A 76-year-old woman with physical disabilities forced to ask strangers on the street to help her open the door to her Travancore building has won a significant legal case in which two owners corporations were ordered to pay her $10,000 and install automated doors and ramps in the building.
Law plays an important role in tackling this inequality and exclusion. For the past decade, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (the Disability Convention) – an instrument of international law – has been both a catalyst and guide for legislative reform enhancing the equality and inclusion of disabled people. To what extent, though, is this Disability Convention influencing domestic case law?
Everyone likes to have their voice heard, but not everyone is heard equally. Rainbow Rights is a self advocacy group for people with an intellectual disability and who happen to be LGBTIQ+. They’ve just recorded a song to let the world know that they have the same rights that everyone else does.
A writer, comedian and advocate, she gave voice to issues relevant to the many Australians living with disability. Stella wrote for ABC for a number of years and was editor of the disability news and opinion website Ramp Up. This week marks both the International Day of People with Disability and four years since her passing.
The DSC (Disability Services Commissioner) 2018 annual report and review of disability service provision to people who have died 2017–18 was tabled in Victorian Parliament on the 19/12/2018.
Chanelle McKenna was a typical 11-year-old girl. Since she was a baby, she’s had cerebral palsy. It was at age 11 her mother agreed, in unison with medical professionals and school staff, that she should be involuntarily sterilised.
Building a lego robot is not a usual prerequisite for a career in IT. But for Peter Middleton, a job interview specifically designed to showcase the unique skills and abilities of people with autism has landed him a dream job with the Australian Tax Office.
The resources developed as part of this project provide practical consumer participation information, ideas and resources which can be used by service providers, governments and community organisations to ensure people with cognitive disabilities have a ‘voice at the table’ and participate equally at all organisational levels.
past two years of blockbuster hits featuring underrepresented communities, such as Black Panther and Crazy Rich Asians, have reaffirmed that representation in media matters. However, it’s not enough to just check a box by having actors that look like the communities they’re portraying.
Interviews and discussion with a personal and often humorous touch. With guest presenters plus Kate Monaghan and the Ouch blog team. Ouch is available exclusively online.
Ms Desmond said the school needed to be held to account for inappropriate decisions, but the buck stopped with Education Minister Jeremy Rockliff. “Parents are fighting day after day, year after year, to get appropriate adjustments,” she said. “It’s about time that schools that aren’t providing appropriate adjustments are held to account. and it’s about time the Department was held to account to ensure experiences like this don’t happen.”
Unwittingly, critics of “useless products” are sitting at the core of a battle the disability community has been engaged in for decades: The right to live in their communities, and to receive the services that enable them to do that. If you can’t use your hands to open a jar of pasta sauce, does that mean you should live in an institution?
Having written about my disability publicly for the guts of nine years, I’ve come to learn that, under the guise of inclusivity, there’s also tokenism and the act of being taken advantage of in the media, creating a misguided perception of disabled people that then feeds into our daily life.
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities will welcome Australia’s first female representative to the committee — Rosemary Kayess. “What I do is try to create a framework by which people work,” Kayess explained to Devex. “My contribution through the convention negotiation, especially around article 24 on education, has contributed to disabled person organizations and people with disability having a framework through which they can advocate for their rights.”
The horror stories of neglect and abuse of people in care are not confined to older Australians living in nursing homes. Last night, Greens Senator Jordon Steele John held the Upper chamber spellbound as he read out the names of younger disabled people who have died due to extreme negligence and even violence. Jordon Steele John is demanding that the Royal Commission into aged care be expanded to include what the ‘shared horror’ that is the disability sector. ‘We have a systemic problem here and I cannot, for the life of me, understand why the Liberal and Labor parties are not taking this opportunity to step back and ensure justice is done’ says Senator Jordon Steele John