CripChat Australia is produced and delivered by Australian Disability , it aims to educate, entertain and inform the general community how they can help us create a more accessible and inclusive society for people with disabilities, their friends, and family. https://anchor.fm/cripchatau/episodes/Episode-89-People-with-Disabilities-and-the-Federal-Budget-2022-e1go8ll
Hosted by Jonathan Shar, David Daoud, Ibby Dee, and Giancarlo de Vera from People with Disability Australia
Content Warning: This podcast may include content unsuitable for children who have not been exposed to people with disabilities-related themes and issues that are sometimes expressed by using coarse language or outdated terms.
Fairness, Dignity and Equality
Episode Transcript:
Speaker 1 (0s): A support worker after class on Wednesdays who loves to cook and is into salsa. Dancing.
Speaker 3 (17s): Mabel is the website that’s revolutionizing disability support. It lets you find a choose PayPal offering the support that you want. And because we’re online, it’s easy and affordable. Find your paypal@mabel.com that I use.
Speaker 4 (35s): Hello everybody. Welcome to CripChat your weekly podcast, where thing disability today I have with me, John Carlos and Jonathan Shaw and myself David Day. What are we in? We’re talking about today. Jonathan
Speaker 5 (51s): fender and the
Speaker 4 (1m 15s): The federal budget and the effectiveness of the effective it is for people with disability.
Speaker 6 (1m 39s): Hi David. Hi Jonathan. I’ve got to be here.
Speaker 4 (1m 43s): Thanks for joining us, John. Carla, you’re going to be talking about the federal budget and its effectiveness.
Speaker 6 (1m 53s): Okay. That sounds good. Yeah, no, for those who don’t know me, I I’m from People with Disabilities. where I head up policy ed, myself and president Samantha Conner, who some of you were in Canberra this week for the whole week. And we were there for the budget and Tuesday night. So yes, we will in the thick of it, so to speak and it was not necessarily a good budget for people to see ability.
It was elated. Main budget actually is what we called it on Tuesday night, because wasn’t really much for the, for the disability community to be celebrating.
Speaker 5 (2m 35s): But we get to and I bring in parliament.
Speaker 6 (3m 14s): Yeah, no, to answer your question, Jonathan, so a little bit about myself. As I said, I, I head up policy at PayPal with disability, Australia, for those who don’t know what people with disability Australia is where the national peak buddy that represents the one in five people in disability. And we have a papers organization. Our board is entirely made up of people, disability. Some of you may know our presence, Samantha Connor, and a lot of our, a lot of our staff and including our CEO and including myself have disability.
We’re very much about trying to, to promote and protect the rights of people with disability. In terms of the second question, Jonathan, what’s it like in parliament on for the budget? It’s it’s, it’s pretty, it’s pretty crazy. I’ve got to say like, it’s, it feels like everyone’s there, this budget was particularly was particularly different because as you, as some people would know the federal elections looming and it’s around the corner. And so this, this budget had had that kind of in the, in the back of its mind.
And so the policy was a bit light. I’m going to say when it came to the budget, there was, as I said, no, I was not much in it for people to see ability, but it was definitely election budget. And so for those who, not for those who don’t know how, it’s, what it’s like on a budget night itself, we, some people get to see the budget before it’s released publicly. We will one of those organizations. So that’s known as a budget lock up and you kind of basically go in a room.
You, you surrender your phones and, and your, you turn your laptop to flight mode and they literally give you a huge chunk of basically huge chunk of paper that has all the budget material. And do you have a couple of hours to rate it all? So not much time at all. And I’m telling you like these things, like as probably if I was sacrificed, they got together, they’re probably about 30 centimeters high, so it’s a lot of paper.
