Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) Share this | Hansard source

Today is the International Day of People with Disability. I acknowledge the very good speeches that have been given and the advocates in the gallery. Today is a day where you talk about the successes of Australians living with disability and their carers. They're stories of love, but not everything is positive for Australians with disability. They finish school less. They have lower home ownership. They're poorer. They experience higher unemployment. Parents of children with disability often experience higher divorce rates. Carers retire with less income themselves. People with disability experience discrimination on a daily basis. But this is not the natural order of things. Disability can affect any of us at birth or in the blink of an eye or through the onset of disease.

How we treat people with disability is how we want to treat our own families. I think of the mothers who are told off when their kids with autism are acting up in the supermarket and they're reprimanded by unthinking people. I think of the age carers who will be lying awake at midnight tonight wondering who will care for their child. I think of the rejected jobseekers. I think of the people who want to go out but only go into restaurants being shuttled through the kitchens. This is not the natural order of things. It's parents who have to relinquish children because they can no longer get respite. Today is the day we think about Australians with disability, but I hope one day that every day is a day for people with a disability and we no longer have one day for people with a disability.

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