Welcome to the August issue of the AFDO Newsletter.
From the Chair
On behalf of the board of AFDO I would like to thank Jeremy for his time and commitment to ensuring the voice of people with disability was heard while he was at AFDO. We wish him the best in his future roles.
We are also welcoming our new CEO, Lesley Hall, who will be starting at AFDO in mid September. Lesley has a wealth of experience in the disability sector, particularly in Victoria, and has worked in community organisations as an advocate and activist. We look forward to Lesley’s input into AFDO.
Samantha Jenkinson
September 2008
The Work
The new government appears to be well entrenched and with this they have created a significant amount of work for those organisations working with in the disability sector, us included.
For your information the National Disability Strategy development is underway with Maurice Corcoran (SA) and Claire Thorne (VIC) being seconded to FaHCSIA for a six month period. Indications are that the government want the actual development stage to be completed by December this year, so that means there is plenty of work to be done. Obviously it is expected that AFDO and its members will have significant influence on the development of the strategy.
Other consultations we have ensured we are involved in or have been asked to be involved in have included:
• Inquiry into Better Support for Carers - submitted
• Tariff concessions – points forwarded to FaHCSIA
• UN Convention (ongoing)
• Business Services Awards – provided information relating to award criteria
• National Disability Advocacy Program
• Job Capacity Assessments/ Disability Employment Networks - submitted
• National Mental Health and Disability Employment Strategy - submitted
• Social Inclusion Agenda - submitted
• National Aviation Policy - submitted
Other Activities we have undertaken include:
• Contributions and consultations on the (NMH&DES)
• Conversion of the Easy English Governance Manual
• Facilitated and engaged Ashley Heenan to undertake further consultations around the Transport Standards review
Members Meeting
We held our second member’s meeting of the year in Hobart on the 3 & 4 June, and yes it was cold.
We discussed a number of issues and 4 staff from FaHCSIA attended and listened to a range of issues from the members. It was great learning curve for the new FaHCSIA staff and I believe they left knowing that we are very committed to our cause on improving the lives of people with disabilities.
AFDO Conference
The AFDO conference will be going ahead in the first half of 2009, so preparations are well underway. The final date will be distributed soon. We expect to have a great line up of international and Australian speakers with more to follow.
Sponsorship is still being sort for the conference, so if you know any organisations that may be interested in sponsoring a part of the AFDO conference please contact Brenda in the AFDO office.
Other Information
Niki Sheldon commenced with us on the 21st July for a period of six months as the new National Policy Officer. We are very excited in having Niki join AFDO as she brings a great deal of knowledge and experience to the role. I think it is also safe to say that Niki is also very happy about working for AFDO.
Leah Hobson from Blind Citizens Australia is also assisting in the AFDO office one day a week. Thanks Leah!
I wish AFDO, the staff, the Board and its member organisations all the best for the future and believe that there is an excellent opportunity for the facilitation of positive change in the lives of Australians living with a disability.
Jeremy Muir
CEO
AFDO congratulates Maryanne Diamond on her election, unopposed, to the presidency of the World Blind Union.
The World Blind Union is an international organisation representing people who are blind or partially sighted. They have played a significant role in the development of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as well as representing the interests of those who are blind and partially sighted in developing countries.
Maryanne Diamond helped to establish AFDO as the peak body representing people with disability in Australia. Her election to this role shows her skill and dedication to ensuring that people with disability are represented at all levels.
Cheers to Maryanne, a well deserved appointment!
The Hon Bill Shorten MP issued a press release in which he announced $350,000 over four years to support Maryanne in her role as President of World Blind Union
Click here to read his media release
In the six months since Prime Minister Kevin Rudd gave me the privilege of serving with Jenny Macklin as Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children’s Services, I have been shocked to learn of and witness first hand the entrenched second class status afforded to Australians with a mental illness or disability.
It is long past time that this was changed, and I am determined to play a role in making that happen.
When I look at the whole mental illness and disability movement, I see it as a history of stops and starts.
There have been periods of progress, then periods of status quo, if not indeed regression. Then the cycle moves again. And reform is never a preordained outcome.
Reform has to be constantly battled for in every minute at every level. As a famous American football coach said, ‘victory isn’t measured in yards, it’s measured in inches.’
We must make mental illness and disability a mainstream political issue.
One thing that has been made very clear to me is the nature of disability in this country.
The issue is not that people have impairment. Whether it is an episodic mental illness, physical impairment or an intellectual disability, impairment’s a fact of life and we have to work with it, treat it and deal with it.
What disables people in our society is the attitude of others towards the people with impairment.
There are too many groups of Australians living at the edges of our society, which is why the Australian Government has made social inclusion a key policy plank.
One of the best ways to social inclusion is participation. I believe it’s a right of citizenship. Societies need to encourage participation.
