In November Lesley and Leah met with both Senator Ursula Stephens, Parliamentary Secretary for Social Inclusion, and staff from the Social Inclusion Unit within the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. At both meetings they raised several issues:
1. There is a lack of people with lived experience of disability on the Social Inclusion Board. The Board should include at least one person with disability so that it can consider disability issues properly.
Senator Stephens advised that she would need to raise this issue with Julia Gillard, who oversees the social inclusion portfolio.
2. The initiatives being undertaken as a part of the social inclusion priority areas do not seem to specifically address disability issues. Is this the case, and if so, why?
The Social Inclusion Unit wasn’t able to answer this question immediately. In January 2010 the Federal Government released 'A Stronger, Fairer Australia: A New Social Inclusion Strategy'. One of the six priorities documented in the strategy is 'improving outcomes for people living with disability or mental illness and their carers'. A copy of this strategy can be found by clicking here.
3. In November, the only report available measuring Australia's progress in social inclusion was the Social Inclusion Compendium, which only included two measures related to disability. In addition, the Compendium was heavily focused on measuring the way people are included through their employment and health. This is not appropriate for people with disability.
Along with the release of the new strategy the government also relased a new social inclusion report, called "How is Australia Faring?" This report contains some different measures of disability. A copy can be found by clicking here