And so two hours to go through all that, isn’t really a lot of time. So there’s a bit of a quiet rating then you’re not going to obviously read all that material into as
Speaker 4 (5m 41s): Did they, did they actually split up into, into, into groups,
Speaker 6 (5m 47s): All kind of like, it’s just about knowing what to look for. And so, as I said, just stay in like, there’s a bit of a process to reading the budget papers. And so, so that’s a bit of a skill for admin. If you don’t know what you’re looking for, that it’s a bit hard to read, but this is my, this is my third budget lock up. And so I had, I definitely a better fit that had a raid. The budget,
Speaker 4 (6m 12s): Got a question when you read it, if you’ve got any, any, any questions about things that should be reviewed, would they review it
Speaker 6 (6m 23s): That the budget set so they won’t change anything, but there, but there are people, there are people in the room who can help you answer or clarify any questions that you may have about the budget. So for instance, when we were looking at the budget and the budget said, the scheme is going to be fully funded, the anterior skin that is, was being fully funded, we wanted to know how this game would be fully funded. And so no one really could answer that, sorry. Cause it wasn’t really made clear in the budget until we had to clarify with a few people and in the room and they, they didn’t really understand, understand that.
And so we had this call someone and get, get the answers. So it could be a bit of a interesting process. I’ve got to say, David,
Speaker 5 (7m 13s): Yeah, well you go in to jar one change from the go to for,
Speaker 6 (7m 43s): So it’s a good question, Jonathan. And so we actually do like go in there knowing what it is that we’re looking for. And so that’s, there’s a bit of a, it’s done as a budget process. So there’s a whole like, and so I just started before we go into the room on the night itself, we actually spent some time working with our board, working with the members. And I said, I’ll I’ll policy team to kind of decide what is it looking for?
And then this year we see we had four things that we wanted to look. So we were looking for the first was enough protections for COVID. Obviously the disability community has been actively de-prioritize and when it came to code through a looking through, see what measures would be in place to, to keep people safe and protected. The second thing that we looked for was emergency disaster measures. You know, a lot of, a lot of people disability, particularly in Queensland and in the Northern rivers, Northern parts of new south Wales had been impacted by the floods recently.
And so that’s really started a conversation around, around, around inclusive disaster management. And how do you, how do you, how do you ensure that people disability are part of the response, the recovery and the re and the, and the, and the process to ensure that disasters, whenever they occur are inclusive of people with disability. And so that was the second thing and probably the most important thing we were looking for in the budget.
And then we were looking for add more advocacy funding in the budget as well. You know, there’s a lot of NDAs appeals for instance. And, and so we’ll, we’ll look into see if they were going to, if they were going to fund ball fund more people to provide support for those who were seeking to appeal NGX decisions and that wasn’t in it. And then lastly, the fourth thing that we’re looking for was just for, for the scheme to, to, to be sustainably funded through a mechanism that would keep it secure.
And we didn’t say that. So those are the four things that we had and we strategize to get to those four things and unfortunately the budget and, and deliver that.
Speaker 5 (10m 17s): I know they’re fishing for, from too, right?
see. No in the full, oh
Speaker 6 (11m 19s): Yeah. It’s, it’s not easy to separate and be detached Jonathan. Like I’ll like, you know, it’ll very frustrating to, to, to kind of be forgotten again. And in a lot of ways we were perhaps expecting it to go this way. So even though it was frustrating, it was still unsurprising and the
Speaker 5 (11m 46s): pay the no,
Speaker 6 (12m 18s): Yeah. A few things surprise me, not necessarily related to disability, because as I said, Dallas would be a light in the budget, but I was pleasantly surprised to see a commitment to a special, clear material, race, all getting refugees. I was, I wasn’t expecting to see, I wasn’t expecting to see that in this budget. I think the 14,000 places that Australia had committed to, to, to do that.
And I was, as I said, pleasantly surprised, and I was also surprised to see about $10 million, got a deal, an old card in the budget, $10 million is going to go do them all, call it to help with the, with leadership of women, several women in sports. So I thought that was an interesting, an interesting thing to see in the budget, but, you know,
Speaker 5 (13m 33s): I show weighing the he with this and what you think, how to word or we all to show, to show king corn members to ours.
