Women With Disabilities ACT outlined several of the experiences of women accessing the NDIS in our submission to the ACT Government’s Inquiry into the implementation, performance and governance of the National Disability Insurance Scheme in the ACT.
Currently, women only make up approximately 37% of participants across the scheme, which may be indicative of broader gender inequality. This low allocation of NDIS Plans to women with disabilities also occurs in the ACT where full rollout was achieved in 2018, even though there are more women than men under the age of 65 in the ACT.
There is an opportunity in this review to reduce some barriers that specifically affect women accessing the scheme and ensure that gender is more appropriately considered in planning and service delivery. The administrative and financial burden which many have reported when applying for the NDIS has an increased effect on women, due to poorer transition from education to employment, higher incidence of violence, increased poverty. It is therefore essential that the legislation and Rules recognise the unique needs of women*.
WWDACT wishes to highlight several key areas as significant for women, girls, non-binary and feminine identifying people with disabilities in the ACT for the financial year of 2020 – 2021:
· Funding for systemic gender-based disability advocacy
Notice of Women with Disabilities ACT Annual General Meeting
The Women with Disabilities ACT (WWDACT) ABN 74 908 530 982 Annual General Meeting will be held on Friday the 29th of November 2019 from 6:30pm to 7pm on level 4 of the Marie Reay Teaching Building, 155 University Ave, Canberra ACT 2601 (within Kambri at ANU).
The AGM will be preceded from 5pm by a panel discussion on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and how they impact the lives of women and girls with disability in our region, hosted by WWDACT Chair, Sue Salthouse.
All WWDACT members and community are welcome to attend to hear about the past year and vote on new directors. New members are also welcome to sign up now and on the night!
Nominations are also open for the role of Treasurer and two general board director positions on the WWDACT board. Nominations can be made at wwdact.org.au using the attached form.
The 2019-2020 ACT Budget has over all made some good commitments regarding the NDIS, chronic health management, housing and transport. You can read the budget papers on the ACT Treasury website.
Starting next year, the budget will be accompanied by social well-being indicators. WWDACT urges the government to prioritise a gender and disability responsive lens for these indicators.
Below we have broken down some key measures we welcome, as well a few things we feel were missing, in 5 key areas.
Disability Services and Advocacy
WWDACT is pleased to see investment in supporting disability services transition to the NDIS, including the continuation of the Integrated Service Response team, for people who fall into gaps in service during the transition to the full scheme.
We are also pleased at the continuation of funding for systemic disability advocacy from organisations like ourselves and People with Disabilities ACT.
WWDACT is also glad to see continuation of funding for non-NDIS services such as the ACT Taxi Subsidy Scheme, Rehabilitation, Aged and Community Care and the Children and Young People’s Equipment Loan Scheme.
However, this budget focuses mainly on government based services, with little investment in development of community led and run services.
Family Violence and Justice
Under this budget, the government has outlined plans to use of the Safer Families Levy to fund:
Delivering family-centred responses for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families impacted by family violence
Extending the Family Safety Hub legal services pilot
Extending the Room4Change program to help prevent family violence
Reducing the risk of deaths from family violence
Training ACT Government frontline workers to respond to family violence.
However, there is still a need for investment in women’s crisis services and training for the community sector to respond to family violence.
In Justice, WWDACT is glad to see:
Further support for Care Inc. and the Women’s Legal Centre so that they can continue to provide essential legal services to marginalised people in the ACT.
Funding for the intermediary scheme in the courts to help vulnerable witnesses, including people with disabilities, to provide testimony.
WWDACT is disappointed not to see recurring funding for the implementation and oversight of the Disability Justice Strategy.
Health
WWDACT welcomes several measures across the heath portfolio including:
The investments in the new Walk-In centres at Weston Creek and Dickson.
$2.5 million to co-design a program developing integrated care pathways and improve health outcome for people with ongoing and complex health conditions with GPs and consumers.
Measures to support people with mental illness, including a 7-day-a-week Mental Health Consultation Liaison Service.
A number of measures to support people with chronic illness by increasing capacity for rheumatology, ophthalmology and the childhood and gestational diabetes clinics.
