A disability royal commissioner says he has been struck by the fact that “nobody seems to have been held accountable” at a disability service provider in the two years since abuse was uncovered.
Submission by the Office of Public Advocate to the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability.
The report, Experiences of ABI and inclusion: Reflections on inclusion drawn from lived experience is part of OPA’s submission on how we can become a more inclusive society.
the submission focuses on eight key areas which need to change to make a material, lasting difference in the lives of people with disability. These are reforming Australia’s Discrimination Laws; enabling a path out of COVID for disabled people; lifting disabled people out of poverty; finding homes to thrive in; making Inclusive Education Work; a right to justice; making healthcare accessible; delivering the promise of NDIS; and levelling up to address gaps and barriers in service provision in the ACT.
The Chair of the Disability Royal Commission, the Hon Ronald Sackville AO KC, has written to the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of Australia’s airlines and domestic airports outlining concerns people with disability have reported to the Royal Commission based on their experiences with air travel.
The Royal Commission has published its Report on Public hearing 21, which was held in February last year. The hearing examined the experiences of people with disability engaging with the Disability Employment Services (DES) program. It focused on Mzia (not her real name) who has ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder).
A Royal Commission has been examining the experiences of people with a disability since it was established in April 2019. The Commissioners have now released a report on a disability employment program they say failed to provide appropriate support.
Supported decision-making needs to be implemented across all sectors to ensure people with cognitive disability are empowered to make their own choices, says a new report commissioned by the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability.
Ending violence against people with disability requires a detailed plan on how we make housing, education, health and transport equal for us. So it brings me great sadness as a disability rights campaigner to say the royal commission into violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation of people with disability currently looks unlikely to join the list of royal commissions that change the country.
The irony was not lost on Ms Rooble that, on her way to the inquiry, the lift at Melbourne’s Southern Cross station was out of order and she almost didn’t make it.
A disabled Bangladeshi refugee has told the Disability Royal Commission he often went hungry during his detention on Nauru because he was unable to stand in the food line for hours.
A woman of short stature has told an inquiry she is abused and harassed by strangers once a month on average, with people calling her names, laughing at her, taking videos without consent and even sexually assaulting her.
This week the disability royal commission heard tales of abuse and neglect from people with disabilities in youth detention and adult prisons. One woman described being constantly dropped while being moved in and out of her wheelchair and said she was denied physiotherapy to slow the progression of muscular dystrophy. An Indigenous man said he was denied his antidepressants and asthma puffer. A hearing-impaired man said he didn’t have an Auslan interpreter for weeks.
On any night there’s an estimated 116,000 homeless people in Australia and the majority of them have a disability. “Having nowhere to go after hospitalisation … that’s one of the difficulties I faced,” she said. “You just feel nothing, you’ve got nowhere to go, you don’t really have the ability or the finance to feel anything, so it’s nothingness.
Among the witnesses was a Warumungu woman, Daisy*, whose three children include 18-year-old Joziah, who lives with quadriplegia and dysphagia. While Daisy lives in Tennant Creek, Joziah now lives 500km away in Alice Springs, because he was unable to access the support he needed – such as speech therapy and physiotherapy – in the family’s home town.