One, think of a
Speaker 6 (15m 6s): I’ll look, yo, you all, you click it for majors there’s agreement. I actually, I actually gray. I in know, people with disabilities should be afforded every opportunity to live their full, their full potential. But some of the difference between someone not doing that and someone who does that is making up is whether or not the person gets the right supports to participate equally in society.
And, and when, when they do, we see people doing great things you’ll and all content example. One of my favorite people, Rosemary keys is another example. Obviously there’s people like Samantha, like, you know, Connor, who’s our president, there’s multiple examples of people, really doing amazing things when they get the right supports and their contributions to society.
Speaker 4 (16m 8s): John, what would you have liked to seen in this budget that was put in a budget?
Speaker 6 (16m 17s): I would’ve liked to say more emergency disaster measures. As I said earlier, there was a community has, has kind of been left behind, not just with the floods, but COVID as well. So we like, I would consider COVID as urgency disaster that needs to be managed. And so we were really looking for that to be in the budget. We were looking for money for us, for the disability community to kind of come together and figure out a plan to make sure that we’re safe and protected.
And we wanted to see that in this budget and we didn’t. And so actually the calls, we didn’t say that a couple of days off the budget on Thursday, people, disability, Australia released an open letter alongside Queensland has been stability and security in for sure, basically outlining what we wanted to see in the election for all candidates going forward, because that it’s that important of an issue.
COVID, COVID, hasn’t been good for the community. A lot of us are still filling a flashlight. And a lot of us still really worried. Obviously the flood is a race and racist thing as well. And we need to make sure that we, that we have the resources and the tobacco tobacco makeup, a planet will work for us because, because we can’t trust the government or the people, it should be backing the plans for us to do, to do the right job. And we should really take control over that and want to, and, and, and put, put money into a, you know, into an opportunity to do that.
And so that’s why relates to that open letter. And we would have liked her sitting in the budget, but we didn’t.
Speaker 5 (18m 16s): Oh, shit. to Porsche this man. who were say shit, ain’t no, Paul,
Speaker 6 (19m 0s): I look, I don’t think we are a small six minute population. One in five Australians have a disability, you know, so that’s actually quite a big part of the population. I think what stops it stops. It is a lack of political will. The letter that I mentioned, the open letter to all part, all candidates election was endorsed by over 40 disability organizations. So we are actually working together. We are, we are collaborating and we’re telling people what we need as a community, but the they’re still not listening.
And that’s. And so I, that’s why I said that. I think the biggest barrier is the political will, and that’s why that’s frustrating and why that’s a lot of ways of setting
Speaker 5 (19m 53s): too pretty. cool. Well, you there
Speaker 6 (20m 30s): Get involved. Well, the first step will be to join a body that people is that you, that you want to join all that interests you. So for those that don’t know, People with Disabilities Raylea is a membership it’s free to join. Anyone can join with a disability, and that will, that’s the first step there’s other organizations that exist that well, like women, you know, national, I think disability Alliance and others, a lot of these organizations,
Speaker 5 (21m 9s): What are the positives of the budget
Speaker 6 (21m 12s): For the disability community or in
Speaker 5 (21m 18s): Mainly disability?
Speaker 6 (21m 20s): I wouldn’t say there is a positive David That’s, that’s the key metric. We called it a lane main budget. It was light on disability. It didn’t deliver. So I wouldn’t say that was a positive at all, but
Speaker 5 (21m 35s): No positive about what about support workers?
Speaker 6 (21m 39s): That’s that’s that was it for the week. That’s for the, for the, for the, for the, what they call and the care sector. So we actually would have concerned about some of that stuff as well, because at the moment the Australian government is trying to do what they’re calling as calling regulatory alignment between the disability age care and veterans affairs. And we’re worried that, you know, this standard and support work could go backwards because of this so-called regulatory alignment.
