Lidia Thorpe (Victoria, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This Wednesday the Parliamentary Friends of Justice group is hosting an event made up entirely of women with lived experience of the carceral system from Sisters Inside and the National Network of Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls. I encourage everyone to come along, because, as the nation looks to tackle gendered violence, remember that this country is actively locking up those most impacted by this violence, with 98 per cent of incarcerated women having histories of victimisation and trauma and up to 73 per cent having acquired brain injuries.

Incarceration rates of women and girls rose by 64 per cent in the last decade, and those criminalised are already facing violence, inadequate health care and housing, unemployment, poverty, mental health issues and, notably, disability. The disability royal commission in 2021 found that 15 per cent of people in prison have an intellectual disability. The Australian Centre for Disability Law estimated that, of First Peoples charged with criminal offences—listen to this—95 per cent have an intellectual disability, a cognitive impairment or a mental illness. This overrepresentation is a clear sign of the lack of adequate support available for people in the community, and further cuts to NDIS support will only exacerbate the issue—shame. The government is now talking about reducing support to those from prison, which is also a death-in-custody report recommendation that they won't implement. They want to keep our people incarcerated. So the NDIS needs to look after those in prison.