One of the things that help you get up in the morning and get through the day is the ability to participate.
It can be a job. But a job doesn’t have to be a 9-5 tie wearing job, it could be a part-time job, it could be flexible, it could be the intersection of study and work.
People aren’t just ready, especially if they’ve had an illness, or been away from work for years, to just turn up and start work. So you need a lot of pre-work support. From the TAFE system, right through to basic respect to good income support programs.
These are things Minister for Employment Participation Brendan O’Connor and I are considering in developing our National Mental Illness and Disability Employment Strategy.
I’ve personally done nine consultations around the country and I believe the answers to participation are already out there, we just have to harness them.
And what we’re also interested in is not just changing the attitudes of people with impairment, but working to change the attitudes of the employers and the community.
I’m not interested in lecturing you on what everyone else should be doing. Government can and should be doing more to provide employment opportunities, doing more in providing leadership to change attitudes.
It’s been a very busy period for everyone in Government and the public service since the election.
But we’ve got other people working overtime too, and Jeremy Muir and Collette O’Neill are doing a fantastic job in advising the Government on a range of disability issues.
I, personally, have found them to be extremely informative and helpful as we come to grips with all the issues and challenges facing us.
With people like that involved, and with the broader disability community working together, I am very optimistic that at last, attitudes will begin to change and people with disabilities will be able to say that they, too, live in the lucky country.
Samantha Jenkinson, Chair of the Australian Federation of Disability Organisations presented a speech on employment to the Julia Farr "The Good, The Bad and the Unfair" forum.
You can read her speech called "Fire or Flood? Is the Slow Burn at an End” clicking on this link to download the word document.
It is with joy and immense sadness that I write this tribute to Christopher Newell. Joy – in having known a person who has touched me with his kindness, friendship and his intellect and immense sadness because he is no longer with us.
I am sure that I share these feelings with many of you. In fact, this tribute on behalf of the Australian Federation of Disability Organisations (AFDO) is a mix of professional and personal experiences from people whose lives he touched.
There are so many facets to Christopher (priest, consumer advocate, bioethicist, researcher, writer, educator and many more). However, I will concentrate on the one where we knew him best. Christopher represented AFDO on numerous committees but two significant ones reflect his passion in working for the improvement of accessibility in technology especially telecommunications. He was Chair of the Communications Alliance Disability Council and a Council member of the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman. Christopher was also the previous co-Chair of the Telstra Consumer Consultative Council.
Christopher spent nearly every week travelling to give keynote addresses, to chair and to participate actively on committees. Many a time have we received phone calls from him at airports! When he couldn't travel, there were times he chaired meetings by teleconference from his bed.
Christopher wrote incessantly – books, articles, conference papers, opinion pieces and of course he had a regular column in Link.
I first referenced Christopher's papers in 1995 at the International Symposium on Human Factors in Telecommunications. But I really got to know him nearly ten years ago when I started with TEDICORE (Telecommunications and Disability Consumer Representation). Christopher was on our Project Advisory Body and later on our Consultative Expert Panel. He was an expert of the highest calibre and we were privileged for the involvement and support he gave to TEDICORE.
He pushed the envelope, he was a rebel and like any rebel had strong beliefs. He could make people feel uncomfortable. He was known to use the polite term “Richard Cranium” for people who he felt were unreasonable.
Christopher left a lasting impression – his quirky sense of humour with his voice impersonations, his sayings when calling a meeting to order “ladies and gentlemen and little furry creatures from Alpha Centauri”, his outrageousness, his hand of friendship, his support in time of need.
How often he would launch into an unsuspecting person about disabilist language – “Oh, does the disabled toilet really work, it sounded like it was out of order!”. His reference to himself as a “crip” - using it in a provocative way to grab people's attention and to make a point.
While Christopher's time with us was too short, he packed his life with vigour and an unbelievable drive that was the equivalent of another person's entire life. He loved and was loved.
While he was tough and could be impatient with institutions, he did this through a strong sense of principle. Most important was his human side – his friendship. The time he took to help, to guide. He mentored people without them knowing it – this was a symbol of his skill and his caring.
Gerard Goggin, his friend and co-author spoke at Christopher's funeral:
“In friendship, Christopher offered us an ethical and spiritual treasury. As well as speaking, Christopher listened. Indeed he taught us the great power and significance at personal and public levels that lies in listening — in who listens to whom, and how the listener grasps and acts upon what they have heard.”
Christopher's wife and family were deeply important and gave him nourishment. His wife, Jill spoke about their deep love and read the words from the Pink Floyd song “Shine on you crazy diamond” at his service of thanksgiving. This is part of the last verse:
How do we perpetuate his memory? Christopher wrote in the June 2008 issue of Link of the need for leadership by people with disabilities at all levels of government, unions, NGOs and in broader society. We do need more strong leadership in the disability movement. Discussions are underway on ways to support young people with disabilities to do this.