Funding to pilot support and psychosocial education activities for the families and carers of people with mental health conditions.
WWDACT welcomes a commitment to increase public housing by 200 dwellings, and renewal of a further 1000 existing dwellings. We also welcome a requirement of 15% affordable housing in all now green- and brownfield developments but we would like to see this include measures for accessible housing.
WWDACT would like to see future investment in the implementation of Universal Housing Design, as part of the National Disability Strategy and accompanying parliamentary agreement.
Transport
WWDACT welcomes funding for the replacement of buses in the Transport Canberra fleet, with a forecast 84 new buses in 2019-2020. WWDACT also notes that Transport Canberra exceeded its 2018-19 target for fleet accessibility (81%) and that 85% of buses are now Disability Discrimination Act compliant.
We are concerned at the lack of improvement measures for community transport. The Flexible bus service from Transport Canberra is only currently funded on a year by year basis, which offers little security for patrons, and requires some improvement to meet community needs.
For more information about how the ACT Budget affects the community sector, stay tuned for ACTCOSS’s Budget Snapshot.
Further questions on WWDACT’s view of the budget can be directed to Clare Moore, WWDACT CEO at ceo@wwdact.org.au or 0468 324 695.
This is part 2 of the project report for the Contraception and Consent Project, beginning in 2017.
The second part of this project looked at the experiences and knowledge of ACT women* with disabilities, families, and health and education professionals. It identifies what is being done well in the ACT, where there are gaps in services and information, and what women*’s needs are. Information was gathered via two online surveys, and conversations with survey participants.
Sus Salthouse joined Adam Shirley on ABC Radio Canberra Mornings on Friday May 17th for Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). Listen to the interview or read the transcript below.
Transcript
Adam Shirley 0:00
Now but put yourself in the shoes of someone who lives with a disability do so by answering this question. How many times? Have you done something quickly online over the last 24 hours? Maybe you fill in forms sorted out your tax, bought tickets for Eurovision or voted in it, ordered a coffee, looked up the new bus timetable. Our ability to get online access is taken for granted in many ways. But how do you go if you will live with a disability? And does it catch you out in many facets of life? Sue Salthouse is chair of Women with Disabilities ACT a long standing advocate acclaimed for her work, and she’s with us to talk further about this on a significant day to highlight these issues, Sue Salthouse, always a pleasure to talk with you. I mean, how much can we take this sort of thing for granted? If, for instance, we thinking about looking up election information or anything else online?
Sue Salthouse 0:51
Oh, good morning, Adam. Yes, well, if it is really important these days for us to have seamless access to the internet. And there are quite a few things that stand in the way as you’ve outlined already.
Adam Shirley 1:06
And what I mean, what sort of support are already there for those who might not have that experience of trying to negotiate something online when they live with a disability.
Sue Salthouse 1:15
But I think it’s really important that everything when it’s developed, is developed. So it maximizes accessibility. And that mean, and and there are ways of doing that. And there are organizations that can check your website to make sure it’s accessible. And AccessibilityOz is one that we get to uses all the time. We use that because it was started by a woman with disabilities, and they check that you’ve got the right color contrast, so that someone with vision impairment can read it, they check that it’s got the right, the right setup so that someone who’s using who’s blind who’s using a screen reader program can use it. And what we should also check is that things are written in Simple English, it’s no good filling up a website with long words that we can’t understand let alone, anybody who’s got cognitive impairment,
Adam Shirley 2:14
Those measures, obviously, are important and to be welcomed, but how much do they permeate a lot of the way we live day to day to a level that helps people,
Sue Salthouse 2:24
I think I’m not the best person to ask, because I don’t need those accessibility features. Okay. And it’s the it’s people who are blind to who you will hear rampaging on the sidelines, because yet another website has been launched, that isn’t accessible. So I think, like with all things if you put the accessibility features in at the very beginning, that that’s when you get maximum accessibility in the end product. And what we need to bear in mind is that our mobile thought, in fact, digital accessibility is a utility nowadays, isn’t it? It’s like we everybody should have access to the digital world. And and we find that that’s not the case.
