The 12 Assessments of Christmas

The Christmas episode of the Independent Assessment was recorded prior to Sunday's horrific events
at Bondi Beach. The co-hosts of this podcast want to offer our condolences to all of those killed
and affected by these tragic events.
May kindness triumph over hate.
Welcome to the Independent Assessment, a new podcast produced by Radio 1 RPH in partnership with
Advocacy for Inclusion. This podcast is made possible with support from the Community Broadcasting
Foundation and Hands Across Canberra. I'm Seymour. And I'm Craig Wallace. The Independent
Assessment takes a look at disability issues in Canberra beyond the parliamentary triangle.
Join us as we dive into reform, politics and culture with curiosity and a sense of humour.
It'll be playful, curious, provocative and possibly a bit raw at times, but most of all this will
be unfiltered and completely unofficial. We'll be talking to guests, introducing some regular
segments and mostly trying to fill an hour with unscripted talk. There will be pop culture.
There will be nerd culture. There will be disability culture. There'll be Canberra chat. And there
may even be Scottish Pirate Metal. But what there won't be is official positions and takes from
organisations because you can get them somewhere else.
Assessments of Christmas on the places, spaces, cultural trends,
politics and people who've managed to crawl their way to the end of 2025 and possibly some who
didn't. It's our independent assessment-themed Yuletide trip back for a year that most of you,
and some of us, definitely me, would probably rather forget. We're going to talk about whether we
met our goals, what sort of digital innovations needed a robo-assessment, where we got our social
supports lined up for Christmas. So grab your eggnog, your hot chocolate, maybe a whiskey, grab
your clipboard, your felt-tipped pens, and we'll assess 2025 and maybe give some speculations on
the year to come. So let's introduce our first assessment.
Thanks, C and listeners. Good to be here with you. But before we get cracking, for those of you who
can't see it, we're actually looking quite Christmassy this time. So I've faked it with a wallpaper
that I literally just pulled out of the internet five minutes ago. But C, you're quite impressive.
Did you say that was a Christmas slopey? It's a slowpoke. It's a Pokemon. So for anyone who's into
Pokemon. I've got a big slowpoke poshie with a very silly hat. I would be wearing the hat, except
it's got large bells on it, which wouldn't be great listening. And a quite impressive tree. Yes,
that's my default Zoom Christmas tree because it's just small enough to sit on the table. Yeah,
and I've gone full kind of European snow fakery in the background. So that brings to that first
assessment is a goal-setting assessment. I feel like I need that at this time of the year.
What life goals did we meet or fail to meet in 2025? And what do we think should be our goals in
the new year be? Yeah, so this was actually really helpful to reflect on. I did actually do my New
Year's resolution this year, which was to swim every week until the Phillip Pool closed for winter,
which might seem pretty pedestrian, but I've...
quite a bit of chronic illness, mobility issues, and actually going once a week, more than once a
week sometimes for that stage was about four months straight was really a success story for me.
Just wish that there was a pool close to me over winter and it definitely made a difference to my
physical health throughout the year. So that was a little success. In terms of fells though, anyone
who knows me knows that I'm always talking about burning out and it feels like it's just a cycle.
And this year, I think we definitely hit that. as well. I know a lot of other folks in advocacy and
community sector are really feeling it this year and I, yeah, had a bit of a tough time the past
couple of months just trying to get through the end of the year. Does lead into my goals for next
year, though. I have banned myself from going on any more community boards for a little while,
focusing on maybe having a bit more of a social life outside work and volunteering. Don't know if
that resonates with you, Craig, but yeah, curious to hear about your goals. Yeah, yeah, it does
see. So we were at the eye day event at the end of the year, and I think like there was a fair bit
of sort of enthusiasm for the topic, but what was noticeable was people were just,
I don't know, I'd call it like bone tired. Like people were just so, yeah, really wanting to do
something, but actually saying we just don't have the spoons or the energy. Like it is the
combination of, I guess, the bombardment of bad news and the deteriorating scope of the NDIS and
the advocacy pressures that's putting on all of this. It's a real thing. So I'm there as well. My
sort of goal at the start of the year was to try and reduce my time.
on x or twitter or whatever it is we're calling it today getting this thing over the sort of
holidays where you kind of doom scrolling and tweeting and posting all of the times i kind of had
an enforced break when i had a family member spending a lot of time in hospital and kind of just
had to sort of step away to deal with that and a family bereavement and and when i came back it was
kind of like i don't have you ever gone to like a school reunion see where you kind of come back
into it and you meet with them and they're all kind of there's a Group of people still having the
same conversations that they were having back in school. And you're kind of like, oh, look, I've
grown up from this through trauma and just life. And they're all still there talking.
That's to me what Twitter felt like. So I've genuinely kind of kept away from it a bit. I probably
post once or twice a day. I sound like a recovering addict now. But I've genuinely kind of kept
away from it just because it is such a toxic space. So I guess next year is to kind of keep that
up, have some time out every day. Professionally, this is a bit dull, but I do want to spend some
time just getting a consolidated view of what we want out of disability reform in the ACT,
like actually sitting down and thinking, you know, moving past all the chaos, what is it that we
can do now? I just wonder, we should move on to our next assessment, C.
