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.