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“The Government’s DRC response isn’t just about all 222 recommendations not being accepted.
It’s the words missing around the government’s understanding and agreement that the disabled community deserves to feel equal and as safe as non disabled people.
The disabled community’s combined voices of lived experience were not embedded in the government’s response.
The government has seemingly based its decisions on economics, leaving us stuck in a funding war between federal and state whilst still leaving disabled people at risk of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation – the very things that the Disability Royal Commission was meant to address and provide protection from.
We are not vulnerable because of our disability. We are held in this place by a public and social landscape that continues to undermine our voices and our human rights and a government that won’t do what needs to be done.
Australia’s disability community has bared our souls and revisited places of horror and experience to provide government with a detailed and true understanding of what needs to be addressed and put right.
Whilst there’s understanding that consultation does not unequivocally equal consensus, the Disability Royal Commission has sadly reiterated that the voices of disabled people have yet again been undervalued.
It is truly disappointing and disheartening to see that the process may have been for nothing, and once again at the expense of Australians living with disability.”
Krystal Matthews (PDA SA Associate Director)
for an on behalf of Physical Disability Australia – PDA
