An important day needs important commitments

It is December 3rd, again, which means it is International Day of People with Disability.  As I've mentioned in previous years, having just one day to think about disability seems odd, especially if the rest of the time the topic is then far from most people's attention.

But this year has been different in Australia, with disability making a regular appearance in the news because of the work developing a National Disability Insurance Scheme.

So this year's 'special' day is perhaps an opportunity to reflect on the importance of how ideas and values are translated into accountable actions.

This morning Purple Orange was at the Enfield community centre in Adelaide, where the local council, the city of Port Adelaide Enfield, launched its five year Disability Discrimination Action Plan.

It felt right the council chose this day, International Day of People with Disability, because their new action plan goes beyond considerations of access to establish a broader context of inclusion. The plan includes a range of important access considerations– such as ramps, walkways, building features and restrooms –but also goes further. It looks at the role of the disability community in council decisions that affect people living with disability. It looks at workforce issues, not just in terms of awareness-raising but also how best to maximise opportunities for people living with disability to join the council workforce. It looks at how the council can serve its citizens so everyone feels included in that community, as authentic members of the club called City of Port Adelaide Enfield.

Purple Orange had the privilege of working alongside Port Adelaide Enfield in developing this plan. We assisted their public consultation, and provided support to think through the key issues. The plan includes a range of practical initiatives to help the council advance the goal of an inclusive community.  There is good energy in the council to make things happen.

International Day of People with Disability represents an opportunity for people and communities to commit to accountable actions in support of people living with disability getting a fair go at what life has to offer. Port Adelaide Enfield's Disability Discrimination Action Plan sends an important positive signal for local people living with disability.

for a copy of the plan, click here.

 

Currently, Purple Orange is working with several councils on how their services might help advance the life chances for people living with disability.  In this work, it is clear to us that an important ingredient is the passion and commitment of key officers involved, and their inclination to take action in support of positive changes.

 

Such values-based personal leadership can help real momentum to build, and its great to see it in the work of local councils.

 

 

Santa, where's my ride?

Take part in our taxi survey - the link is at the end of this posting.

Folk tuning in to the South Australia media in the last few weeks will be aware of coverage on accessible taxis.  Once again stories emerged about people having to wait an age before their cab shows up, with Christmas again the number one hotspot where people have to join a waiting list to see if they can get to Christmas dinner with family and friends.

in response, South Australia Transport Services Minister Chloe Fox's office said there would be a few more accessible taxis available this Christmas compared to last, and that any one left on a waiting list will get their ride by ‘doubling up’, presumably with someone going roughly in the same direction.

This was followed up by an announcement that all available accessible taxis would be on duty on Christmas Day, together with accessible buses on all routes (though it wasn't clear from the announcement if this means every bus on every route will be accessible, or whether at least one bus on each route, at some point during the day, would be accessible), and four minibuses.

This is a helpful response to the concerns people have about Christmas Day this year, and I have little doubt that those in Government directly concerned with this issue will attempt, with every good intention, to reduce the risk of people having to miss out on Christmas festivities because there isn’t a spare access taxi.  However, these earnest efforts will not resolve matters properly, because the Christmas Day pressure is not the problem, merely the most extreme symptom of the problem.

The problem is straightforward - the taxi fleet in Adelaide is not accessible.  If it was, we wouldn’t have this issue on Christmas Day nor at other peak times (and there are peak times every business/school day).  There are over 1000 taxis licensed in the Adelaide metropolitan area.  Of these, 97 are licensed access taxis.  That’s less than 10%.  

The effect of this problem is simple.  Whereas a non-disabled passenger can use any one of the taxis in the fleet, including the access taxis, a person with mobility support needs cannot.  One can use 100%, the other can only use 10%.

If a flock of interstate visitors were stuck at Adelaide Airport all Christmas Day due to a lack of taxis there would be outrage at such slack treatment.  I imagine there would be a review, and measures taken.

Why should it be any different for people living with disability?