Yeah, so... our next assessment is looking at our emergency relief packages.
So who or what is most in need of emergency relief as we head into Christmas?
Craig, what do you think? See, look, I'm health and an access to the health system here in the ACT.
You know, we've got the second longest waiting times for public elective surgeries in the ACT.
I'm expecting more to come out when the sort of ROGs or reports on government services come out in
summer than having spent. a fair bit of time with mum out at the North Canberra Hospital.
This year, I was just sort of like, it's one of the worst places I've been in and I don't want to
ever go back again. like it's just the fraying infrastructure, the lack of access, no parking,
equipment or braking, you know, like that just needs desperate. It needs relief and attention.
TCH is not far behind in Woden and there's lots and lots of issues for long-stay patients.
And I get a sense that the government isn't, it's acknowledging maybe some of the infrastructure
problems, but not some of the service problems. What about you, C? What's your emergency relief
package going to do? I mean, I think before I dive into mine, I just really want to agree with you
on health. It's like, particularly we know that North Canberra Hospital, there will be a new
hospital there in, well, probably more like 10 years, though, that we've been told maybe five.
And these issues have been going for a long time. A lot of them are from before COVID.
And we really could be doing better. And it's not just... that are worn out like staff are really
worn out and when we're asking for changes around accessible service delivery if the staff are
burnt out then how are they going to work with us to do better I just I want to add that there was
a report recently that showed some really shocking rates of occupational violence so the whole
system needs more attention and care and it's hurting a lot of people which is a worry but for me
my emergency relief package and I Chose not to do health because I do health every day, but
housing. The housing system, both... public housing, the amount of it,
where it is, availability, but also just the private system because the waiting lists are so long,
like thousands of people just in the ACT. And then people try to get into private housing,
but the lowest price private housing is way above what you might be able to afford on a pension.
And then if you've been crashing on people's couches, you haven't got a rental history, you're not
going to get in somewhere even if you can afford it. It just is this... non-stop cycle.
I know multiple people who are living on people's couches. The background behind me is actually a
friend's stuff because I have them crashing with me while they're between places. This is not the
first person and it won't be the last. People are living on the street. Everyone has seen one or
many people. If you're out and about a lot, people are living in cars. So it's actually a lot more
than it's probably visible. So housing, it's a human right. cannot address so many other things
without housing. And we absolutely have to do something really urgently to make sure everyone has a
roof over their head. What's happened to the housing strategy that was meant to have a targeted
building, you know, many, many, many thousands of, you know, affordable public and community homes
here in the ACT as well as a section of the sort of private market that is responsive to people on
that kind of lower income. I was like, it would just... isn't happening and government isn't
leveraging it. And at the same time, there is so many cranes all over Canberra,
so much development going on. It is so profitable. This is just such a disappointing failure of
public policy here. I'm totally with you on that. Our next assessment category,
and some of these are real categories within people's NDIS packages. This is certainly one,
although whether it remains one is a question. to be seen is our transport allowance.
Who or what is in greatest need of a transport allowance at the end of 2025 and where should they
be sent? A good one, but it's kind of the most obvious answer for me,
which was anyone trying to use public transport or even find accessible parking in the city.
I'm a Southsider. When I have to go up to the city, it can be a bit of a trek. And then to get
there and find I've got double the walk. The signposting for pedestrians is terrible. And with
mobility issues, I've had situations where suddenly there's a detour and the detour doubles my
distance.
aching. So a lot of the time now, it's like, if I can't get a Lyft and I might not have the money
spare to get an Uber, I just got to cancel things. So it's the real big impact. And I'm definitely
not the only one. It's also like people who are just trying to get to medical appointments,
we've certainly heard about. And those folks who can drive and... need accessible parking.
There's so little in the city and it's really far from a lot of the amenities, it fills up super
quickly. So even just better communication about the access situation because it changes so often
could help a little bit. But often if you've got an unexpectedly long walk, you might just give up
or try and find some other way. Certainly a problem. I will say... But funny answer,
so it's not all doom and gloom. I do think maybe we should give Elon Musk his wish and give him an
allowance to get to Mars, possibly in a cardboard box using a catapult, just to get him out of
everyone's business. Is that far enough? I mean, Mars, I think, especially if he's only got a
cardboard box, like to see him grow some potatoes. Yeah, and with his come and try sort of approach
to rocketry, you sort of never know where he's going to wind up. So certainly endorse that one.
In terms of a transport allowance, I think that anyone, traveling in a wheelchair taxi in this town
deserves a bit of a transport allowance top up. And it's partly to pay for,
you know, a crash helmet and safety restraints in order to be able to travel safely in one.
