We need a Minister for Disability Inclusion

By Helen Said, Autistic Advocate, Melbourne Australia

I first met the remarkable Ali France at a Labor Enabled conference in Queensland in 2019. As someone from the western suburbs of Melbourne, what struck me was that her name is pronounced Ay-Lee (rhymes with Hailey, not like the Muslim Ali families that live around here) and France is pronounced the way the Queen would have said it. As an Autistic who gets patterns stuck in my head and doesn’t listen to radio or watch TV, this has been added to my social scripting, but I won’t go into that.

For me, Ali’s disability is entirely more predictable. Disability is a part of life. Since we all hope to live a long life, we should inevitably expect disability sooner or later. We would all hope disability comes later rather than sooner, but that is not to be for everyone. For many of us, we experience childhood, adulthood, disability then death, but for others, disability is inserted into the equation a lot earlier and becomes part of our identity.

Ali France’s victory over conservative Opposition Leader and Member for Dickson Peter Dutton, in the May 3^rd federal election, has helped to cement disabled women as a force to be reckoned with. While the late and great disability advocate Stella Young once remarked “I am not your inspiration”, every woman, every working class person and every member of downtrodden minority groups deserves some inspiration. What Stella Young objected to was the patronising inference that nothing should be expected from disabled people and that anything they did accomplish, however minor, was an “inspiration”. What we should be doing is drawing inspiration from each other’s efforts to carve out a meaningful life and affect change within an unfair society. We should feel inspired by the David and Goliath battle for the Seat of Dickson, and we should be inspired about the possibilities that are opening up for disability reform, by having Labor’s Ali France in the House of Representatives and the Greens Jordon Steele-John in the Senate.

Australians with disability and their carers have much to look forward to with the return of the Albanese Labor government. As well as the NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) and Medicare, which Labor created, Medicare will be strengthened, the National Autism Strategy is unfolding, social housing is being built, price gouging will be outlawed and government schools are being prioritised. Trumpism and nuclear power have been roundly defeated by the highest anti-conservative vote in Australian history. Some of the worst xenophobes and homophobes have been booted out of parliament, while Labor’s Julian Hill MP, the subject of a homophobic hate campaign, achieved the highest pro-Labor swing in the country.

Our NDIS, and other government services, will always be the subject of budgetary limitations, as long as we are stuck with over-powerful billionaires and media monopolies which can heavily influence election outcomes. It is a long and difficult road to change this balance of power, but we should keep our sights firmly fixed on long term goals to achieve equity for the most marginalised.

I support the call made by Disability Discrimination Commissioner, Rosemary Kayess, for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to appoint a Minister for Disability Inclusion in his new cabinet. The New South Wales State government already has a Minister for Disability Inclusion. This is in agreement with Disability Royal Commission Recommendation 5.6 – New governance arrangements for disability.

DRC Recommendation 5.6 states

The Australian Government should establish:

·         * a portfolio responsible for the disability and carers policies and programs currently the responsibility of the Social Services portfolio

·         * a ministerial position – the Minister for Disability Inclusion – responsible for disability inclusion strategy, policies and programs that are currently under the remit of the Minister for Social Services

·         * a Department of Disability Equality and Inclusion, responsible for the national disability and carers policies and programs that are currently the responsibility of the Department of Social Services.

People with disability should be recruited to positions within the new department, including into leadership positions. These new arrangements should be established by the end of 2024.

While the previous Albanese Labor government had a Minister for the NDIS and Social Services, disability has universal relevance to all government portfolios. To ensure equal access, acceptance, living standards, opportunities and quality of life, people with disability need more than just NDIS service provision .

As Commissioner Kayess stated, in her recent letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, “A dedicated Minister for Disability Inclusion would be responsible for ensuring oversight and implementation of disability policy and programming across all portfolio areas, such as housing, employment, education, health, infrastructure, violence prevention and response.” Naturally, Ali France MP and Senator Jordon Steele-John should have input into the Disability Inclusion Ministry, having already stared down the barriers of disability inclusion.

We also need an Assistant Minister for Autism. This is already a reality in South Australia, where every government primary school now has an Autism specialist teacher. This ministry role could be expanded to cover other forms of neurodivergence.

It is important to take the lead in Autism acceptance while Autism phobia is being stoked in the US. We do not yet have a name for this phenomenon – may I coin the term ”autiphobia” or “neurophobia” for people like anti-vaxxer Robert F Kennedy Junior, the Trump-appointed Secretary of Health, who is now investigating a fictitious “Autism Epidemic”, and who is, ironically, himself a brain worm survivor.

As a higher proportion of Autistic people are trans, we also need to guard against the kinds of legal attacks and transphobia being perpetrated in both the US and Britain, some of which is being echoed by spokespeople like JK Rowling and small sections of the feminist movement, dubbed TERFs (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists).

By next week, we will know who is in Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s cabinet. Let’s hope there is a Disability Inclusion Minster and Autism Assistant Minister among them!