There’s the personal experience of living with a sister who had polio from birth and has lived in a wheelchair all her life (and who was married, divorced, paints, sings, laughs, and writes like a dream). And my experience helping out in special schools – even in first world countries like Malaysia and Singapore – to take care of children dumped into orphanages because they were different to the rest of the population.
I care about the neglect, the costs, the way capitalism and a market economy does not provide for everyone – and the ghastly antiquated “disability” aids – grey, dour, heavy, clunky, horribly designed wheelchairs and other equipment that hasn’t moved into the 21st century.
But we’re all aware of the injustice. I wonder how many of us believe we’ll never get ill, never age, never have an accident. That would be odd, in Australia, as we worship alcohol and our right to binge drink to the point that we risk being differently abled, if we live, and sooner rather than later, not to mention the effects of foetal alcohol disorders.
I do not have supreme confidence in my body, my mind or my earning capacity that I will always, no matter the circumstances, be looked after well, have my needs met, and feel safe, valued and live as much of a life as I can and as I choose. That’s why I take out health insurance despite struggling to keep up with the payments. My super fund often stagnates and I think about life on the aged pension ..... enough to plunge anyone into deep anxiety!
So where does funding a National Disability Insurance Scheme fit in modern Australia? It fits in the Australia I emigrated to and eagerly became a citizen of. It fits with the values of mateship, and of looking out for each other. It sits well alongside the work of Lions and Rotary, and so many other individuals and groups doing so much to care for those who are sometimes forgotten. It fits in an Australia that led the world in enfranchising women. It is consistent with our compassion, our empathy and our determination that everyone has a right and a chance to live a full and rewarding life.
We are generous donors when disaster strikes anywhere in the world. We decry injustice everywhere.
Complaints about the level of foreign aid: “what about us, what about our homeless”, “what about charity begins at home”. Such comments often come from those who also jeer at any attempts to support an NDIS! I know though that these are in the minority – no I don’t have statistics but I read the comments and feel the vibes and look at other states signing up without quibble to the scheme. And you don’t have to believe me..... as Sue O’Reilly so eloquently wrote in The Punch (“The NDIS will finally civilise us as a nation” http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-ndis-will-finally-civilise-us-as-a-nation/)
“And then, ... as federal and state politicians bickered and haggled over money and the NDIS appeared to be heading for catastrophe, something truly amazing happened.
On radio talkback, television, online sites and in newspaper editorials around the country, Australians spoke out, demanding that politicians stop stuffing around and just bloody get on with establishing a better, smarter and far more humane support system for their fellow citizens with severe disabilities.
Within two days, the public’s reaction led the Premiers of NSW and Victoria to suddenly discover that they could, after all, manage to find the money demanded by the Commonwealth to help launch NDIS trial sites in their states from July next year. Queensland’s Campbell Newman is still crying poor, but throughout that state, public opinion has left him lacerated and ridiculed”
All that self-congratulatory stuff about how Australians are, by a large, a decent mob who care about the underdog and believe in mateship and the Fair Go? Turns out it’s true!”
It is heartening to see the support for the NDIS by the public and this makes it really hard to understand how the Qld Government could not give it consideration.
For me, the NDIS is about caring properly, humanely, in a socially responsible and valuable way.
Would we want to be without a Stephen Hawking? Would we want a child to remain trapped by their autism or their twisted body, when the only barrier was money. My heart broke watching an SBS Insight program about a parent who was so alone and unable to care for her child as he neared adulthood, at her wits end, she ended his life. This is where the worst gap occurs, where services are thinnest on the ground – support for the person when he/she becomes an adult. The lack of supports, training, and respite. The bureaucracy, the loneliness, and the marginalisation get in the way for those who are differently abled. It’s criminal in such an affluent country as Australia.
It is heartening to see the widespread public support for the NDIS, which makes it really hard to understand how the Qld Government could have acted as they have.
If you feel a little of what I feel, come along to:
COMMUNITY FORUM on the National Disability Insurance Scheme – Wednesday 24 October 10.30am, Riverside Gardens Community Centre, Townsville.