So we've got this really wrong in Canberra. I mean, see, I don't think now that you're a regular
user of the Watts taxis. Have you ever been in one? I have usually when I'm hitching a ride with
someone else because I don't get... kind of government support. So I'm usually just hitching around
on someone else's. Yeah, yeah. So I think like it's probably quite a different experience and some
people use them as sort of like party bosses and maybe you're most likely to feel safe if you're
kind of drunk or zonked out of your brain after coming back from the CBD at 3am. But for people in
wheelchairs using these regularly, like it is a pretty scary ride. You're quite high up in the
vehicle. The restraints aren't always well positioned. They're transit vans,
meaning that you're sort of over the engine. And the way it's sort of been put to me is that these
aren't designed for passenger transport. A member of my family has recently had to start travelling
on these quite regularly. And on exit from the rehab hospital, they advised him literally that he
should have a head restraint and like all these extra restraints in order just to travel.
in a vehicle. That's pretty incredible that we've got wheelchair taxis running where there's a sort
of acknowledgement from the main rehab hospital that it's not safe. It's actually a case of over
-regulation that said that all the vehicles need to be of a particular type, whereas if you go over
the border, there's lots of different ones. And I think this use of subsidies, like they've kind of
made them a bit dependent on these endless top-ups rather than saying, how can we create a
viable... If people get helmets, I think they could also use them to safely travel on some of our
bike paths without being run over by bikes and e-scooters when out on the shared paths.
In terms of who, where someone might be sent, I'd actually send some of these like right-wing
commentators at the moment and say to them, go and try and do journalism and commentary.
You know, if you're under freedom, go and try and do it in Hungary. We're in a real right-wing
nationalist dictatorship where the government is controlling the message.
See how well that goes. I think there's a real kind of tension underneath these commentators,
the kind of people that are opposing the social media ban, which I do too, for probably different
reasons. So sort of say, well, actually also what you're advocating for is... a sort of
dictatorship that's going to be pretty mean on public commentary, what's your next assessment?
So the next assessment on our list is the behavioural support package. So what person or agency or
institution is most in need of some behaviour support and what might be in their package? So Craig?
Yeah, thanks. This is an easy one, but I think it's a bit of an obvious answer, but I think the
National Disability Insurance Agency itself for me, yeah, like uneven administration, lack of
market stewardship. insufficient attention to sort of the pain points in the ACT,
like the quality of local area coordination. We found out the other day that they've gone and
recontracted the local area coordination agency for another couple of years without,
yeah, like how bad is that? Gosh. And I mean, there's been a lot of folks talking about how they
really need to reconsider that arrangement. And so we're just stuck with it for another two years?
Well, at least out to 2027. Who amongst us? believes that they're actually going to get to
navigators and to a different system by then. So this is, this really speaks to me about,
you know, not really getting customer relations or community engagement or 360 degree feedback.
But it's not like we haven't told them this lots and lots of times. So in terms of,
I'd say in your behavioral support plan, NDIA, we've got some pretty basic customer relations and
consultation rules. And also, Some other basic stuff like just keep records, return calls,
train your staff properly. It's basic engagement for me. What about you,
say? What's who would be you'd be putting into your behaviour support plan? In another probably
obvious one, but I think the Canberra Liberals, there's clearly some friction going on,
but it's really hard to know what the actual conflict is. I think they probably need some social
skill building to work on their communication with each other in the workplace, possibly some
restorative practice, maybe a circle to go through the conflicts, apologize to each other,
maybe acknowledge what's gone wrong. Because, I mean, I sit with sort of Leanne Castley booting
people out of the party room for no apparent public reason. It would be nice to know that that's
resolved and that they might be able to move past their internal conflicts. Otherwise, it'll be...
more fun headlines next year, I'm sure. What about our next assessment, Craig? Our next assessment
topic is one sort of put together in jest, but I'm afraid might be all too real if some of the
reports in The Guardian and other places are to be believed. So it's the robo-assessment and it's
what do we assess as the best or worst examples of digital access,
IT or online services. During 2025, very timely, I think, in terms of both the NDIS and some of the
spectacular flops we've seen in the ACT, yes, see? Yeah, well, I had to shorten my list because it
started off about a foot long. But for me, the main terrible thing, and this includes...
NDIA is cramming AI into everything. We're hearing that AI is being used to write plans.
That's not what it was designed for, and I don't know of anything tailoring it for that. But it's
just literally in everything. It's your Microsoft setup. Now Microsoft's being taken to court by
the ACCC because they were basically saying, everyone, you have to take our new package with AI
features or nothing, when really there were other options.
pretty sick of my work computer keeping, shoving AI at me. The amount of just slop online in search
results, on social media, in videos. It feels like we're going into a new dark age because you just
can't tell what is real and what isn't. And then if you're trying to avoid it, that's nearly
impossible. Not to mention the environmental impact of AI. And there's also going to be some pretty
big consumer technological impacts from the past few days because it's buying up all the RAM.
in the world, which goes into everything. So that is going to drive up the cost of all our consumer
electronics, which a lot of us live in a digital world. So that's going to be a problem.