What the establishment may now consider undoable in terms of accessibility, should, with attitudinal change, be taken for granted. Hopefully, this will be within our lifetimes – however long or short they are.
Now that Christopher is at peace, let's continue the good fight in his name!
Gunela Astbrink
National Coordinator, TEDICORE
(Article as published in Link Magazine)
Kaye Gooch
AFDO Board Member
Over the weekend of 24th-25th May, I attended the 5th Deafness Forum Deafness Sector Summit. This event is held every two years by Deafness Forum of Australia, and I found this, my first Deafness Sector Summit, an educational and enlightening experience.
The Summit was at Rydge’s Lakeside Hotel in Canberra, an excellent venue. The opening began with a “welcome to country” by Agnes Shea, elder of the Ngunnwal Aboriginal people; then Alex Jones, Chairman of Deafness Forum, welcomed us all.
Day One had two people – Professor Jennie Brand-Miller, a cochlear implantee, and Carmel Batson, child of deaf parents, tell their life stories. Chrissy O’Reilly of Flinders University told of recent research into mental health and hearing loss.
Next came Government updates on issues affecting people with hearing loss – disability legislation, emergency warnings, and building access. This was followed by the Libby Harricks Memorial Oration by Professor Bob Cowan – his fine oration was on “access, equity and hearing loss in Australia in 2008”.
I then attended a Technology workshop – about new phone technology for those with hearing loss. We saw a DVD presentation on captioned telephone – where, instead of having to ring the National Relay Service number to make a text call, you just press the CAPTIONS button on the special “caption telephone” instrument; a trained captioner types the call for you to read. It will be interesting to see if this technology comes to Australia!
Day Two took us through the life cycle – with distinguished speakers highlighting the stages of life – infancy and early childhood; secondary and higher education; transition to the workforce; and older years – as affected by hearing loss.
The highlight was the talk by Li Cunxin, author of “Mao’s Last Dancer” – he spoke passionately about his life, from dire poverty in China, to becoming a dancer, defecting to the West, marrying and having three children. His eldest child,Sophie, was born totally deaf, and eventually fitted with two cochlear implants. Sophie, now 18, is doing very well academically at Melbourne Girls’ Grammar School. She gave us a beautiful display of her ballet dancing talent – we gave father and daughter a standing ovation!
A Technology workshop looked at captioning, especially captioning in independent cinemas. I would have liked more emphasis on the declining amount of captioning in the mainstream cinemas; but realise that people in outer areas – where the cinemas are mostly independent – have even less access to cinema captions than we in inner city areas do. Deafness Forum and Media Access Australia are working jointly to try to increase the very low amount of cinema captioning that we have.
The Dinner on the Saturday night was of course, a happy gathering for us all, with lovely food and good companionship!
I thoroughly enjoyed the 5th National Deafness Sector Summit, and it definitely widened my knowledge of all aspects of hearing loss. I certainly hope to attend the next one in two years’ time!
By Samantha Jenkinson
Australian Federation of Disability Organisations, Chairperson
The federal government's announcement of the social inclusion agenda left people with disability feeling hopeful. The further announcements of the National Disability Strategy (NDS) and the National Mental Health and Disability Employment Strategy (NMHDES) made us feel that maybe change can happen.
We are hopeful because the disability service system and the response to people with disability across government is a fragmented, inflexible mess at the moment. A person might be on a waiting list to receive services to support them to live, while being expected to find work, or not be able to move interstate for work or to be close to family because support, accommodation and services may not be available or there are waiting lists. People with disability often have little choice or control of the services that are available to support them, while system and environmental barriers to their participation lie unaddressed elsewhere.
The Commonwealth State/Territory Disability Agreement (CSTDA) categorizes the funding that goes to states as well as splitting funding between commonwealth and state which maintains a fractured system. It also fragments a person's life into sections with specific outcomes tied to certain funds. Income support and direct assistance for people with disability to find work comes from the Federal government. The support a person needs to live in their own home or to get transport to and from work is provided by state governments.
People with disability have been calling for more flexible and streamlined approaches for support, funding and access. We have been highlighting the often overlooked need for support and resources to remove environmental barriers, and increase education and support in mainstream services. Suggestions that have come from the disability sector through forums and reports suggest a multi-level approach is needed, working with different stakeholders at each level. The trend internationally is towards models of service and support which are 'whole of life' where people with disability are in control of their supports and decisions, and supported to be active participants in their own lives. This is consistent with the thrust of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability that the Australian Government has just ratified, and should provide a firm foundation for all government policy.