Adam Shirley 3:16
Well, it makes it harder and quite difficult actually, to live in lots of ways if you don’t have that right to accessibility. Sue Salthouse, do we not keep that front of mind enough to realize people are cut off when we don’t provide those services?
Sue Salthouse 3:29
I think one is one of the things is that cost is a big factor. And people with disability tend and if we haven’t got employment tend to be clustered at the at the lower socio economic group. And the the high accessibility features in phones, for instance, means you meet you need a top of the range phone. And so that’s really hard. So we need to make sure that that accessibility is front of mind when we’re looking at welfare policies
Adam Shirley 4:00
You’re hearing from Sue Salthouse, she’s Chair of Women with Disabilities ACT, a long term disability advocate in this region and across Australia. She’s been recognized throughout her career for her hard work, we are talking on Global Accessibility Awareness Day about getting all of us thinking about universal support, so that everyone has the right to getting online, for instance, to getting other services, regardless of whatever their living circumstance is. How important I mean to your earlier comments. Sue Salthouse, is it that people who live with the digital disability are part of the design phase of anything, let alone be a Lyft, an online portal or a public network?
Sue Salthouse 4:38
Well, I just think that that’s a given, that you you design accessibility is at the very first stages. And that goes for making a building, building a house. And we’re looking for changes that will make all houses have basic accessibility, but certainly in the digital world. And I think that there are various their various policies in the major parties and the Australian Greens, I think the Australian Greens have, have put the biggest focus on on digital accessibility. But we really need to remember the the element of cost in this. And the other thing that we need to remember is that when people get a piece, a piece of accessible equipment or it accessible equipment, there also needs to be some facility for them having the support to be able to use it to the maximum.
Adam Shirley 5:37
Yeah, and that being an ongoing viability rather than something that costs too much week in, week out month in month out. Is that something that’s missed sometimes?
Sue Salthouse 5:46
I think sometimes it’s missed. But look, there are organizations like the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN), places a large degree of emphasis on accessibility, and there’s a website for Accessible Telecoms, and people can go and that that can be accessed just by googling accessible telecommunications. And that gives you a breakdown of what the good features of mobile phones when you’re buying a new mobile phone, what’s the good features of the internet? So there’s information around and I think we certainly need the major parties and whoever’s in government to really look at the digital divide and how we can close that gap between who’s got access and who hasn’t,
Adam Shirley 6:39
Depending on which way the result goes on Saturday, we’ll see what the federal government does do to put some of that into action on those key issues. You mentioned Sue, so Hello, thank you for raising it this morning. We do appreciate it.
Sue Salthouse 6:51
No, it is very important. So thanks for asking.
Adam Shirley 6:53
Sue Salthouse Chair of Women with Disabilities in the ACT, Long Term Disability advocate.
UPDATE 14/05: With the Election drawing close, you can find our your local candidates and the order of the ballot paper using this chat bot from the AEC. We’ve also prepared simple lists in ballot order so you can plan your vote before you head to the polls
WWDACT has read the major party policy papers to help you understand what they say on key issues – including gender, people with disabilities and violence prevention. We will be updating this post as the election gets closer with ACT-specific information, including information from independents and smaller parties. If you’d like to see more information on a certain topic, send us feedback at info@wwdact.org.au.
Voting – Accessibility
Advocacy for Inclusion has recently updated their Easy-Read voting kit and you can download it here.
The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) has Easy-Read information about voting, and information about accessible ways to votehere.
Braille, audio and large print guides to voting and the candidates will be published by the AEC.
Electorates in the ACT
Since the last election, the electorates for the House of Representatives of the ACT have changed. One person from each area will be elected to represent that area. you can check you electorate and enrolment here.
Fenner now takes up the northern part of the ACT, including Belconnen north and west of the town centre, Gungahlin and Jervis Bay.
Canberra now takes up the central part of the ACT, including the Inner North, eastern and southern Belconnen and the Inner South down to the Woden town centre.
Bean now takes up the Molonglo Valley, Weston Creek, Woden Valley south of the town centre, Tuggeranong and all areas in the southern ACT.