I will say that one good change is that my health record is a lot better than it used to be and has
made some really big improvements this year. So some laws changed. So now certain results are
shared by default with my health record. If you have it, you can still opt out if you choose to. So
now... pathologists send your results to My Health Record and after usually, for most things, seven
days, you can see them, which means I'm not having to have an unnecessary doctor's appointment for
my monthly blood tests. I can check them myself with my doctor's guidance. It's really empowering
to do that and there'll be more changes coming in future, but just that one change.
I mean, things like imaging, the amount of times you go to an appointment, they go, we never
received it. Now I can whip out my phone and I've got things ready to go. That's a huge change.
What about you, Craig? My very first job in the Department of Health as a graduate was to go out
and do a project that was called Technology in the Health Workforce, where we had to sort of, this
was in the mid-1990s. And I was kind of saying, you know, ambitiously, as you do as a young
person, oh, you know, within the next 24 months, there will be, you know, digital record keeping in
hospitals. There'll be... know, you'd be able to do telemedicine and phone chat and all of that.
And then this report kind of went away and nothing changed for 20 years. It does finally feel like
some of that potential for public good is going to come through.
While there's a lot of this, I'm going to talk about the evil of AI, but one of the things that is
going to be interesting is its application in medical science. Combines with things like
nanotechnology, you can imagine maybe we will finally get on top of some of the diseases and health
problems that have previously been completely unimaginable because they attack so many different
parts of the human body. Well, AI is about dealing with lots of problems at once on scale.
But look, I totally agree with you.
the governments you'd kind of expect to be lifting in space. So the UK, the US,
which has just gone totally, it's not going to have a go at anybody who's trying to regulate AI,
but the Starmer government should know better, as should governments in Canada and Australia, to do
anything beyond really light touch regulation of AI is just,
you know, missing the ringing disaster bell. on the eve of destruction.
I think this is potentially an event of a global disaster with untold implications.
It's bad on a number of levels. It's environmental. It's about the arts. But it's also going to
reach into the way we do jobs, education. And the thing I really worry about is that in terms of
perceived reality, and it's already happening now, is people... People won't believe stuff that is
true. Like there'll be like videos that are shared that are true and people will go, oh, no, that's
fake. It's just made up with AI. So anything, it opens up this thing of, you know, reality is now
what you choose to believe it is. And that's been a trend, I think, started off in progressive
politics that's been co-opted beautifully by the populist right for their own ends.
And we're now in a real spiral on all of that. I can't really think of much that is good outside
maybe the potential for some public good that came out of AI. So I think we're on to our next
assessment. Yeah. So our next assessment is social supports.
How are we assessing the state of pop culture, nerd culture, given it's us? What are the highlights
and highlights of the year? I'm curious about what you want in your next package next year.
Greg? Yeah, so I want more good Russell T Davies. So, you know, this year's been an opportunity to
sample both the good and the kind of bad and mediocre of that, you know, incredible showrunner and
producer of British drama. I think, for me, the sort of second season, this reboot of Doctor Who,
it's not completely misfired, but what's misfired is the finales. And his ability to kind of land
it and bring it home isn't what it once was. However, what really worked for me,
and I think this is now about two years old, but I'm catching up with it now anyway, so who cares,
is It's a Sin. Have you seen that? See? It's on the two watch. Yeah.
So this is the thing. It was on my two watch for two years because it's about HIV AIDS.
We've been in a pandemic and I was like, do I need another? thing to watch that's going to make me
sad and, you know, be like that. And actually, it's well worth it. It's really well worth it. I
mean, it's hard viewing, but it tells the story and it's not the story you think it's going to
tell. It does all the right things, overcomes a lot of tropes about the epidemic.
You know, it kind of, the characters and the way they develop, it's really,
really done with a lot of care and thought. Like, it's a bit like years and years. was very,
very clever for muscle T. I'm also watching just for sort of escapism behind drama, 1923,
which has got Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren in it. It's a kind of prequel to Yellowstone,
which I could never get into, but the prequels are better. Both of the prequels to Yellowstone are
better than the actual show, quite gripping. I've just started watching House of Guinness, which on
Netflix, which I would describe as like succession. set in period Ireland in the 1860s and with
lots of beer. Can you go wrong with that? Sounds more up my alley than succession. And actually an
LGBTIQ storyline, straight kind of plonked, but like straight in the middle of it.
So like it's very watchable. I'd like to give an honourable mention to some podcasts. I don't know
if that, we're in a podcast, so maybe we're encouraging a competition. The QIA, QAnon Anonymous
podcast with... Lee Baigart, Julian Field and Travis View is just, it's an antidote.
They just make fun of, play with and take a deep kind of horrifying dive,
but in a comic way into the world of QAnon. And the rest is politics with Alistair and Rory.
