The Aboriginal Disability Justice Campaign | Other
The Aboriginal Disability Justice Campaign
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22.01.2022 JUST IN | Rosemary Maione, Ann Smith's former carer, has been granted home detention bail in court. She has also been granted permission to babysit her granddaughter.
22.01.2022 Congratulations to WWDA President, Tricia Malowney OAM on being appointed by the NDIS Minister to the NDIS Expert Advisory Council. The Independent Advisory Co...uncil provides formal advice to the Board of the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA), the governing body of the NDIS, on the most important issues affecting participants, carers and families. Read more: https://buff.ly/3eOdxWC Good luck Tricia! [Image: Photo of WWDA President, Tricia Malowney OAM]
18.01.2022 Experts have shown that Headspace can help you live a happier, healthier life. So go ahead, put it to the test.
15.01.2022 This is my birthday present from my lovely friend Malcolm Morton a proud Arrente man from central Australia it’s from his flamingo series Many of you might know his story about what you might not know is that he is a very talented artist
15.01.2022 'I believe we have the answer': Uncle Bruce Shillingsworth illustrates how First Nations people from around the world have the knowledge and know-how to heal Mother Earth. #ThePoint
15.01.2022 Every day at 9am, Susie King Taylor and her brother would walk the half a mile to the small schoolhouse, their books wrapped in paper to prevent the police from... seeing them. Her grandmother made sure of it - she wanted Susie to be able to read and write. Susie was barely in her early teens when her family fled to St. Simons Island, a Union controlled area in Georgia, during the Civil War. With her inquisitive eyes and kind demeanor and her education, she impressed the army officers. They asked that she become a teacher for children and even some adults. I would gladly do so, if I could have some books, she replied. And so she became the first black teacher of freed black students to work in a freely operating freedmen’s school in Georgia. Not long after, Susie married, and joined her husband and his regiment as they traveled. She became their teacher, teaching the illiterate men to read and write. It was also during this time that she became a nurse to the men, thus making her the first black army nurse in the Civil War. All this she accomplished before the age of 18. Looking back on her time as a nurse, she said that I gave my service willingly for four years and three months without receiving a dollar. I was gladto care for the sick and afflicted comrades. Source: http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/taylorsu/taylorsu.html, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
15.01.2022 UN experts launch ground-breaking guidance on access to justice for people with disabilities GENEVA (28 August 2020) Lawmakers, lawyers, judges and prison officers today received much-needed support from UN experts to make sure people with disabilities can use justice systems around the world as easily as anyone else, in line with international standards....Continue reading
10.01.2022 First Nations deaths in custody are an ongoing national tragedy. The government MUST ensure the implementation of all 339 recommendations the Royal Commission i...nto Aboriginal Deaths in Custody put forward over 30 years ago. We need a report from an independent body every quarter to keep us informed of the status.
04.01.2022 I am so saddened, bewildered & angered by this. The Liberals getting into bed with One Nation, to ensure Indigenous Australians are not acknowledged by our Fede...ral Parliament during NAIDOC week and shouting down three Indigenous Senators to do so. It’s just so distressing that our most marginalised populations seem to evoke such anger from our Parliament again and again. Remember it was the Liberal Government who supported One Nations attempt to proclaim a Ku Klux Klan document into Parliament just last year. And today, in the middle of a pandemic, Parliament gets consumed with hanging a flag in recognition of its first Australians for a few days! A flag that recognises the significant, unique & enduring spiritual connection First Nations people have with this country. I cannot remember our Prime Minister ever uttering the words Indigenous. Where is his leadership? Why did he even allow this to go to a vote? It’s heartbreaking & exhausting that the hard work of so many is constantly being eroded by this sad excuse for leadership.
03.01.2022 We have difficult news today, with our CEO Jeff Smith resigning. Jeff had a serious medical episode on Wednesday night, and remains in hospital being treated. ...Jeff has worked tirelessly, particularly since March and the beginning of the pandemic, to ensure that our voices are heard by the Federal Government, and that we have a seat at the table. He has given up many, many hours to ensure that the experiences of people with disability, both our members, and those we work with directly, reach those making decisions through this time of crisis. He, along with our colleagues across the disability advocacy community, has continued to press for people with disability to be included in the planning to deal with COVID-19. He worked to put together the COVID-19 Plan for people with disability in March, with other national organisations, covering urgent and specific needs of our communities. He again worked collaboratively on an Open Letter to National Cabinet, advocated for an increase to the Disability Support Pension, and commissioned, with DPO Australia, a Statement of Concern about Human Rights, Disability and ethical decision-making. Jeff, over the last year he was our CEO, has brought fresh thinking, great humour and a deep well of ideas and energy to our organisation, all fuelled by his strong commitment to the rights of people with disability. Jeff initiated new programs, our new strategic plan, and encouraged staff to excel. Jeff is a decent, generous and kind man, who has given so much to PWDA, to the disability rights movement, and to people with disability across Australia. Everyone at PWDA is devastated by what has happened to Jeff, and we are a poorer organisation for his departure. We all wish Jeff the very best. [Image description: A smiling Jeff Smith, looking directly at the camera.]
