In 1981, Lesley Hall and some mates stormed the Miss Australia Quest. They actually strategically bought tickets, but to imagine them storming through the doors of the St Kilda Town Hall is too delicious. But Lesley definitely stormed the stage.
She stands right in the thick of the ceremony, flanked by madly grinning beauty contestants who are doing all they can to ignore her and probably all they can to stop themselves from beating her up for having spoiled their day.
She holds a placard in her hand: ”Spastic Society oppresses women.” It makes good use of the SS reference. It’s a fantastic picture. It’s wonderfully and creatively defiant. The picture is now famous. It has been reprinted in books and is used in gender studies at universities, and dons the walls of many people who love its audacity and power.
There’s something else about this photo that makes it even more powerful to those who know Lesley. It captures the very heart of her. Her act is in your face, her poster unequivocal, and its statement extreme and true. It’s daring and bold and challenging. She’s dangerous; because she’s not afraid to take on anything, she’d take on the world if she had to.
It was the International Year of the Disabled Person. Historically, disability support had come under the auspices of charities that were a bone of contention to disability activists such as Lesley, who objected to the charity/institutional perspective of segregation, of being projected as objects of pity and of an odious emphasis on some kind of physical perfection. This radical protest was the first public act to place disability as a feminist issue on the agenda.
Lesley was often at the forefront of radical change. In 1981, she helped found the Disability Resources Centre and the Women with Disabilities Feminist Collective. She worked for a number of disability advocacy organisations, including the Disability Resource Centre (DRC), Reinforce, Action for Community Living (ACL), and as a project officer with the disability section of the United Nations ESCAP in Bangkok.
In 1985, Lesley was employed by the Disability Resources Centre to investigate and report to the Australian Human Rights Commission on the rights of residents in Victorian institutions. Her report, Free from this Place, was presented to the AHRC in May 1985.
She was a board member of DRC, ACL and Victorian Women with Disabilities Network, and previously worked as an arts and cultural development officer at the City of Darebin, where she promoted the inclusion of people with disabilities in the arts. She was a member of The Art of Difference 2009 steering committee, and the chair of Arts Access. She previously served on the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission (VEOHRC) disability advisory committee and the Victorian Disability Advisory Council. She also represented VDAC on the Department of Human Services’ industry advisory group.
In September 2008, she was employed as the chief executive of the Australian Federation of Disability Organisations, where she brought her experience, skills and long commitment to human rights for women, people with disabilities and indigenous people to the organisation’s national and international work.
Lesley has dramatically increased the policy involvement of people with disabilities in Australian and international disability issues. On behalf of AFDO she represented and involved people with disabilities in the consultation, lobbying and campaign to achieve the National Disability Strategy and the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) with fantastic success.
Lesley knew the transformative power of the arts. She worked with Melbourne Workers Theatre and was on the board from 1988 to 2002. She was there for a host of plays, including Dusting Our Knees, The Aftermath, The Ballad of Lois Ryan, Nidjera, Black Cargo, No Fear, Oh My God, I’m Black, and many more.
As arts and cultural officer at the City of Darebin she was passionate about the representation in the arts of our multicultural community, of the indigenous community, and of gender and disability. She was responsible for a two-day music festival being developed into what is now a 10-day music feast. She played a vital role in the formation of Platform Youth Theatre. She was the chief instigator behind the Darebin Writers’ Festival. A highlight was when she organised a group of Warlpiri women to come to Melbourne to dance at the music festival.
She demanded better and more powerful representation of artists with disabilities. Veronica Pardo from Arts Access says: ”Lesley was instrumental in driving an ambitious and transformative strategic agenda, to change the way the arts and cultural sector engages with people with a disability, as both practitioners and audience.”
While on the board of The Art of Difference she was involved in the presentation of a gutsy and radical international festival of works performed by artists with disabilities.
Lesley was also a fine editor. Her stories are published in Unusual Work and she was in the process of writing her first novel.
She was a truly exceptional daughter, sister and friend who will be dearly missed. She leaves an important legacy in the form of a call to continue to fight, to storm the gates of the institutions, to attend the rallies, to lift our voices and our fists up high against what’s not right, to resist with all our might, to demand decency and equity and for all, a better life.
Read the full story... (off-site)- Topics:
- Ableism and disability models, Human Rights
- Author:
- Frank Hall-Bentick, Patricia Cornelius
- Source:
- The Age
- Date published:
- Fri 8th Nov, 2013