As the National Peak Body for First Peoples with disability, The First Peoples Disability Network (FPDN) is profoundly disappointed by the Australian Government’s failure to fully commit to the change needed to significantly reduce the violence, abuse and exploitation of people with disability.
The Disability Royal Commission heard from almost 10,000 people with disability, their family and supporters, kin, advocates and representative organisations about how many of people have been hurt and harmed at school, at work, in hospital, in prison, in public, and in disability services. The response from the Australian Government fails to prioritise the redress of these harms, invest in prevention measures to make sure they never happen again or centre the human rights of people with disability.
“The Government’s failure to make any significant investment to address intersectional discrimination or the prevention of violence and abuse of people with disability is extremely disappointing” says FPDN CEO, Damian Griffis.
While FPDN welcomes the commitment of the Australian Government to work in partnership to progress relevant First Nations recommendations, this partnership needs dedicated funding to enable any real and genuine progress is to be made.
“We have the solutions, FPDN has been asking for a dedicated First Nations disability forum in one form or another for over 20 years, it’s time that you fund us to establish and implement it” says Mr Griffis.
The failure to commit funds to urgently establish the First Nations Disability Forum (Recommendation 9.10) to bring together coordinated action across the lives of First Nations people with disability only sustains the silos that perpetrated the systematic discrimination and violence First Nations people with disability face every day.
All Australian Governments need to ensure that any progression of related reforms embed the Priority Reform commitments they have made under the National Agreement on Closing the Gap.
“Disability is a cross-cutting policy priority under the National Agreement on Closing the Gap. It is clear that the government response did not consider their commitments in this space when compiling the response today.
“Nor did they give any consideration for relevant findings of the NDIS Review [Action 2.10 and Action 20.4] or the Productivity Commission’s Review of the National Agreement”, says FPDN’s National Policy & Systemic Advocacy Manager, Tahlia-Rose Vanissum.
FPDN will be releasing its own response to the Disability Royal Commission in the coming months. FPDN’s response will detail First Nations communities’ expectations for effective implementation of over 50 recommendations that directly mention or disproportionately impact First Nations people with disability, our carers, families, representative organisations and service providers.
For FPDN media enquires please contact Luke Briscoe on 0407 773 259 or email: [email protected]
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