01.01.2022 At some point, the Australian disability rights movement needs to take a good hard look at what we are doing, and why - even more to the point, we need to ask w...ho we are fighting for. And who holds the least amount of power. That isn’t about who is popular. Who has the most likes. Who has the nicest frocks or the most palatable approach. It is, and always has been, about having all the voices in the room - especially the voices that are never physically present. There is a place for Disability Lite. Those expensive designer duds are a great entry point for non disabled women who come together with a common interest and find out something about the lives of disabled women along the way. Language is important. Identity is important. Hell, even being inspired is important - that day so long ago that I saw a picture of a shirtless and inspiring Geoff Trappett, Paralympian extraordinaire, was one of the HIGHLIGHTS of my formative crip years (sorry Masako, you know I’m lyin’ haha x) But there are some people who work on the unsexy stuff, the boring stuff, the stuff that goes unremarked until something goes wrong. Or right, as the case may be. On #qanda tonight, the aged care sector was shamed for not having a plan. The disability sector had a plan, they said. But - do you know why they had a plan? That’s because the activists who work on the hard, unsexy stuff were in there kicking and screaming. I know, because I am one of them. We don’t just get phoned up by journalists to get our faces splashed over media - we work week in and week out, providing policy and information backgrounders. That plan was formed because we dragged them kicking and screaming to the table. Craig Wallace, George Taleporos, Kelly Cox and I - the good young Senator, dozens of others who don’t have instagrammable lives. We do the boring stuff but we do it together, systematically and methodically, with passion and integrity. That’s because our reward isn’t the ‘likes’ or accolades - it’s knowing that disabled people will be safe, empowered and able to live their lives on the same basis as others. That little group that Rayna, Sam, Kelly, Zel and I started all those years ago - there are fifty thousand people in it. Peter Gregory, Les Cope and Phillippa Smoker joined us to help it run smoothly. It’s been running for years and there are people, especially carers, who robustly loathe us because of their interactions with us in that group. That’s because there are always, always tensions and differences between us. One of the people who was helped by that group was one Sarah Langston. My only interaction with her prior to this series of events was her telling me I was an incredible badass, then asking me to do an anonymous post. Before spending hundreds of hours tearing Kelly and I down, despite the work we put in every single fucking day. Kelly and I have been so blessed to have a solid circle of friends and supports around us. There are those we have helped - those who know us. Those who know that our responsibility lies primarily to our people. Neither of us actually care if we are on the board of PWDA or not - we both put our hand up as a favour to the former CEOs, to get the organisation out of the shit. That hasn’t happened and our biggest regrets now are that we haven’t yet done that. If either or both of us remain in the role, we will continue to work our arses off for the rights of disabled people. If we are kicked out via the massive smear campaign and membership drive that Carly-Jennie-Sarahs are running, nothing will change for us, really. We will just keep making change from a different place. But what those women don’t realise is what ‘deplatforming’ looks like when it’s around activists who work in the areas of serious policy work. We don’t have the same knowledge base and voice that we used to have. I can run through disabled people in my head and think of what they know. The fierce Glenda Lee, who knows more about access and standards then anyone I know. George, who knows rights and housing like the back of his sweet and beautiful hand. Carolyn Frohmader, who knows everything there is to know about gendered issues for disabled women. The divine Ms Duncan, who holds a massive knowledge base around the arts. Jax Jacki Brown, Keeper of the Lesbian Secrets. Geoff, who is totally across transport standards and inclusion - Katie Ellis, disability and media. The younger or newer people sometimes do things differently - Lewis Price and Jordon Steele John are great examples of how fresh dynamic voices can work with ‘disability elders’ to pass on knowledge from generation to generation. But this is a political fight and it’s something new and quite frankly, dangerous. Because removing the less polite voices involves removing a bunch of knowledge that we have fought for for a long, long time. And although the fresh new ones might have amazing frocks and different perspectives, there must be balance. Because the privileged voices in the room are not the ones fighting for the poor, the institutionalised, the tortured or the raped. Nor Aboriginal people, or disabled kids, or those shot by police. We will both serve as long as we are wanted, despite this entire debacle. But I’m kind of wondering if these laydeez know actually what the fuck they are doing. We need all the voices in the room.