You can view a detailed map here. You can see more information about the political alignment of the electorates on the ABC’s Australia Votes website here.
Everyone in the ACT votes for the same Senate candidates, and two will be elected to represent us.
Policy Breakdown
We’ve looked for important policies about women, people with disabilities and violence prevention. The Parties are listed in alphabetical order, with independents and microparties at the bottom. You can see which candidates are in each area under the party name.
Australian Labor Party
Senate Candidates: Katy Gallagher and Nancy Waites | House of Representatives Candidates: Dr Andrew Leigh (Fenner), Alicia Payne (Canberra), David Smith (Bean)
Women
Commitment to make abortions safe, accessible, legal and free.
Will remove the Medicare rebate freeze, which disproportionately affects women
People with Disabilities
Committed to delivering the Royal Commission into the abuse, violence, neglect and exploitation of people with disabilities and will review commissioners with conflicts of interest.
Committed to lifting the staffing cap on the NDIA.
Will work with people with disability to improve employment opportunities and job readiness.
Increase the proportion of people with a disability employed in the APS, ensuring they have access to meaningful career development.
Deliver needs-based school funding so our schools and teachers are equipped to meet the needs of students with disability.
Will support women’s ability to have control over their own fertility, including women with disability, by ensuring women and girls have access to the sexual and reproductive health services they require across the life course.
Will implement the ‘National Decision-Making Principles’ published in the Australian Law Reform Commission’s (ALRC) 2014 report, Equality, Capacity and Disability in Commonwealth Laws.
Wants to end the demonisation of welfare recipients
Will establish an NDIS Future Fund to maintain the security of NDIS funding.
And much more – search ‘disability’ within the National Platform document here.
Violence
Will legislate for 10 days paid Family and Domestic Violence leave.
Invest $88 million in more crisis and transitional housing for women and their children escaping violence.
Will match the Liberal party commitment to the 4th Action Plan of the National Plan to Reduce Violence Against Women and Children.
Aware of the need for accessible crisis accommodation for women fleeing Domestic Violence in the ACT
Australian Progressives
Senate Candidates: None | House of Representatives Candidates: Kagiso Ratlhagane (Fenner), Robert Knight (Canberra), Therese Faulkner (Bean)
Women
Committed to advocate for fairness for women wherever there are systemic discriminatory practices; including equal pay, maternity leave and childcare.
Want to tackle systemic issues related to access to services for women.
People with Disabilities
Committed to raise social security payments such as the DSP.
Committed to remove eligibility barriers to support payments.
Want to fix the NDIS so that it better serves the community.
Violence
Supports all the recommendations to increase funding and services as outlined in the final report from the Victorian Royal Commission into Domestic Violence.
The Greens
Senate Candidates: Dr Penny Kyburz and Emma Davidson | House of Representatives Candidates: Andrew Braddock (Fenner), Tim Hollo (Canberra), Jonathon Davis (Bean)
Women
Committed to make abortions safe, accessible, legal and free.
Legislate to protect the right to request family friendly, flexible workplaces;
Value the work of carers through extended paid parental leave, with superannuation;
Will legislate for 10 days paid Family and Domestic Violence leave
Will create a new ten-year, $5.3 billion National Partnership Agreement on Domestic Violence and Violence Against Women between state and federal governments. The Greens’ plan would provide 10-year funding certainty for frontline response services
Will increase and provide long-term secure funding support for Our Watch and ANROWS
Committed an additional $200 million over four years to a Survivor Grant fund, which would give up to 50,000 FDV survivors grants of up to $4000.
Liberal Party of Australia
Senate Candidates: Zed Seselja and Robert Gunning | House of Representatives Candidates: Leanne Castley (Fenner), Mina Zaki (Canberra), Ed Cocks (Bean)
Women
The recent Budget will fund a Single National Mechanism for Commonwealth Legal Assistance, providing $1.2 billion over three years for legal assistance services.
Listing new diagnostic imaging services on the Medicare Benefits Schedule used in the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer.
