Resources

Many First Nations people enter aged care because of disability-related support needs rather than age-related frailty. Early-onset dementia, acquired brain injury, stroke, sensory impairment and chronic disease contribute to aged care entry from age 50, decades before the age profile seen for non-Indigenous Australians. The aged care system is not structured to respond to this pattern of need.

Older First Nations people with disability experience a major policy and service gap at the intersection of disability, ageing, health and housing. Nearly half of First Nations people aged 55 and over live with disability (Avery & ABS 2025). No national dataset adequately connects Indigeneity, disability and age, and current systems respond to only one part of this experience at a time: a disability system with an age cutoff, an aged care system with limited disability competence, a health system that is often not culturally safe, and a housing system that is frequently inaccessible.

This policy position statement identifies the evidence and policy reforms required to improve employment outcomes for First Nations people with disability. First Nations people with disability have the lowest employment rate of any population group in Australia, but employment policy and programs continue to address Indigeneity and disability separately. As a result, this cohort is not consistently recognised in data, targets, or service design.

First Nations women and girls with disability experience compounding structural disadvantage at the intersection of race, gender, and disability. Yet, First Nations women and girls with disability are not adequately recognised in Australia’s data systems, policy frameworks, or service responses. Approximately one in four Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and girls has disability (ABS & Avery, 2025; AHRC, 2024).

Psychosocial disability among First Nations people has increased substantially, rising from 6.6% to 10.3% of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population between 2015 and 2022. This increase reflects the ongoing structural effects of colonisation, intergenerational trauma, systemic racism, and dispossession. While prevalence is increasing, support is falling. Since 2020- 21, access to support through the NDIS for psychosocial disability has narrowed significantly, with the access rate falling from 69% to 25%.

First Peoples Disability Network Australia (FPDN) calls for urgent, coordinated policy action to address the systemic invisibility and compounding disadvantage experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with disability who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, Brotherboy, or Sistergirl (LGBTQIA+SB+). No Australian policy instrument, data system, or funded program currently addresses the three-way intersection of Indigeneity, disability, and diverse gender or sexuality.