National Disability & Carers Congress - Day #1

Today was the first day of the National Disability & Carers Congress where I represented the Every Australian Counts community as their Social Media Congress Champion.

The first person to speak was the Honorable Bill Shorten MP who was the Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities. He came and spoke about his time in this position and his personal connection to fighting for the rights of people with a disability and their carers. He spoke on how he feels how incredibly wrong it is that people with a disability are living second class lives. He gave the statistic that with the amount of people with a disability in Australia, we could populate Adelaide. Most of what he had to say was very good expect for when he started to highlight what good things the government is doing for people with a disability and he was mainly highlighting services for children. I was thinking what about adults? Don't we matter? I guess his speech writer needs to think about all areas next time.

Next was the presentation from Patricia Scott who summarized what the Productivity Commissioner's Report on the feasibility of an NDIS would be. The summary included:

The introduction of 2 schemes - one to cover disability as a result of injury. It would cover 800 cases in its first year and gradually build up to 20,000 per year. It would cost the government 685 million and it would start in 2013.

The second would be an NDIS for universal cover. It would help those with reasonable need. There were questions today about what reasonable need meant as everyone's definition on what reasonable need is can be very different. It would also be an individual package that would promote choice.

There would be three tiers to it. The first tier to cover social participation for everyone, the second for information, referral and web services and the third tier for individual support packages.

The individual support packages would address core activity limitations eg communication or mobility etc. The individual support packages would cover everything expect public housing, education, and health except for early intervention.

The scheme would be commonwealth funded and therefore there would be tax cuts off mortgages etc from the State governments because there would be less need for funds to cover services if they are coming from the commonwealth government.

Senator Jan McLucas the current parliamentary secretary for disabilities, then spoke about the future of disability. I felt she spoke straight off the page with absolutely no passion. I really don't know how she will be an effective advocate for people with disabilities and their carers. The only she said that I thought was interesting was that there has been 11.5% increase of disability in Australia since 2003.

There was a question and answer panels of four people and the question put to them was: Describe in 5 words how you would like to see the disability sector in 5 years from now?

The speakers were Sally Richards (carer & advocate), Damian Giffis (works with people with a disability who are of aboriginal descent), Rosie Crossley (carer & advocate), and Stella Young (Disability Rights Activist & Editor of Ramp Up).

Sally's five words were: Time to stop the hypocrisy!

Damian's five words were: responsive, community development, medical responsiveness, advocacy, and breathe

Rosie's five words were: loose the labels!

Stella's five words were: She ignored the question! She wants equal rights for people with a disability. The main issues she touched on were education, employment, enough attendant care, stop fear against disability and stop seeing it as a negative thing. She thinks the disability system is currently based on survival. She wants basic needs met, but she also wants people with a disability to live a fulfilling life where they can have aspirations, desires, goals and dreams. She wants the NDIS to come to fruition with our dignity still intact, she wants the NDIS to come from a sense of our rights and not for it to come from pitty on us. She wants parents to stay parents and not for them to be carers!

The honorable Mary Wooldrodge minister for mental health, women's affairs, and community services, Senator Jan McLucas and Senator Mitch Fifield all spoke and answered questions as well.

The point of today is that we count! All of us! If you agree, go to everyaustraliancounts.com.au and sign the campaign petition towards an NDIS and forward it to you your friends!

I'll have more updates from the Congress tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/tinymads for live updates. Otherwise here tomorrow night and youtube.com/tinymads.