Prioritising perinatal mental health with $26.3 million over five years.
increasing flexibility in the Paid Parental Leave system and expanding access through changes to the work test
People with Disabilities
$527.9M funding for the Royal Commission into the abuse, violence, neglect and exploitation of people with disabilities
Will roll out new NDIS planning pathways, including longer plans.
Introduce a new NDIS Participant Service Guarantee from 1 July 2020 – setting new standards for shorter timeframes
Commit $45 million to develop a national disability information gateway, including a website and 1800 number, to assist all people with disability and their families to locate and access services in their communities.
Introduce a new 7 per cent employment target for people with disability across the Australian Public Service (APS) by 2025.
Provide $2 million to support people with autism to find and keep a job, including a $1.5 million national expansion of the successful Dandelion Program in partnership with DXC Technology.
Violence
$328M Funding for the 4th Action Plan of the National Plan to Reduce Violence Against Women and Children has previously been announced but has not been expanded to include women in institutional settings.
$14.9 million investment to 2022-23 to expand the No Interest Loans Scheme for women experiencing family and domestic violence, and extending the early release of superannuation for victims of domestic and family violence.
United Australia Party
Senate Candidates: Peter Walter and Rebecca Hodgson| House of Representatives Candidates: Glen Hodgson (Fenner), Greg De Maine (Canberra), Tony Hanley (Bean)
Women
Wants to legislate for gender balance in cabinet positions.
Micro-Parties
Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party
Senate Candidates: Shane Van Duren and Scott Birkett
WWDACT will not publish more on this party due to their stance on reproductive rights and discrimination based on sexuality and ethnicity.
Sustainable Australia
Senate Candidates: John Haydon and Angel Joy
Want to expand public transport networks across the country
Want to improve the affordability of housing, for both renters and owner-occupiers
Women
Supports the provision of universal access to free contraception and reproductive health advice.
People with Disabilities
Supports the full rollout of the NDIS
Independents
Anthony Pesec
Independent Candidate for the Senate
Opposes cuts to Medicare and Federal Health funding
Supports greater resources for aged care and mental health
Ben Rushton
The Great Australian PartyHouse of Representatives Candidate for Bean
WWDACT will not publish more on this party due to their intention to eliminate the Family Court.
David Kim
Christian Democratic Party (Fred Nile Group) Candidate for the Senate
WWDACT will not publish more on this party due to their stance on reproductive rights and discrimination based on sexuality and religion.
Gary Cowton
Independent Candidate for the Senate
No relevant policies available
Gary Kent
Independent Candidate for the Senate, running mate of Anthony Pesec
No relevant policies available
Dr Jamie Christie
Independent House of Representatives Candidate for Bean
Wants to stop the Robodebt scheme.
Wants to improve the ACT Health system.
Committed to addressing disadvantage in Bean.
Matt Donnelly
Liberal DemocratsHouse of Representatives Candidate for Bean
WWDACT will not publish more on this party due to their policies to decrease welfare, privatise healthcare, abolish all affirmative action programs and abolish government funded programs and bodies that cater to disadvantaged groups.
Wants to introduce online voting to increase access to voting.
Tim Bohm
Independent House of Representatives Candidate for Canberra
Wants to improve transport through federal support for Light Rail stages II and III and High Speed Rail to Sydney.
Committed to a viable future for Medicare and transparent, equitable private health.
Wants to address the need for safe housing for women.
References
Many resources are not available in completely accessible formats. Please contact WWDACT if you would like our help to access the content of the files.
WWDACT has signed an open letter with 13 other community organisations to call on the ACT government to bolster their proposed rental reforms by amending the Residential Tenancies Act to abolish no cause, unfair evictions.
We know that women with disabilities are often faced with challenges in the private rental market, with a CHOICE report last year saying that people with disabilities are nearly twice as likely to experience unfair evictions. People with disabilities are also likely to experience greater moving costs, and spend more time looking for a suitable home.
The letter also includes a call to require approval by the Tribunal for rent increases above CPI and minimum energy efficiency and safety standards for rental properties in the territory. It is hoped that such reforms would help make homes more affordable, more comfortable and safer for renters.