I think both of those are essential tonics for these times. See, what's your social support
highlights? So my social support highlights for the year, it was a really good year for horror
movies. I am quite into horror movies. And the Nosferatu remake was spectacular,
really beautiful. My personal favourite of the year was 28 Years Later, which is not a zombie movie
specifically, looking at an infection that is zombie-like, but they're fundamentally sick people.
And this newest version. has kind of gone back to the series' roots in that it's very British,
the Jimmy Savile references and everything, and it is a real examination of how you treat people
with respect when they're sick.
I'm trying not to give spoilers, but it's a really interesting examination of death and family, and
to have that set against a horror movie was very nice, or good watching, I suppose. There was also
Weapons, which is a bit of a wild watch, and I had to kind of... I worked myself up to watch it,
even as a horror fan. And the new Frankenstein remake is, again, really spectacular. So Nosferatu
and Frankenstein, gothic horror, loved those. In TV, I really enjoyed The Pit,
which is a medical drama. I usually don't like medical dramas. I end up yelling about informed
consent every time I watch House. This one, set in ED, was an emergency department,
was really quite grounded.
disability and particularly there's a character who's autistic. The portrayal of that character
felt like really good representation because she's a doctor, she's quite competent, but she stims
and sometimes it's visible, but she's also really good at...
analyzing situations without being an absolute savant. So it was a bit more realistic. And even
just there's a scene in there I'd love to choose in training showing how you can just adjust an
environment to make it easy for people not to be overstimulated when they're hurt and upset.
But it's quite good just where the medical procedures are quite accurate.
And it's a bit gory in places, but it touches on quite a lot of interesting issues. I do think in
the new year, I want to watch more Aussie stuff. I was going through my list and realised I had not
touched much that came from Australia. So that's a bit of a goal for me. And just closing out the
new year with video games for me, it's really frustrating that like a lot of the big game games are
in a really dire state. It's another area that AI seems to have affected, but also just profit.
driving microsoft's been buying up a lot of studios for the past few years and now they're just
driving them into the ground so a lot of my favorite games they'll never get sequels or um the the
latest edition isn't working one of my favorite games that came out in like 2014 it's actually
broken recently just completely by microsoft so i'm really ticked and I'm going to get into more
indie games next year because clearly paying $80 for a game doesn't mean it's going to be any good.
I've never really been into gaming in the summer for a long time. Are there like good Canberra
-based game developers? Is there like a community here? There are some small ones. There used to be
bigger ones. I know that like the folks behind Deus Ex, which used to be quite a big series,
used to be in Canberra. I'm not aware of any at the moment, at least not that. you'd know of,
but I'll go hunting for next year. Yeah, thanks. From AI winds up destroying all of our electronic
media, at least we've got books to fall back on, perhaps. And our next segment was to be our
reading and literacy assessment. And did we get through our signed books,
comics, or reading material in 2025? And what's on the book list for summer?
See.
I did not read enough this year. I think last year I got through 53 books. This year it was like
eight or something. But there were a few good ones in there. So my nonfiction highlights were Mean
Streak by Rick Morton. I honestly think that should be mandatory reading for public servants, which
really lays out how Robodette happened. And it's worth reading,
particularly seeing what's happening to the NDIS nowadays because it's... rhymes,
really. And Dead Centre, How Political Pragmatism is Killing Us, from Richard Dennis of the
Australia Institute, was a really solid essay and articulated a lot of my frustrations with the way
politics is working at the moment. In terms of fiction, some of the main ones is I started
revisiting an old favourite called The Nightrunner series, which is actually by an Australian
author, Lynne Flewelling. I think the first book came out in the mid-90s, so it's nearly as old as
I am. But they're just a fun fantasy. breed um boy gets whiffed off by a guy that becomes his
mentor and they're feeding around and it's just a really well-constructed universe. So I'll be
polishing off the rest of the series as my summer reads. And I love fun romance novels.
I also love terrible romance novels, but an actually good read this year was one called Running
Close to the Wind by Alexandra Rowland, which involves pirates, a cake competition and giant
tortoises. that make up islands. So it's a very silly one, but quite enjoyable. What about you,
Craig? Yeah, your reading list sounds a bit fun, mine's a bit earnest, although I started getting
into some YA fiction. Some of that is really, really well written. So my reading this year was
dipping back into my bookshelf for some lifeline book fair finds that I've just never got to.
So for sort of part of the year, I... Dip back into some of the work of Irving Wallace, no relation
to me. He wrote a book called The Word, which imagined, it's a bit like a potboiler, but with an
interesting idea at the heart of it, where imagine what would happen if somebody suddenly came out
and tried to publish a second version of the New Testament that was entirely different and
revelatory. But there's a real twist in it. But the interest is kind of the reaction of everybody
and how everybody tries to... sort of profit off this thing. The second is kind of like a surprise
read was a book by a guy I'd never heard of before called Elmer Bendener,
which is A Time for Angels, a tragic comic history of the League of Nations. It's written in a
style that I think has kind of gone out of fashion, which is kind of doing a tragic comic
historical novel where you bring all of the characters to life and set them off against each other.
in a sort of, you know, comic and humorous way. And it helps that this guy actually knew some of
the leaders of the time and had done his research. But there's so many lessons in that period of
history for us right now. Like it's a time that America suddenly started to pivot into
multilateralism. You had an exceptional president in Woodrow Wilson that was a bit like Obama.
