When I won senate preselection, the centrepiece of my speech to the delegates spoke to how contracting polio as an infant shaped my life with additional difficulties and challenges. It was a bold approach to take in 1991, because Australians with a disability were very much off the radar of Australians and their governments.
Back then, disability services were mainly in the purview of the underfunded states.
Early in the Howard government, I was appointed as one of four special advisers to the federal Minister for Family and Disability Services, Judi Moylan. During one briefing, she revealed the percentage of Australians with a disability then assisted with federal government funding and services in the mid-1990s. I was shocked to learn that it was only 12 per cent.
There was a massive shortfall between the government resources available and what was required. At the time, this created considerable frustration in the disability community.
No one seemed to be listening.
I received the brunt of this at public meetings when I represented the minister. Of all the community meetings I attended over 14 years, the ones with the disability sector were always the most fraught. Often there was high emotion; such was the level of angst, usually from distressed parents.
Why were governments, state and federal, and of both political complexions, so indifferent? Funding is very responsive to the concerns of the voters. That is why, compared with the rest of the world, our schools and hospital systems are well resourced, and disability services are not.
When you enter the room to engage with someone with a disability - leave your attitude at the door.
Dylan Alcott (pictured)
I led the Canberra lobbying effort to fund services to my fellow polio survivors when I retired. In the mid-noughties, the minister responsible said: "polio - didn't we fix that 40 years ago?" There was zero comprehension that there were still 40,000 Australians with the late effects of polio who urgently required additional disability assistance.
This lack of awareness was evident in the officials' language. We were often referred to as polio sufferers or, worse still, polio victims. We are polio survivors. On our lobbying trips to Canberra with up to 60 of our cohort, we wore T-shirts emblazoned with: "We are still here."
Although the introduction of the NDIS has seen over the past five years a seismic shift in community attitudes and, therefore, government funding, there is still a long way to go, particularly around equal opportunity in areas such as employment.
I experienced this when I lobbied parliament on behalf of business clients in the late noughties. In the early years of lobbying, I left my walking stick behind, realising I would be less esteemed by my clients for moving around with this physical support. Fortunately, walking from meeting to meeting around the parliament took about only five minutes. However, I resumed using the stick as time went on because I no longer cared what they thought.
Dylan Alcott AO highlighted employment discrimination in his brilliant Australian of the Year acceptance speech. He revealed that the employment rate for people with a disability is 54 per cent, which has not changed in 30 years. Dylan pinpointed the underlying problem. Attitude. He said: "when you enter the room to engage with someone with a disability - leave your attitude at the door."
In his speech, Dylan referred to how he felt about his situation when he was growing up. "I didn't want to be here," he shared.
Now he says: "I love my disability."
Dylan changed his attitude, and so should everyone else.
Only when people with a disability are seen as truly equal in fields such as unemployment will their participation in the workforce rise to where it should be - equal. This is why Australian of the Year Dylan Alcott is the right choice in 2022.
His lived experience is an inspiration to us, especially those with a disability. Dylan is the only person to win the Golden Slam in quad singles tennis and won Paralympic gold medals for tennis and wheelchair basketball. In addition, Alcott is a radio host and motivational speaker. He has achieved so much in his life, even with a severe disability.
With such an outstanding ambassador in 2022 for the 20 per cent of Australians with a disability, let's hope there will be a heartfelt change in community attitude this year. In addition, a dramatic improvement should follow in funding disability services, such as the NDIS and aged care packages.
This could come to pass if disability support becomes an election issue for voters in May.
