive neuromuscular disease my homes had never been inclusively designed. I never gave access a second thought., until I received occupational therapist (OT) advice not long after my diagnosis of Limb Girdle Muscular Dystrophy.

I've learnt that comfortable and beautiful accessible design in a home is just as important to me and many other disabled people as it is to you.

Good, honest friendship should never involve a power imbalance, where one side isn’t feeling joy from the relationship. This might happen in a relationship in which each experiences life quite differently, such as through the lens of disability.

In both pre and post-disability days, I have been surrounded by many wonderful people. The following five tips for being a stellar friend to your disabled someone come from my reflections on all these relationships.

I recently watched a fabulous documentary called Crip Camp. It provided compelling insight into the American civil rights movement as it relates to people with disabilities. The show was powerful, humbling and inspiring, and got me thinking about not only the work that has been done but how we can all play a role in achieving universal equity.

Crip Camp is set in the heady era, beginning in the 1960s, of rebellion. Dylan’s times a’changing, Woodstock, Black Panthers and eye-crossingly tight jeans, the time was a bubbling hot pot of radical societal transformations. And it was the time for Judith Huemann, a documentary subject, to pick up the momentum of the disability civil rights movement that she had been enacting on a personal level from a very young age.

Accessible car parking bays used by eligible permit holders mean equitable access for everyone to go about their lives. They provide essential assurance for those of us with physical limitations when accessing our destination. Because, when it comes to parking, our choices and alternatives are way more limited than someone who is non-disabled. But there are associated unhelpful, and unwelcome, social and systemic side effects.

Do you think about grace when you get dressed in the morning? Has rising from your armchair to move into another room involved much thought beyond `I’m getting a cup of tea now’? Have you considered the role dignity plays in your moves? Over the last 5 years I certainly have.

For some time, I’ve wanted to write about my experience as a participant of our National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), a scheme established under the management of the National Disability Agency (NDIA). If I had shared my views in 2019, twelve months after I started on the scheme, I would've been full of praise. The NDIS has liberated my life, and that of my informal (unpaid) carer-husband Gary. We have regained to a large extent, the choices of earning, studying, travelling, and pursuing hobbies. I am immensely grateful that I live in this privileged country in which equity (as it relates to many people with disabilities) has been made a high priority.

But I am now acutely aware of how much the original vision and purpose of the NDIS has deteriorated.

Pre-election, Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison made his now infamous and controversial ‘blessed to have non-disabled children’ statement.

I’m a disabled woman. But I get it.

I might have said something similar 30 years ago as an able-bodied new mother of three neuro and physically normative children. I was ignorant and unaware of the attitudinal, structural and systemic barriers faced by disabled people and their carers in every facet of their lives.

Whether you are in retail or hospitality finance or construction, there are many compelling reasons why you should be actively hiring people with disability. And in these pandemic times, with unavailable Visa workers, this is more pertinent than ever. Anecdotally, many employers avoid what they see as a complicated employment scenario – they unreasonably foresee high costs, unreliability and integration difficulties. But with only 53% of our 4.6 million people with a disability in meaningful employment compared to 84% of non-disabled Australians, we have a significant problem to overcome.

Eventually, I realised that I wasn’t sharing everyday experiences in the same way as I used to with my friends and family. Hobbies and interests such as photography, gardening, baking and sewing became less autonomous and spontaneous and more reliant on assistance from others. Conversations regarding new methods in cooking became increasingly irrelevant. Despite equipment adaptations including a lighter camera, photography and all its artistic embodiments was not available without significant compromise, including having another person programming the settings and shooting. Sewing and quilting have followed a very similar path for me. Socialising involves considerations regarding toileting, resting beforehand, ensuring accessibility and not feeling self-conscious having your food cut up for you - and significantly adapted ( let’s say improved) dance moves.