He was an academic. Come from academia. a philosopher, somebody with ideas,
who kind of sneered, I think, at classical politics and some of the bargaining that you needed to
do. And it's also about how America kind of started to tilt away from the Monroe Doctrine.
And this is all incredibly relevant, you know, right now and actually this week with some of the
stuff coming out about America's new attitude to Europe. My sort of summer reads are,
I've got a book called The Genius Myth by Helen Lewis and Christine Rosen that I think is going to
be about exploding this kind of hero worship and bro culture around the musks and Peter Thiel's,
but tracing back its historical lineage, even sort of back to Shakespeare's time.
So I'm looking forward to that. And the extinction of experience, reclaiming our humanity in a
digital world, which is kind of about the... digital detox that we need to do and what it would
actually mean socially to do that. See, what's our next assignment? Our next assessment is on
circles of support. So who do we want in our circle of support this Christmas? And who are the
stars, influencers, leaders or activists that who met the moment in 2025?
Great. So there are some, even in a pretty grim year. Our local Senator Pocock, I think, is saying
things. that are necessary and need to be said in the federal parliament, particularly about
gambling and gambling culture. Sadly, maybe not saying the things that need to be said about the
NDIS to give some feedback to him, but I think he's saying necessary things. The TLMPs,
despite not having a balance of power, I think are continuing to make a difference. I'd just like
to give a shout-out to Stephen Mayne, who does a lot of that shareholder activism for progressive
causes within... boards of companies, slow but important work.
And somebody I've been following for quite a while, like that's an important avenue for sort of
shareholder democracy. So one you're probably not expecting is like Marjorie Taylor Greene,
who I abhor on all kinds of issues. And, you know, she says appalling things about trans people and
others. But it's kind of interesting that she's finally kind of, of all the MAGA people, seen the
light of, hang on, we've been talking for years about... Epstein files and calling for them to be
released. And actually, Trump's in them. And there's all these pictures of Trump, of the scales.
You can see them falling off in real time. So that gives me a bit of hope, her sort of resignation
and the pushback. And she's such an influential figure within that MAGA movement. I think maybe
there's signs of that fraying. Just a few shout outs to people on X.
Kelly at Broadway Baby 2 is really doing persistent disability. and COVID-related activism.
A local leader that is certainly in my circle of support is Renee Heaton here in the ACT who I
think is demonstrating excellence in being appointed to advisory bodies but not disappearing and
continuing to connect with community. An honourable mention is to Sarah Langton who came to our
first episode of the independent assessment for just going out and saying somebody needs to be
organising an NDIS protest. Nobody's doing it. I'm just going to do it. I think that was... you
know, a bit of star activism. Some leaders nationally and internationally, Cascoli from ACOS.
And finally, I just like him. The more I see of the new pontiff, Leo XIV,
he's not right on everything, but the more things that he says that are pushing back against some
of the things happening in America and pushing out for kindness, the more I like him. See,
who are you all kind of? heroes and stars and influences and maybe what do you think of some of
those as well? Well, I mean, I want to second Renee from yours. Renee's awesome and certainly we
still occasionally get to run some training together for health workers. So she's always out
connecting with community. Fabulous stuff. I've kind of gone with a list of my favourite TikTokers
at the moment because that's where I spend a lot of my time now I'm not on Facebook. And I've
actually found that it's not... as no algorithms are, but TikTok actually shows me people,
like new activists that I would like to hear from. So a few that are really sticking with me,
one's Jay Morgan, and I'll pop the usernames in the show notes, or at least I'll ask our lovely
producer to do so. But Jay is disabled, neurodivergent, queer,
and Australian, and does the hard work explaining how systems are broken. So really talking about
the experience being on Centrelink and how... utterly surreal some of the decisions being made and
explaining that the expectations that people put on disabled people to just like,
oh yeah, just go get a job. Sure, there's got to be one out there for you when there isn't actually
one. necessarily in your area or that you can actually commute to. Or when you try,
they're not able to make the adjustments that you need. And so that means you end up back on work
there and that experience. But being really frank about it and kind of pointing out to people who
make these ignorant comments that, hey, that was ignorant. Here's the reality. They do some really
good patient work. Another one is... Ange Carfar, who's actually a support coordinator.
Don't know how I ended up on angry support coordinator TikTok, but it's quite satisfying to see
people kind of go, let me tell you about the ridiculousness that's coming out of the NDIA today.
So again, showing the reality and the absurdity of decision making of where people's plans are
being cut. And it's kind of the reality that people are looking at losing their homes,
like really key day-to-day supports and how frustrating it is to be in those roles.
