The NDIA and Victorian Government must prioritise people with disability so they do not suffer in Stage 4 lockdowns

As Victoria enters the unprecedented time of Stage 4 lockdown and a state of disaster is declared in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, disability advocates and academics have come together to highlight the vital importance of state and federal Governments working together to eliminate critical gaps for people with disability.

The situation in aged care homes has already shown a lack of joined up planning and responses can result in preventable harms and risks. In the media release below advocates from the disability sector identify the key areas of concern for people with disability and the urgent need for the NDIA and Victorian Government to implement a plan to ensure people with disability do not suffer through the stage 4 lockdown.

Advocacy, Policy and governancePower to Persuade3 August 2020Disability, NDIS, Policy making

An inclusive response to the financial impacts of COVID-19

A new report from the Centre for Social Impact provides an overview of the impact of the pandemic on the financial wellbeing of Australians, and explains the key elements of the government response so far.

Building a sustainable, comprehensive response to COVID-19 in prisons

Tackling COVID-19 must include building a sustainable response in prison systems and other detention settings.

Advocacy, Policy and governancePower to Persuade22 July 2020prisons, covid, public health, human rights

Women released from prison are at much greater risk of violence

Women who have been to prison should be a priority group for violence prevention.

Affirmations and paradoxes of Coronavirus: People, Professionals, Politicians

In Australia, the story of dealing with the coronavirus pandemic so far has been largely a positive one. Leadership and speed of response to this point has been recognised as critical to containment and management of the pandemic (Tiffen 2020). If we were to award the gold medal, it should go to our public health community. But we have seen strength in many quarters and for that reason, Valerie Braithwaite argues that we sell everyone short by singling any one group out.

Advocacy, Issues, Policy and governancePower to Persuade16 July 2020COVID-19, Population health, public health

Let’s throw out the language of “vulnerability”

Jane Chen, independent researcher, writes that the language of vulnerability masks the structures that result in greater exposure to public health risks - as with the public housing towers in Melbourne and COVID-19.

Reform of Work for the Dole needed now

As unemployment soars, our social welfare systems have been given a much-needed overhaul, albeit these changes are thus far considered temporary. What has not yet been discussed in any meaningful way is how the government will support people back into work. In today’s piece, Simone Casey (@SimoneCasey) of Per Capita (@percCapita) provides an analysis of the Work for the Dole program, an “employment program” that has been highly problematic. This piece first ran in Croakey.

AdvocacyPower to Persuade25 June 2020employment, Social Welfare, policy problem

COVID-19 and BAME Communities

In today’s post, David Hildebrand from the Immigration Advice Service in the UK breaks down some of the reasons why people from BAME communities have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.

AdvocacyPower to Persuade16 June 2020COVID-19, social determinants of health, health, social inequalities

Cashless Debit Card Expansion under COVID-19

This post questions the Morrison Government's recent decision to extend the Cashless Debit Card trials until the end of 2020. Dr Shelley Bielefeld (Law Futures Centre, Griffith University), Susan Tilley (University of South Australia), Priya Kunjan (University of Melbourne) and Dr Elise Klein (Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University) argue that the decision is unjustified by research and evaluation, and will do more harm than good during the COVID-19 pandemic.

AdvocacyPower to Persuade9 June 2020welfare reform, welfare-to-work

Expensive, isolating, lonely: new report reveals experiences of people with disability during COVID-19

Australians with disability represent some of the most excluded of all Australians in relation to the impacts of coronavirus. At the same time, many people with disability are particularly at risk from COVID-19, because of barriers that exist to their inclusion, and their need for ongoing support. People with Disability Australia asked people with disability to tell them about their experiences over the last two months, and have released a report on those findings today.

Advocacy, Policy and governance, Service DeliveryPower to Persuade5 June 2020COVID-19, Disability, NDIS

Covid19, Our Brothers, and the New Reminders That Only Certain Lives Matter

AdvocacyPower to Persuade22 April 2020Disability, discrimination

The politics of kindness — Or, if only you loved the guys on Manus like I do

Georgia Lee (a pseudonym), academic and activist, explains how kindness and solidarity are intrinsically linked - and can be the key for a new kind of politics - drawing on the refugees in onshore and offshore detention and the COVID-19 response as examples

Why temporary migrants need JobKeeper

Last week, Abigail Lewis flagged unanswered questions about Australia’s temporary visa system in the current health crisis, the essential work being done by temporary visa holders in response to COVID-19, and the need for policy flexibility and care for people in limbo during a pandemic that crosses borders.

