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

I speak tonight in the context of the disability royal commission. The Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability is scheduled to make its final report public in the coming weeks. Shellay Ward, Levai Bonnar, Hayley Dea Bell, Isabella Leiper, Julian, Liam Milne and his younger brother, Craig Sullivan, Brandon Le Serve, Jack Sullivan, Lara Madigan, Sarah Hammoud, Christopher O'Brien, Neil Summerell, Rebecca Lazarus, Jamie Vincent Johnson, Carney Schultz, Shona Hookey, Stephen Ind, Stuart Lambert, Darren Kingma, Brett Ponting, David Veech, Miriam Merten, Amanda Gilbert, Leah Elizabeth Floyd, Julie Jacobson, Sandra Deacon, Janice and Robyn Frescura, Shirley Thompson, Janet Mackozdi and Julie Betty Kuhn—in one of my first speeches in the Senate, I read those names into the Hansard. They are some of the names of disabled people who died in the years leading up to the commencement of the disability royal commission. Most of these people were aged between seven and 20 years old when they died. They died in truly horrific circumstances, most in government support facilities or under the care of registered support workers.

Today I add to that list even more names of disabled people who have died as a result of violence, abuse, exploitation and neglect since the commission's formation in 2019. Josh, aged 24, died after an incident at the Perth underground station mere metres away from my electorate office; Alex Raichman died aged 11; Liam Danher died aged 23; Tim Rubenach died aged 32—both Liam and Tim died while waiting for vital NDIS supports that could have prevented their deaths—and Ann Marie Smith died aged 54.

The Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability was the result of years and years of community pressure. We were determined to have the injustices that our community faces acknowledged by the people in this place. The executive government asked us to tell our experiences—to share some of our darkest days—just one more time. After the last four years of evidence and investigation, the commission has collected stories and shed much-needed light on the confronting reality of what it can mean to be a disabled person in this country. Now, as we prepare for the commission to come to a close and for the reports and recommendations of that commission to be handed down, I call upon the government to commit now to having a clear action plan with real resourcing to ensure that the recommendations that will end once and for all the violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation of disabled people are fully enacted. Disabled people deserve nothing less.

The disability community have given so much to this commission, pouring our hearts and souls out and giving the weight of our lived experience and professional expertise in submissions detailing some of the most harrowing moments of our lives. We have entrusted decision-makers with information that you need to dismantle the systems that were designed to support us and too often left us instead harmed. We have entrusted decision-makers to hold perpetrators to account. As a community, we have done our part. Now it is time for you to do yours.

Alongside the community, I am calling for three fundamental actions that the government must take to honour the commitment disabled people have brought to this process. Firstly, it must be acknowledged that the commission has illuminated that ableism is everywhere. During the last four years, people have had a place to go to share their experiences and a body that has had the power to investigate and refer to police. There is an urgent need for an ongoing reporting and accountability mechanism. As a community, we need this to exist across various settings, institutions, service providers and even corporate entities like airlines. All must be held to account. For that to happen, there must be a dedicated mechanism to which disabled people can report their experiences of ableism beyond the end of this commission.

Perpetrators have gotten away with far too much for too long. There have been far too many broken promises in relation to them being held to account and brought to justice. We must have the ability to hold perpetrators to account, and that accountability must begin at the highest levels of government. There must be established a dedicated disability minister, supported by a specialised department solely focused on disability issues. This will ensure that disabled concerns are given the attention they deserve and that they cannot be—that our lives and needs can never again be—handballed between departments endlessly. We cannot allow these recommendations to be forgotten in the corridors of power. Action is the only response acceptable to the profound injustices uncovered by the commission. Tears will not cut it.

Currently, many in the support systems disabled people rely on and many that rely on these support systems know the reality that they are not equitable or intersectional in the support that they provide. The systems that we rely on do not support us. An example is the disability support pension, which of course must be raised. The current level of the DSP is inadequate and does not reflect the financial realities of disabled individuals or the financial realities of any person living through a cost-of-living and housing crisis. Additionally, DSP partner laws and obligations are archaic. They drive people below the poverty line. They trap them within abusive relationships. For as long as they remain in place, disabled people will not have marriage equality in this country.

The NDIS—a vital life support system, a lifeline for so many disabled people—has changed the lives of so many disabled people, and yet the net result has been a worse outcome for many in our community. We have seen the agency and those who run it take measures over the last two years to deliberately exclude people with psychosocial disability from the scheme. If the NDIS is not the support system for those disabled people, what is?

In the spirit of collective liberation, it is also of the utmost importance that we recognise the role that privilege plays in oppressing the rights of disabled people, who continue to be overlooked, including those overlooked by the commission itself: those who have not been empowered to share their stories or to advocate for themselves given they are subject to multiple layers of oppression and discrimination. In order to address the root causes of violence, abuse and exploitation, no body or mind can be left behind. As we build new systems and transform and dismantle old systems, all must be brought with us in this transformation.