You can add your support by writing to your local MLA letting them know you support abolishing unfair evictions. You can find out more about the Make Renting Fair Alliance at: http://www.makerentingfaircbr.org.au/
People with disabilities are increasingly exercising their right to become parents, and maternity services in the ACT need to ensure that models of care are appropriate to facilitate this. Current models of care are likely to be reactive to the medicalised disabilities presented to the health care professionals, rather than pro-active and collaborative with the mother. Current models of care must update to respect the authority of mothers in their own needs, reflect the diversity of disabilities, and include respectful support for parents with cognitive impairment to reduce the rates of child removal.
This is the script of a speech given by C Moore, WWDACT CEO, at the Canberra Women’s March on January 20th, 2019. Please be aware that this speech contains reference to violence, abuse and sexual assault.
Social Isolation and Violence against Women with Disability
I am a non-binary, genderqueer person, raised as a woman. I am a queer person. I am a person with disability. I march with you today as a person who balances the intersectionality of these identities. I hope to help you to understand some of the complexity facing those of us at the intersection of disability and gender. Unfortunately statistics for nonbinary and gender diverse people with disability are virtually nonexistent so this speech focuses on women, but anecdotally, I know that many of the same gendered issues are faced by us.
The disadvantage placed on a woman with disability is not simply the sum of ableism and sexism. It’s multiplied. Women with disabilities are disproportionately excluded in public life, work, health care, housing, income and so much more. We are all too often invisible, because just getting to a march like this involves conquering barriers that others don’t ever think of. That invisibility and isolation drives and enables an epidemic of violence against women with disabilities.
The statistics on violence against women with disabilities are harrowing. The violence and harassment discussed in mainstream feminism is amplified for us. 52% of women with disabilities have experienced workplace sexual harassment. In the US, 69% of women with disabilities experience physically aggressive street harassment. Our sisters with disabilities tell us that this is replicated in Australia. Here research tells us that 70% of women with disabilities have experienced violent sexual encounters and 90% of women with intellectual disability have experienced sexual abuse. And much of this goes unreported.
Can you imagine life where you are verbally abused every day, jostled at the bus stop, bullied at school, belittled at home. Where the media you see tells you you’re something to be pitied. The more different you look or sound to others, the greater the incidence of abuse. The impact of a life of put-downs contributes to lowering self-esteem, eroding confidence, and preventing young girls with disabilities from developing a strong sense of self. Little wonder that there is a high incidence of chronic depression and mental illness in addition to a primary disability. A power imbalance is created in all our interactions with able bodied society. This power gap is increased when disability intersects with a different gender identity. And this can be exploited by those who target women with disabilities, in relationships and in families, and from support workers, or co-workers.
Little wonder that women with disabilities are 40% more likely to experience domestic violence. That takes different forms for us because partners are often the ones providing necessary supports. They can withhold that support as a form of abuse, use that power to discourage women from reporting and leaving. This is reinforced by policy that expects partners or family members to be primary carers, and often leaves women powerless to speak up.
Women with disabilities also experience abuse from paid support workers in institutions and from service providers. Over the first 3 months of its operation, the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission received 184 reports of abuse or neglect, 29 of which were sexual assaults, from within service providers in New South Wales and South Australia. This is just the tip of the iceberg, in a new scheme that covers only a fraction of the population. We have been asking for a Royal Commission to shine a light on the true extent of abuse and neglect of people with disabilities for years, and stories like this just keep coming. You can call for it too. It is, after all, an election year.
In so many settings, women with disabilities are targeted by abuse because we are isolated and othered by able bodied society. Each of you can enable women with disabilities to be more visible and included, helping to break the cycle of isolation and abuse. That means personal and organisational commitment to including women with disabilities in our community.
Look for opportunities to improve access and inclusion without waiting for one of us to point it out. Make sure your next event asks attendees about their access requirements. Ask your local politicians about their plans for inclusion. Seek out people with disabilities to work with you. Follow the work of local advocates like WWDACT and learn from our perspectives. Boost our voices in the community, stand in solidarity with us. Only if we are included is our isolation decreased and our level of safety in the community increased.
Australian Progressives
The Greens
United Australia Party