This week, the University of Melbourne’s Joo-Cheong Tham argues that the Australian Government should give temporary migrants access to JobKeeper.

Advocacy, Issues, Policy and governancePower to Persuade8 April 2020migration, public health, COVID-19

1 in 10 children affected by bushfires is Indigenous. We’ve been ignoring them for too long

Australian National University’s Bhiamie Williamson and Francis Markham, as well as Western Sydney University’s Jessica Weir argue, that Aboriginal people, particularly those aged less than 15 years old, are disproportionately affected by Australian bushfires and should therefore have a much stronger presence in all bushfire inquiries going forward.

Advocacy, Policy and governancePower to Persuade6 April 2020Aboriginal issues, Disadvantage

Information accessibility during the COVID-19 crisis

Information accessibility is a right under that UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Article 21) and is an area protected by the Disability Discrimination Act in Australia. Yet in the face of the COVID-19 crisis, the immediate reality and implications of this right have never been more apparent for people with disability: having access to good quality, up-to-date information in accessible formats is quite literally a matter of life and death. Dr Ariella Meltzer from the Centre for Social Impact, UNSW Sydney, examines some questions about what providing accessible information in such a crisis means.

Advocacy, AccessibilityPower to Persuade1 April 2020Disability

Data underpinning COVID-19 decisions should be made public

As Covid-19 case numbers have been rising quickly in Australia Government responses and recommedations to the public have also been fast moving. In an age where trust in our political institutions is at an all time low Professor John Shine from the Australian Academy of Science argues that in such a fast moving environment transparency must be at the core of Government responses. The Academy has thus called on the Government to make all the data and science underpinning their Covid-19 decisions be made public.

Advocacy groups call for immediate changes to Australia's welfare system in the face of COVID-19

As unemployment surges in the face of Covid-19, advocacy groups are calling for Government to respond by raising the rate of all welfare payments and put an end to the Cashless Debit Card trial. Yesterday the Accountable Income Management Network and the Australian Unemployed Workers Union issued a joint Media Release outlining their calls to the Federal Government. Below are their demands:

AdvocacyPower to Persuade24 March 2020government, policy problem, Social Welfare

People with disability and the COVID-19 response

Leading health and disability researchers in Australia are calling for urgent action from State and Federal governments to develop a targeted response to COVID-19 for people with disability, their families and the disability service sector. In this post originally published by Croakey, Professor Anne Kavanagh from the University of Melbourne and Associate Professor Gemma Carey from UNSW flag risks facing people with disability in this rapidly shifting environment and set out recommendations for government to mitigate those risks.

Advocacy, Issues, Service DeliveryPower to Persuade16 March 2020disability, NDIS, health, COVID-19, pandemic

The sad ableism in Australia towards people with Down syndrome and the parents that choose to have them: from an online study

When 60 Minutes aired a segment called ‘Does Australia really want to see the end of Down syndrome?’ in August 2017, its Facebook platform was flooded with negative comments about people with Down syndrome and their parents. Belinda Johnson and Dr Raelene West from RMIT University examined the online responses to the program and uncovered confronting views of Down syndrome as an economic burden, a medical burden and a social burden. As they worked their way through comments questioning the right of children with Down syndrome to access publicly funded disability services in light of advances in prenatal testing, for example, the authors began to question the extent to which derogatory and ill-informed comments that push people with disabilities into an exhausting and endless process of justifying their existence should be tolerated in the name of free speech. Their findings were recently published in the Journal of Sociology.

Advocacy, IssuesPower to Persuade16 March 2020disability, NDIS, social media

Pointless and punitive: why jobactive has to go

My experiences as a ‘job seeker’ reinforce the view that jobactive should be shut down. I chose the jobactive provider because I had heard its senior managers boasting about the skills of their staff. To keep things fair, I told the workers I met about my knowledge of employment services and that I was taking notes of every appointment. These notes were so I could check what they told me to do was technically correct in relation to the guidelines and Social Security Act. Here’s a short account of what happened in the 4 months I was job seeker.

Issues, AdvocacyPower to Persuade27 February 2020Lived/consumer experience, policy problem, Policy making

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