Equity would be a real blessing

Redwood Forest, Cape Otway

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.

Despite his education and exalted position, and having a family member who is an NDIS ( National Disability Insurance Scheme) participant, I believe that Scott is just as much a victim of our deplorable ableist culture as are many of us. The fact is that the more dire the circumstances and the greater the individual disability, the greater the personal challenges and heartache. But these can be ameliorated to varying degrees. We have been conditioned to see psycho-social and physical disabilities as a blight, a burden, a problem – but not to see the barriers we build to make them so.

 Before Limb Girdle Muscular Dystrophy progressively forced many physical limitations on my life, I was not aware of having any association with a person with disability. Of course, that was blatantly untrue. We now know that there are plenty of ability types and spectrums, many of them invisible. Often, their struggles are as well.

 This gradual societal awakening has been hard earned through disability advocacy and activism by many, yet so much more must be achieved. For Scott and many of the rest of us to fully understand that disability need not be burdensome and problematic but a positive diverse contributor to Australia, we need education and change in three core areas that also overlap and inform another.

ATTITUDES

We all thrive when we have secure housing, food, and feel valued for who we are. We all need to have ownership of our lives and have the option to participate and contribute.

None of us enjoys being pitied and condescended to, nor do we enjoy being simultaneously ostracised from work and social settings while being lauded for simply living. People with disability have their agency robbed from them daily.

 The media needs to end the pejoratives associated with disability discussions such as afflicted, wheelchair-bound, tragic and unfortunate. We need mainstream representation in advertising, movies, books and government. We need more story sharing and education and a genuine governmental commitment to provide appropriate support on an individual basis.

SYSTEM

While employers are hiring based on `this is how we’ve always done it’, we are missing out on so much talent.

 Australian workplaces need to take a strength-based approach and innovate to employ diversely. We need to use the Social Model of disability, that is to see disability as being created by a discriminatory society and therefore a whole of society issue, to look at what the person can offer and remunerate fairly. We need to see people with disability in leadership positions in industry and government.

 Children with disability need to be individually assisted as required, and their peers and teachers educated to enable human diversity acceptance from an early age.

 Like the TAC insurance scheme, the National Disability Insurance Scheme has often been a lifesaver for people with disability. Unfortunately, it has become increasingly a bureaucracy of charity rather than adhering to its original socially equitable ethos of providing support to people who need human and technological help to maintain and improve their quality of life. Independent living is crucial for all of us; it must be imperative for those of us forced to rely on the NDIS or other institutional support.

STRUCTURES/ENVIRONMENT

We don’t all have the same choices when parking or attending a venue, and people with disabilities are often left with one option at best. Australia needs universal design standards in town planning, public and private building, quantity and quality of accessible parking, website accessibility rules, mandated accessible access in all schools and early learning centres.

 Australia could become world leaders in social equity if our government adopted the above perspectives and turned them into reality. We have a large, intelligent, and diverse cohort of people with disability who need to be listened to and valued. It’s time we had a Prime Minister who can lead us out of our ableist ways.

 Disability is a societal responsibility. When we realise that, maybe a future leader will be more likely to reply that they are blessed to be governing a country where all children have a genuine, equal opportunity to thrive.