So we ask “Will a National Disability Strategy provide this?” At this point in time we don't know a lot about what the Strategy will look like or the effect it might have as consultations with the sector have not yet commenced. The FaHCSIA website states that “The NDS will provide an overarching policy statement and action framework, setting out the national view, directions and priorities for the development of legislation and policy.” The website goes on further to say there will be action plans developed and research areas identified.
There is an expectation that the NDS will put the responsibility to deal with the issues faced by people with disability onto every government department. Certainly people with disabilities are looking for action to occur with the NDS, however there is a fear that with limited resources for implementation it will, like much other policy in the area of disability, say all the right things on paper but provide little real change.
Existing legislation, and strategies such as the Commonwealth Disability Strategy, will continue in their current form but be connected through the policy framework of the NDS. For people with disability, we hope this means there should be better connections across government departments on disability issues. The CSTDA is a significant mechanism that under the NDS should make those connections between people getting effective accommodation support and their ability to actively look for and participate in employment. Having the employment strategy being managed under the NDS should also reinforce this as well as improving the transition from support in school, to support in employment no matter where it may be.
The Australian Federation of Disability Organisations lobbied hard in the lead-up to last year’s Federal Election for the development of a national disability employment strategy which addressed the real barriers to employment (cost of disability, fragmented approaches to support and an inaccessible environment). Specifically we lobbied for people with disability who receive Newstart (Partial Capacity) payment to have their payments lifted to pension level. It is our hope that the substantial work done during this year to develop the NDS and National Disability Employment Strategy will lead to a tangible outcome of a 2009/2010 Federal Budget that tackles the costs of disability and provides people with disability with better financial security. Certainly the recent changes to the job capacity assessment process for people on the disability support pension that takes away the drop to Newstart, goes a long way towards recognising the need for retaining a reasonable income while looking for work and facing increasing costs associated with disability.
A research agenda under the NDS should include issues such as the real costs of living with disability, and the environmental barriers to participation in the comunity by people with disability such as transport, access to the built environment, access to communication and access to technologies and equipment.
So far the only thing which we know the NDS will include, is the development of the Harmonisation of Accessible Parking Schemes initiative. This will provide improved access to parking options for people with disability and their families. It is certainly needed however it is a far cry from addressing the big issues which include:
The newly appointed Disability Discrimination Commissioner Graeme Innes has great hope for both the NDS and the NMHDES. In a recent speech he stated that early reports are that the two strategies will be based on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability which will give them, and subsequent government policy, a great human rights grounding. There is also hope in that two innovative and creative thinkers in disability from the Victorian and South Australian state governments have been seconded to work on the strategy, Claire Thorn and Maurice Corcoran.
There is always a time of change with a change of government and for the first time people with disability may be seeing significant impact. There is a lot of effort being expended, with major consultations occurring on all of these strategies, however it is important to note that there are no new resources going in to the development of the NDS. This is where we have concerns since resources are needed to ensure people with disability are included in policy development at all levels. There is also the question of ensuring implementation of the action plans and strategies. Who will be responsible in ensuring the strategies are put in place? What happens if they are not?
The potential for a positive impact on the lives of people with disability is significant if the promise of the National Disability Strategy and National Mental Health and Disability Employment Strategy comes to fruition. The federal government is making a commitment which people with disability will be holding them to. We hope the states and all government departments will also take this commitment seriously to ensure the connections across all levels will provide real connections for people with disability.
The University of Tasmania has accommodation available over the summer period (start of December to end of January) at it's Hobart site.
The site is located at Sandy Bay which is about five minutes drive from the centre of Hobart.
There are nine wheelchair accessible units. They are situated in six bedroom apartments which each have a wheelchair accessible bathroom/toilet.
Apartments come with TV, DVD, Austar and cooking utensils. Individual rooms have a king size single bed and mattress, wardrobe and mirror, heating, desk and drawers, study and easy chairs, telephones (no rental fee),security locks and pin boards.
We also have a room with a double bed and several single bed rooms in the Colleges (with wheelchair access bathroom/toilet nearby).
Guests can self-cater (all cooking utensils and crockery etc. provided in self-catering Apartments) or they can buy meals as required at our on-site dining room, regardless of where they choose to stay.
All public areas (including the dining room) are also wheelchair accessible with ramps, though we do not have any lifts. The accommodation centre is set at the top of the campus amidst bush (we have wallaby's on the lawn in summer!) but this does mean that a car is needed to access the site, though we have car parks reserved for guests who need close access to accommodation.
The site is also a steep one, but which brings beautiful views and there are ramps for access throughout. We would welcome interest from any of your members.
For further information contact:
Steph Atkinson
Marketing & Projects Officer
Accommodation Services
University of Tasmania
Phone: (03) 6226 6417
Fax: (03) 6226 7417
email: Steph.Atkinson@UTas.edu.au
web: http://www.utas.edu.au/accommodation