Anonymous

Which of the following statements best describes you?

• I’m a person with disability

Question 1:
During the first stage of consultations we heard that the vision and the six outcome areas under the current Strategy are still the right ones. Do you have any comments on the vision and outcome areas being proposed for the new Strategy?

Inclusive and accessible communities – I’m personally very well included in my community, work and friendship group. However, having worked with young people with disability in the past I know that this is not always the case. The NDIS needs to look at best practice for supporting this. I’m distressed to see that Inclusion Works Townsville is no longer operating – although I’m not super familiar with this organisation I heard about their framework at a conference and was very impressed. A further example is Jigsaw as a transition program in to the mainstream workforce – https://fightingchance.org.au/our-programs/ I also think their needs to be specific mentoring for young people in self-advocacy for access and problem solving.

Question 2:
What do you think about the guiding principles proposed here?

These are all excellent. I think the basis needs to be that as former discrimination commissioner Graeme Innes said “disability is part of the normal range of human experience.

Question 3:
What is your view on the proposal for the new Strategy to have a stronger emphasis on improving community attitudes across all outcome areas?

Definitely needs to be a focus! I work in quite a traditional workplace and have to work very hard on this. If quality inclusion support and self advocacy support happens and people see people with disability fully included in education and community life – this will give people without disability more experience and will lead to fewer freak outs.

Question 4:
How do you think that clearly outlining what each government is responsible for could make it easier for people with disability to access the supports and services they need?

This is a great idea.

Question 5:
How do you think the Strategy should represent the role that the non-government sector plays in improving outcomes for people with disability?

A lot of orgs that are not in the disability space call me for practical problem solving advice – the most recent example was ‘how do I provide live captioning at online events? What can I do if live captioning by a trained human being is not affordable for my organisation. The thing is, I do not work in a disability org and I don’t use closed captions – so I’m not the best person to give advice on this. Not for profits need examples of where to go for better advice than just calling the person with disability they know. They also need examples of low budget solutions. (Consultation with other people told them that AI captions were not useful.

Question 6:
What kind of information on the Strategy’s progress should governments make available to the public and how often should this information be made available?

Hmmmmm. Difficult question.

– inclusion in the community
– housing (as independent as possible)
– employment

Question 7:
What do you think of the proposal to have Targeted Action Plans that focus on making improvements in specific areas within a defined period of time (for example within one, two or three years)?

Yes – that’s a good idea.
Hard to know if it will work.

Question 8:
How could the proposed Engagement Plan ensure people with disability, and the disability community, are involved in the delivery and monitoring of the next Strategy?

Since people with disability have various perspectives and opinions it would be interesting to use a citizens jury/direct democracy approach to ensure people with disability have more say in how the Strategy is monitored and delivered.

Question 9:
Is there anything else you would like to share about the ideas and proposals in the position paper?

It’s actually pretty impressive