Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

We consider the Disability Services and Inclusion Bill 2023 in a historic context. Disabled people in Australia, having worked and fought together for decades against the ableism that is such a deep part of government decision-making, have successfully together won a series of victories for the disability justice movement: the establishment of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, for the first time a nationally consistent program to provide so many of us with the vital sports and services that we need; and the establishment of the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability, finally creating that much needed investigation into the violence, abuse, exploitation and neglect which has taken so many and so much from our community. These victories have been won due to fierce and fearless advocacy and action by grassroots activists, by our national advocacy organisations and peak bodies working with our allies in the community. It is a proud moment for our community, and I am proud, as a disabled person in this space, of what we have achieved together.

The government, in putting forward this legislation, has set itself two benchmarks of success. The first is that the act shall provide for the provision of services beyond the NDIS—services, supports and advocacy not funded under the NDIS. It's absolutely vital that the Commonwealth play a role in the provision of services in this space because—and I do feel that I often have to remind so many in this chamber of this—the NDIS only covers about 10 or 11 per cent of all disabled people in Australia, or about 610,000 to 630,000 participants. The remaining over three million disabled people in our community do not access the NDIS and so, from a Commonwealth perspective, are left to receive supports and services through acts such as this, and this is a key act in this space.

In that context the government, in putting forward this bill, seeks to create for itself a couple of other benchmarks for this legislation. Indeed, in articulating the repeal of the current Disability Services Act 1986, which is an act that should have been repealed and replaced a long time ago—and we agree with the disability organisations who, in submitting to the inquiry into this bill, stated that the current act fails to set out a vision for an inclusive society. It fails to set out a vision for an inclusive society.

The government, in response to repealing this piece of legislation, has stated that the objects of the bill are to 'provide funding outside of the NDIS to persons that provide supports and services for the benefit of people with disability, their families and carers' and to 'advance the inclusion and social and economic participation of people with disability'. These are the two benchmarks the government set themselves in this bill: provide services outside of the NDIS, and advance inclusion and social and economic participation.

These are the benchmarks against which the Greens and the disability community judge this bill. Against those benchmarks, this bill in its current form is a failure. It fails to achieve the objects that it sets out to achieve, and that is why it is in need of significant amendment. It also fails to implement the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability, and this must be considered very seriously. The royal commission was the largest of its kind in Australian history, subject to thousands of submissions and pieces of verbal evidence.

We as a disability community have been betrayed and let down by government services so many times. As a disabled person I cannot tell you, and so many of us share this experience, how many times we put our trust in a government system or service and we say, 'You've said on your website, in your policy,' wherever, 'that your role is to support us to achieve our goals and to realise our rights,' and then the reality of that program or service is that it doesn't. That's not an experience or phenomenon confined to a certain period of time or government. This is a systemic failure across time, and it undermines your trust and it undermines your faith in these systems and services. It makes you not want to engage. It makes you not want to report. It makes you not want to trust that, if you speak up about what is happening to you, you will be believed. So, in that context, people overcame a lot of those barriers and said: 'You know what? We don't trust government processes. We don't trust ministers. We don't even trust the judicial system, which has continually failed to protect us from violence, abuse, exploitation and neglect. But do you know what? One more time we will try. We will share our experiences. We will give our evidence in the name of all those who have been lost, all those who have been murdered, all those who have been abused, all those whose lives have been scarred by discrimination, all those who daily face the sting of segregation at the hands of government policy. One last time we will trust.' And we gave our evidence. We shared our experiences.

The disabled members of that commission, working with allies, non-disabled commissioners, presented a very clear set of recommendations in the report that they handed down. These are very clear recommendations about how we end the cycle of segregation which sits at the heart of abuse, violence, neglect and exploitation in this country. They call on us in their recommendation, they call on the government, to look clearly at the reality of our lives, the reality that so many of us as children are forced into segregated educational settings. We are corralled together, taught to different curriculums, supported or denied support, depending on the type of disability that we have. We are separated from our non-disabled peers. From there we go into segregated work where we are paid $1, $2 or $3 an hour, because, for some reason in this country, still, in 2023, there are asterisks in the fair work legislation. Australia, this nation founded on the belief of a fair day's pay for a fair day's work, contains 'except if you are a disabled person,' in which case over 20,000 of you, can be paid a couple of dollars for your time.

From this segregated setting in which we are systemically robbed of pay, we are then placed into segregated housing settings. Where we are forced to live together in groups, regardless of whether that is what we would choose. And, when we protest about this, we are told, 'Well, many disabled people don't want to live on their own. They like living with people. They don't want to be lonely,' as though any person should be forced into a dichotomy between isolation and being clumped together with people you don't know. Nobody else in Australia is asked to do that. If you say, 'I'd like to live with somebody. I don't really want to bum around the house on my own and be alone at night,' you're given a choice: either you can do that or you can share with a whole group of people you don't know.

As I say that, I hear many renters say, 'Well, I'm forced to live in a share house because of the high rate of rent.' Absolutely! And that's an awful situation that many people are forced into despite their choice. But that is not government policy. Whereas, if you are a disabled person, it is government policy, and it is public funds that support these institutions.

So, through segregated education, segregated work and segregated housing, do you know what happens to us? We die. Segregated housing, education and employment lead to early death. That reality may make some people feel uncomfortable. It may not fit with what they had previously assumed to be the case. But I implore you, I implore this chamber: listen to disabled people, engage with the reality of our lives and the ableism that we experience.

During the course of this debate, I will bring you back to the fact that, in seeking to repeal this act and replace it with a new act, the government has granted itself maximum opportunity to implement the recommendations of the royal commission, to listen to the disabled people's organisations that submitted to the inquiry and to join with the disability community in deciding that the pathway forward is inclusion. There is no such thing as a just system that includes segregation. As a legislative Commonwealth body we have—and I am so grateful for this—decided that racial segregation is wrong, that racial segregation is disgusting. It offends every moral principle that a human being within this place could support. I ask you to join with the disability community in applying that same humanity to us.

In the course of this debate, I will offer amendments which will chart a pathway to the desegregation of Australian society and the full inclusion of disabled people. In doing so I will directly mirror the recommendations made by the disability royal commission. In the view of the Australian Greens, the time frame for this transition is too long. With regard to desegregated education, for instance, the royal commission sets out a time line that wouldn't see this achieved until 2051. That would see children born today watch their children be forced into segregated education. That is not acceptable. But I offer to the chamber today an opportunity to decide that desegregation is the destination and that together we should break the cycle of segregation that leads to early death, violence and abuse. I move:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate:

(a) acknowledges that:

(i) the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability recommended that a Minister for Disability Inclusion should be appointed, and

(ii) that disability ministers have been appointed by previous governments; and

(b) calls on the Government to:

(i) appoint a Minister for Disability Inclusion in line with the Royal Commission's recommendation, and

(ii) provide ongoing and needs-based funding for Disability Representative Organisations, other disability organisations and advocacy services".

The second reading amendment I have just moved gives the chamber the opportunity to endorse the royal commission's recommendation that there be a disability minister established within the Commonwealth government. There is a Minister for Women, as there should be. There is a minister for First Nations people, as there should be. There should be a minister for disability.