We, you know, we fought quite a lot to make sure that disability supports, you know, are quality and are safe. And we’re concerned that, you know, this budget actually has put money towards alignment of the care sector and what that could mean. So in this, this past week, there was a, another patient legislation known as the aged care bills. And in that legislation, there was a schedule around restricted practices, you know, obviously with the disability community, would it support the use of adult authorized restrictive practices, but if it’s in the aged care sector through this piece of legislation, and we’re trying to align regulation across the age care and disability sections, like it’s a myth that there’s a potential for us to go backwards.
And so I’m still there. Is there a concern there?
Speaker 5 (23m 11s): Yeah. thing. And then we to prove my arm room for shoes or we, she okay.
She on in
Speaker 6 (24m 41s): I guess to me, Jonathan, there’s a, if there’s, if anything, so on pack I’m, I’m not sure how real time reporting would work. So I’m not sure if the budget would, would necessarily made a difference. Cause if you think about it, like last Steve practices, for instance, last year at the end of last T Nicole Lane type gods commissions found that the, just over a million unauthorized restrictive practices and they were, they were required to report those unauthorized treatment practices, which is a good thing.
Right. But that’s, that’s over a million instances where a practice we used when they shouldn’t have. So really the question I think is, is how do we ensure that people don’t, don’t assume don’t resort to restrictive practices when, when they, when, as a first, as a first, as a first, as, as a first start in the first instance, like met people or people that, you know, jumping to restrictive practices straight away when it should be a last resort.
And so maybe there is something to learn from, from, from the UK and other organizations where, where support workers, you know, need to be invested in so they can learn how it will support people with disability. So they don’t actually resort to, to practices. So early on,
Speaker 5 (26m 18s): Yeah. Chenault is then, ah, to to then say,
Speaker 6 (27m 3s): Yeah, that’s that’s that’s right. Do like things we shouldn’t, I’m kind of flipping, flipping the question on its head a bit like if, if there are over a million aren’t authorized strictly practices into the problem lies in the, in the workforce, our support workers, not knowing how to support us properly,
Speaker 4 (27m 22s): Turn color. Do you have any final thoughts of where the budget?
Speaker 6 (27m 27s): Yeah, look, I, I, my final thought on the budget is that, is that the budget should have been an opportunity to, to, to speak to the disputed community as, as, as the Commonwealth games itself towards a federal election. I just hope that during the election campaign, which will be cold any second, now that we won’t be forgotten. And when the new government does fog that future budgets will include us because we need to really be seen
Speaker 4 (28m 0s): Change the budget from here.
Speaker 6 (28m 2s): No, I think you can, can, they can make other announcements so they can’t change the budget. So there is Things that can add on to it. Yeah. Yeah. So w w we will be trying to see what we can get just the government and his what’s on his caretaker mode. And there’s an opportunity. There are opportunities in that period of time to, to shake out the, to take out the commitments. So hopefully we can get those David,
Speaker 4 (28m 32s): Hopefully what your form. So Johnson
Speaker 5 (28m 37s): for to can’t all.
Speaker 6 (28m 55s): Absolutely.
Speaker 5 (28m 58s): Yo about you. However, please reach out. I know, you know, I learn to know then do nice thing.
I told you,
Speaker 4 (29m 45s): I agree, Johnson.
Speaker 6 (29m 48s): I totally agree to what a greatness and nose and, and now’s the time to get active and to tell, to tell people what it is that you’re passionate about to say, to say the change that you think needs to happen because it’s election time. So let’s go out that folks
Speaker 4 (30m 6s): You’ve been watching. CripChat your weekly podcast for everything disability. Thank you for joining us and join us next week for more, if you want, please like, and share and leave the comments if you want anything to be spoken about or any topics. Thank you. But
Speaker 6 (30m 27s): Thank you, Jonathan.
Speaker 1 (30m 30s): I support worker after class on Wednesdays who loves to cook and is into salsa. Dancing.
Speaker 3 (30m 39s): Mabel is the website that’s revolutionizing disability support. It lets you find and choose PayPal offering the support that you want. And because we’re online, it’s easy and affordable. Find your paypal@mabel.com that I use.
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