But turning into activism, you spoke a little earlier about the NDIA should be doing more recording
and she actually put a petition to federal parliament about recording calls with the NDIA,
which is another example of just... doing something and another one is lizzie page who's a poet and
activist and talks about some really good stuff on mental health and sanism which sanism and the
particular ableism that people with mental health issues are faced with came up quite a lot in that
i day event and i think that that's it's really good to see that talked about more publicly and
then One from the US, Crotches and Spice, who I've been a fan of since back when I was on Twitter,
but does some really great videos on disability, kind of explaining sort of the history of the
disability movement, which I think a lot of people might not understand. And as a black woman in
America, she talks about how intersectionality actually looks in reality, particularly under the
Trump administration. and the sort of how this particular thing that's happening links back to
eugenics and explaining that in real everyday terms. So I really admire the way that she
communicates those. I will also just, in terms of leaders, I will say that David Pocock is
continuing to, yeah, do some great self-empowerment. There is this, of course, more that he could
be doing. But some of his moments from Senate estimates have been really satisfying. So keen to see
more of that holding people to account. And I do think, as per usual, Jordan Steele, John has been.
calling out the craziness of the NDIS in terms of the way that it's just not working and trying to
call out the absurdity of the government decision-making there. So those are some from me.
Yeah, Jordan just does the work, doesn't he? He's really persistent. I love Crutches and Spice.
She's following him for a while. You know, some people kind of think they're just on Twitter, you
don't know what they'd be like in real life and you're not sure if you want to have that meeting. I
want to have that. I don't know if we can ever travel to America again without being thrown into
some detention camp or whatever for all of our Facebook activity, but I'd be almost prepared to
take the risk. Yeah, absolutely. Are we ready for some therapy? Aren't we all? Yeah, we are. So
it's occupational therapy time, but instead of the therapy being about us,
we are... what occupations require some therapy. What do you think of that one,
Sue? It was a bit of a tough pick for me. I was going to give it to nurses and frontline staff, but
I think not enough people are talking about the state of things for teachers right now. And well,
right now, honestly, since I was in school 15 years ago, well, longer. The education system is in
crisis. It's been for years, particularly in the ACT. We are losing experienced teachers.
Teachers don't last very long in our system, new grads. And schools just aren't properly resourced
for integrated education. And so looking at teachers that are stressed out, in some cases
they're... not necessarily meeting student ratios because there's all sorts of loopholes people can
find and not getting support from school admin or from the directorate. And it just means that
integrated education, it's becoming a reality because you just don't have the support there to
support kids properly. And it's really upsetting to see experienced teachers leaving the field and
kind of giving up on wanting to do good work with kids. That's, yeah,
really rough. Occupational violence is also really high for teachers as a field from students and
from, in some cases, parents. So it's similar to healthcare in that way.
But it's also worth acknowledging that the lack of support for parents, particularly parents with
disability, that may also be related to their kids. Everything gets pushed onto teachers when the
parents aren't supported. So it's just this continuing cycle. Teachers really,
really need a better deal. What about you, Craig? Yeah, I think teachers do it really hard in this
space as well. And it's one of the drivers of the problems. Just the teachers that we talk to about
inclusive education, you know, the majority of them are kind of, they genuinely want this to work.
I think there's a bit of a stereotype around, you know, the teachers are just wanting to be, you
know. rid of problematic, difficult students from classrooms. Well, actually what's happening is
they're sort of being just bombarded with all of this work from various sides. And I think the
administrative load that is now involved in being a teacher and loading along with new technology,
expectations of parent communities and helicopter parents, but the admin that's required of sort of
teachers. particularly around trying to obtain the skerrick of disability supports that you can
pull in schools, is something that we really need to look at again. So I totally agree with that. I
would direct a bit of therapy and kindness and reflection towards some of our colleagues involved
in federal disability advocacy. at the moment, who I think are doing it really tough,
like all of us, to try and sustain and balance workloads and expectations. I do think over the sort
of Christmas period, you know, you need to pull back a little bit from the chaos and reconnect with
purpose is always a valuable thing. You know, remember that actually a commitment to democracy and
growing a voice of our own as disabled people. was probably what got you,
you know, large budgets and large organizations to work with in the first place.
It's not an inconvenience. It's a core feature of your being. And as soon as you start to lose that
and the confidence of people on the ground, it's really, really corrosive. And it's not like any of
us, including some of us who right now are being a bit critical. want to see these organisations
fail. We love them and we've fostered them and been parts of them at various points in our lives
and we want to see them, you know, succeed. Look, I think the other kind of, you know, real
mention, particularly as the last 24 hours have seen the latest review of the Healthy Prisons
report come out is just anyone involved in the Alexander McConaughey Centre,
the ACT's prison, you know, John Stanhope is quite right. You know, he now regrets this thing even
being built. Although why he allowed it to be built where it was and in the way it was is something
for him to answer. But this is not a human rights prison. You know, there is no structured day for
detainees, no real evidence of light industry in there, you know,
no good rehabilitation or education options. And we haven't moved on that much from the COVID cell
lockdowns where people were in their cells. for 23 hours a day, all were isolated by distance.
