Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you. If members in this place wish to know the reality of disabled life, then they should speak to disabled people. They should speak to those of us who cannot have our hair cut and who cannot have it washed without support, because that's what lives behind those headlines. Going out for social activities, as Senator Hanson says—can you imagine what it is like to have to try to coordinate and choreograph your time beyond your home into hour-sized chunks based on somebody else's availability and to put yourself at their power and control? You cannot. It is such a difficult thing, as a human being, to give your life and your power over to another person; to allow them to come into your world and support you in some of the most intimate, private and personal moments of your life; and to rely on them to have any connection to your community. You cannot imagine it unless you have experienced it.

It is a deep frustration to me that something as important as a National Disability Insurance Scheme and something as deeply serious as the financial exploitation of disabled people have been identified by One Nation as a political opportunity. You should reflect on that. We are not your political footballs to be kicked around. We are not yours to be turned into headlines and fundraising emails.

If you want to have a serious conversation about the NDIS, let us have that conversation, but I will not sit by and allow you to use this Senate to establish a forum for you to spend months on end validating the ableist belief that disabled people and our families are rorting this system when it is not true and is not supported by any scrap of evidence.