This unequal treatment of people is unacceptable.  Coincidentally I blogged on this a year ago (click here to read) and very little has changed.  The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Disabled Persons has Accessibility as one of its six core principles.  Accordingly, the Convention goes on to assert that parties (this includes Australia and by association its states and territories) undertake:

b) To take all appropriate measures, including legislation, to modify or abolish existing laws, regulations, customs and practices that constitute discrimination against persons with disabilities;

The current taxi arrangements in Adelaide (and, I assume, South Australia generally) are discriminatory.  Through ratifying the UN Convention our government has signed up to do something about it.  The periodic limited release of additional access taxi licenses will not resolve the underlying discrimination and therefore is not an adequate measure.  Nor is the suggestion that people ‘double-up’.  

If a city the size of London can achieve a fully accessible taxi fleet, then Adelaide, indeed any town or city in Australia, has absolutely no excuse.

Purple Orange has placed a survey online (you can click here to go to it) for people to give feedback on their experiences with taxis.  Please take the time to give us your feedback.  If the current system is fine and dandy, tell us that and we’ll pipe down.  But if it’s not, please share your story so that we can amplify the issues and seek a government commitment to a genuine solution.

Australia's Apart-hood

This week in South Australia the media has reported the difficulties that many South Australians living with disability encounter when trying to book an accessible taxi, especially at peak times such as Christmas.  The debate has now extended to include problems of finding enough accessible car parking.

At JFA we support the concerns that have been raised in the media by people living with disability, whose experience has all the hallmarks of apartheid, however unintended.  When apartheid was in place in South Africa, many people and governments around the world condemned it and contributed to the forces for change. This was because specific members of the community – black people - were not being given the same opportunities as other citizens. Why should we not react the same way to the current experiences of Australians living with disability?

Our view is that there should be a determined, systematic effort to ensure that all taxis are accessible, because everyone benefits from universal access.    Of course,this goes way beyond taxis and other public transport like buses.  It applies to every community building and open space that is there for the public.  It is not as hard as people might think to make our communities accessible  It starts with each of us being determined to see it happen.

For your interest, here follows an updated version of the article I wrote in the April 2009 edition of national disability magazine Link.

Australia's Aparthood (revisited)

I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve.

Hard to dispute, these words were spoken 48 years ago by Nelson Mandela responding to charges of treason and sabotage on the first day of his trial in South Africa.  Mandela was clear that he would not tolerate white domination, any more than he would tolerate black domination.  In pursuit of his ideal, Nelson Mandela spent the next 27 years in prison - truly an exercise in patience and determination.  

In the four years after his release in 1990, apartheid was dismantled.  These historic moments heralded the end of the blatant discrimination led by the South African government against black people.  The world breathed a sigh of relief as apartheid was finally vanquished.

As it is commonly understood, apartheid was a system of racial segregation that was enforced by the South African government shortly after the end of the second world war until the mid-1990s.  It is no accident that the word apartheid contains the word ‘apart’.  It is a Dutch/Afrikaans word meaning separation.  Translated literally into English, it means ‘apart-hood’.   

Much of the world outside South Africa recognised this for what it was: outrageous, unjustified discrimination and separation of people based on a particular characteristic (their skin colour). Its long overdue demise was universally celebrated. But is apartheid – aparthood –actually consigned to history?  

Consider the experience of people living with disability in Australia. Depending on the degree of a person’s support needs, he or she might have little choice other than to live in certain places, such as group homes with other people also living with disability.  Many children and young people living with disability may be directed towards a different, separate education, rather than having the genuine option of attending their local neighbourhood school.  People living with disability are under-represented in the Australian workplace, and many work in separate, ‘sheltered’ workplaces where the majority of their workmates are also people living with disability.  

In Australia, it is harder for people with disability to use public transport.  For example, in South Australia, there are well over a thousand taxis but less than 100 of these are accessible to people using wheelchairs. I can imagine the uproar if South Australia set aside a small number of ‘special’ taxis for women, or for black people, and they weren’t able to access the others.

Often people using wheelchairs are treated differently, and often shabbily, when they want to travel on buses, trains and planes. Many community venues are inaccessible to people living with disability, which denies them the chance to participate in recreation, education and other opportunities.  People living with disability have to use separate restrooms – if they’re lucky enough to find one that is actually accessible. 

We need to recognise that these arrangements have a lot in common with the practice of apartheid in South Africa.  Here in Australia, there is a group of people who, because of a particular characteristic (disability), are directed to special arrangements that tend to separate them from the rest of society, in housing, education, work, transport; and recreation. . As a matter of course, however well-intentioned, people living with disability have been set apart from the rest of the community. Aparthood is apartheid.

For many people living with disability, this enforced separateness is a prison where the bars are created by the negative attitudes of others and by inaccessible communities, and where each day's activities are about as meaningful as a prisoner breaking rocks. 

Aparthood was unacceptable, abominable and inhuman in South Africa. Why should it be regarded any less so here?  

At the moment, the Australian Government is putting the finishing touches to a national disability strategy, and its Productivity Commission is considering the future of disability support arrangements, as is the South Australia Social Inclusion Board.  . It is up to all of us to do what we can to ensure that the completed strategies genuinely address the underlying wrongness of our current disability support arrangements, rather than trying to patch-fix the existing system.

 

Key to this is the insistence that people living with disability enjoy equal access of opportunity, free from discrimination. It is the right thing to do. As a community we need to take action collectively.  Otherwise, like Nelson Mandela after his conviction in 1964, the Australian disability community will be breaking rocks in prison for a very long time.

2010 Election Carnival

Now that the identity of the new Australian government has finally been resolved, I'm sorely tempted to break into a rendition of The Seekers' hit, 'The Carnival Is Over'.  It's been page-turning stuff, and we have been regularly reminded that the election has come down to handfuls of votes.  This has included some comments about the number of 'informal votes' that were cast, where some people showed up to vote but for whatever reason filled out their ballot paper in such a way that it could not be counted as a vote for any particular candidate. 

But if the general election did indeed come down to mere handfuls of votes, has there been any focus on the 'lost' votes of people living with disability?  After all, there are a range of ways that a person might be thwarted in casting their vote.

Casting your vote is the moment when you make your view known.  It is when you have your say.  Unfortunately, it is not so easy to cast your vote if the polling booth is physically inaccessible.  Also, it is not easy to cast your vote if the moment of voting, when you put your mark against a candidate's name, is reliant on you being able to see the ballot sheet, read the words, and direct the pencil towards the box you wish to mark.  If you need any assistance with these, then there goes your privacy, which is not a good look given that this is meant to be a secret ballot.

Of course, people can use a postal vote process so that they don't have to show up to their local polling booth, and that's a useful option, but it should not be the only option.  Every polling booth needs to be genuinely accessible.  It would not seem right if a person has to use a postal vote arrangement (or go somewhere else to cast a vote using special technology) merely because their local polling booth is inaccessible.  

Accessing the local polling booth is important, and not just because of this principle of accessibility.  It is important because voting is one of the most valued, most fought for, and most defended, roles in society.  If we assign high value to the act of voting, then we assign high value to the person doing the voting.  Given that many people living with disability currently don't get a fair go in undertaking valued roles, it is critically important that a person has the option to attend their local polling station and cast their vote, and be seen to do so.  For this to be possible, all polling booths need to be accessible, both in terms of getting in the building and privately casting the vote.

And then there is the matter of enrolment.  I wonder how many adult Australians living with disability are not enrolled to vote because someone else has formed the view that there's no point because the person does not have the capacity to choose.  That's a big decision for someone to take and should not be taken lightly, because who knows for sure the degree of a person's capacity?  In the legislation, reference is made to people being "of unsound mind", but what exactly is an unsound mind and who gets to decide?  IQ scores have often been used as a guide to someone's intellectual capacity, and may even be a consideration to determine an 'unsound mind', but I don't see why a low IQ score should mean you don't get to vote.  Since when did you have to be smart to vote?

One way through this is to ensure that every young Australian, including young Australians living with disability, are automatically enrolled to vote once they reach the age of 18 years.  After all, voting is mandatory and an automatic enrolment will reduce the big rush from first-time voters to register once the Prime Minister has announced an election, many of whom miss out because there is hardly any time to enrol once the announcement is made.

Were Australia to introduce automatic enrolment, this would ensure that all young Australians living with disability are assigned the valued role of Voter, and it just might shift the focus towards how a person might best be supported to make their voting decision.  This might well take more effort than just deciding that the person doesn't have the capacity, but for our society's sake it is worth it.   In this way, we assume the capacity of everyone to cast their vote, which means we assume the capacity of everyone to make a contribution to their community, to belong. In our lives, there are many ways we might move towards a sense of our own contribution, our own value to our communities, our sense of belonging, but for every adult Australian the very first role assigned on reaching adulthood is the right to vote.  May we never understate the importance of this for Australians living with disability, regardless of what we imagine might be the extent of a person's capacity. 

So, as is currently happening in South Australia, I hope that the Australian Electoral Commission reviews the process of the recent national elections, and examines how best to facilitate every Australian's right to vote.  Also, it would be very helpful, indeed vital, if there was a panel of Australians living with disability to advise the Commission on such matters.  Ditto each state and territory.

I can imagine there will be many people out there who might think there are bigger issues to deal with than this.  Why bang on about voting when some people can't even get reliable assistance to get out of bed in the morning?  This is an understandable view, but bear in mind the intensity of the post-election negotiations we have all just witnessed, where several 'independents' were able to advance a number of causes favourable to their local constituencies.  If we had a comprehensive set of arrangements in place that uphold the right of Australians living with disability to vote, then the next time there is a hung Parliament, it may just be that the focus of the negotiations includes the interests of voters living with disability.

2010 Election Promises Part 1

Public policy conversations about disability are many and varied at the moment, and perhaps like me, you are finding it a challenge to keep up.  The Productivity Commission is continuing its work regarding the future arrangements for disability support, and hopefully you have had a chance to make your views known.  Meanwhile the Labor government recently released its draft National Disability Strategy so there is a fair bit to digest there.  The government is working on its draft report to the United Nations regarding Australia’s progress against the Convention on the Rights of Disabled Persons (another opportunity to make your views known), and in South Australia the Social Inclusion Board has released a discussion paper regarding the future of local disability support (and another opportunity to make your views known).

I will blog some thoughts on the above as soon as I can, but right now, in case you haven’t noticed, the country is in election mode, so I want to explore some of the announcements by the major parties, because at least some of them were easy to miss in the media.  I found a bunch for the Australian Labor Party but so far only 1 from the Liberal Party of Australia.  Let me know if you know of any others that I don't cover in this and the next blog.

On 17 July Labor announced an initiative involving the major cinema chains delivering more accessible cinema experiences to people living with disability.  Click here for the announcement, which is at the FaHCSIA website so i guess it counts as “already going to happen” as opposed to “this is what we’ll do if we get in”. 

It includes up to $470,000 over four years to the four major cinema chains to build technical capacity,  fast tracking audio description and captioning, together with support for the Accessible Cinemas Advisory Group, which includes a number of disability voices.

This initiative is good news, especially for people like my Mum who is blind, and for whom the prospect of an audio description services that mean she can go out to the movies with the rest of us.

On the 24 July, Labor announced some measures to support people living with disability into community life.  Click here for the announcement.  These measures included: a $5m pool to match local money (up to $100,000 per grant) so that local councils can improve public amenities such as restrooms, town halls etc, and $1m for improving access to public library materials by people with particular types of disability.   

These seem useful and sensible in terms of building accessibility of our communities.  The question of course is whether the funding is enough.  I like the expectation that local councils need to match the funding as this helps lock in local commitment.  I hope that the grant information going to local councils also includes clear signals of local councils’ obligations under the UN Convention, among other things.  Otherwise, the need to find local matched funds might put some local councils off if they are not sufficiently aware of the imperative for good access.

Now might be a good time to write to your local council to nominate the access improvement you would most like to see in your local community.

In the same breath, Labor announced a $3m leadership program for people living with disability, including access to mentors.  Again, on the face of it I like this idea.  The main considerations for me are (a) whether this program will genuinely deliver increased leadership capacity because that’s why the participants are there, and (b) whether it will be matched by government effort  to ensure it is playing its part in creating formal leadership opportunities for people. There are plenty of opportunities coming up within government.  Two obvious examples are the overseeing of the National Disability Strategy implementation, and the governing of any National Disability Insurance Scheme.  Both of these absolutely positively definitely must have people living with disability in leadership roles.

Labor also announced $500k for an 'attitudes' disability website.  In principle I like this because information is important.  In terms of the cost, I would be very interested to learn more about how they see the $500,000 being spent, so that it has the best chance of getting the attention of its target audience.  Essentially, this initiative is about raising the capacity of our communities to be welcoming and inclusive of people living with disability.  A well-orchestrated public awareness website can make a contribution to this, but is unlikely by itself to result in a critical mass of change. It needs to happen alongside other elements that help grow community capacity.  Much of this happens 'one person at a time' because if we are all committed to the notion of personalised supports then that also implies a highly personalised journey into community life. In which case, I hope that the incoming government, with whatever political persuasion they claim, make good investment into personalised supports including connecting into community life.

By the way, on 28 July, while opening a new accommodation service in Canberra for young people living with disability, Parliamentary Secretary Bill Shorten said “the benefits of age-appropriate and community-based accommodation and support are beyond question”.  I'm pleased to hear that, because for people to get a life in community they need to be living in it.  Bill Shorten’s comments offer a modicum of reassurance to those of us who are concerned about what happens to people living in institutional accommodation services.  Click here for the announcement.

Next instalment of this blog topic 2010 Election Promises will arrive shortly.

Access and Inclusion

Weston-Super-Mare, UK

I've just spent the day with a community organisation that oversees a range of community and health services from a purpose-built centre in the heart of a high-deprivation housing estate.  I went there because I wanted to see what impact this sort of investment has in the lives of local people, including people living with disability.

The first thing I noticed was the building's general feeling of accessibility.  It felt good, with a wide entrance that led straight into a light-filled area that had a general reception, a GP surgery reception, a community library entrance, and a cafe.  I liked this space - it felt welcoming and inclusive.

I walked through the building and discovered a lot of good community resources - meeting rooms and so on - including one space that doubles as the local church on sundays.  And the building was REALLY well used.  There were people everywhere, including people living with disability, busy and involved.

In terms of physical access, there was good flat access and reasonable doorways. All that said, when you scratch beneath the surface, the accessibility isn't quite as good as one might hope, and this is instructive for anyone building such places.  The accessible toilet had a heavy door that opened outwards manually.  Indeed the only non-manual doors were the automatic double-doors at the entrance. Light switches and power outlets tended to be the regular size (small) rather than the larger buttons that work better for everyone. Fortunately, these issues are fixable, and will help improve and consolidate what is already a good building.

At JFA we've taken an interest in issues around accessing primary healthcare, so I had a quick look at this here.  From some rudimentary inquiries, I gained the impression that the GP practice has some of the same access challenges as primary healthcare in Australia, with question marks over the availability of height-adjustable examination tables, and also the knowledge carried by GPs and practice support staff about the particular healthcare considerations associated with certain types of disability.

Overall, I really liked the entire enterprise.  As I mentioned before, the centre serves a community that doesn't have much.  There is high unemployment, the housing is poor, education outcomes are modest, and there are family and neighbourhood issues that attract the ongoing attention of the authorities. So it's not an easy gig.  And yet, in its four and a half years of operation, the centre has yet to be graffitied or vandalised, and the same is true of the adjoining outside playground that the centre also installed.  This suggests there is a critical sense of ownership by the local community.

And people living with disability?  They're right there, part of the whole thing, local citizens using the space along with everyone else.  This suggests to me that when you invest in communities and are mindful of the needs of all local citizens, then this is the true foundation for natural inclusion, and can bring success even in the most challenging of circumstances.

This is important because, while disability support funding is a very important consideration in people's lives, it takes placed in the context of community.  If we don't develop structures and habits of inclusion in our wider communities, then no amount of disability support funding will get people all the way to a good life.

So while we must all continue to push for a fairer system of disability support funding, we also need to push for community investment that will help access and inclusion.