There's just so much work to do. And I don't know if that's something that's on your radar to see
as well. It is on my radar. It's actually something I hope to do some work on next year because
there are so many things that can help people get back into community. And I think knowing how to
use the health system is one that people can miss when they get released. So hopefully there'll be
more in the new year. On to our next assessment, we're going to take a look at local area
coordination. So which local suburbs, events, institutions or agencies in Canberra need better
coordination in 2025? Craig? It feels funny to be talking about local area coordination here in the
ACT. We may well be the only ones actually attempting to do it on the podcast. So I've kind of
taken a regional suburbs approach to this. Look, I think... got some suburbs with sort of you know
really poorly managed and run down I think, or where the original conceptions of the suburbs
haven't been met by adequate infrastructure. The people living out at Charnwood get a mention.
Air quality out there in the local shopping district and the way it's organised. And also the hub
and spoke model that was imagined for that suburb just hasn't worked out, but there are things that
they could do to improve. Warramanga and Fisher, where I live, have really...
poorly maintained local commerce centres, despite even growing populations of older people.
The whole of Woden, the planning conversation around that, which is increasingly kind of toxic,
but I think is necessary. You can see this going in a really wrong direction with lots of high
ways, you know, the pool and other community, amenity disappearing and nothing walking in to
replace it. The other sort of mention I would give is one of our... of our national institutions,
the National Film and Sound Archive, was a treasure. It was somewhere my mum and I really always
used to enjoy going, but it was a brilliant destination showcasing our film and television history.
You know, I think this is underdone in terms of our national institutions, given it's such an
important part and relatable part of people's lives. It had a restaurant, a shop,
wonderfully... curated archive film program of Australian gems from 40s,
50s and 60s. It just feels to me like a bit of a shadow of its former self and I'd sort of sell a
tank or two from the War Memorial and give it to them so that the NFSA can reboot.
I don't know if you've been out there and enjoyed it. Not recently, but certainly in the past, I
remember seeing a great exhibition on The Dressmaker, which was a newer film.
but some fantastic things. And one of my desktop backgrounds is from outside the restaurant. There,
some lovely purple flowers. So it's a beautiful spot and it definitely deserves better. I mean,
in terms of my recommendations, thank you for mentioning Woden, by the way, as a Wodener. It's,
yeah, the high risers going up, but very little social infrastructure. There are some things going
up, but the way the built environment is done, just... not facilitate it. So it needs to do better.
Related to that though, mine is libraries in the ACT. The Woden libraries had some spaces done up,
but they're not well advertised, not well used. Whether there could be better ways to encourage
community organisations to use them, more active outreach to get people to use those spaces.
Looking at libraries as more of a hub for social support and connection, which is how they are in a
lot of other places. And some of our libraries have done this really well, but it's not all over.
And again, a recent report talking about the culture issues at libraries and the difficulty staff
are having there shows that there's this lack of attention on this pretty important bit of social
infrastructure. Certainly when people tell me they haven't got access to a computer, at least they
can go to a library. So there's a lot of... that better library use would benefit.
So some conscious placemaking initiatives would be awesome. Continue the efforts to make them more
accessible. There are so many things that have been done in libraries around the world that we
could try and do here that I would really love to see. And we don't have an art centre in Woden.
Maybe we could do some exhibitions or something out of the Woden Library. Just get it moving
culturally. That'd be really awesome. I love libraries. And there's a Canberra thing about Just
needing to create, like, kind of decide we're going to create new spaces for arts activities
instead of kind of, you know, loving the ones we've got and thinking about how can you do exciting
and interesting things within the great social infrastructure that we've got.
And libraries just hit, like, there's a triple bottom line benefit. There's, you know, climate
-controlled spaces during summer. They provide IT access for low-income people.
a point of social connection and literacy and they're free. Like what more is there to love,
yeah? Well, we're coming down, it's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas, I have to say, and we
are coming into the home straight. So the next assessment we've got is the reasonable adjustment
and we're asking what area of public or private administration do we assess as most in need of
adjustment as we end the year? See? Yeah, so for me it's... federal parliament mainly,
though notably there were some quibbles about this in the Legislative Assembly, that they really
need more time to consider decisions fully. We've seen sitting weeks and sitting time cut back so
much that they're just cramming things too. There have been all these attempted kind of...
bills bundling things together and really making it difficult to kind of think through choices
creating these false deadlines for really big decisions and i think we're seeing it bear out in the
kinds of policy that are going going out i mean the social media ban is was not properly thought
through not properly evidence-based definitely needed more rigor environmental planning definitely
need more rigor we need Parliament to take more time and thoroughness to make those decisions.
Though, clearly, there's a political reason for trying to make things move quickly. What about you,
Craig? I totally agree with the sort of political imperatives driving sort of rush decision-making
that I'd like to have six days for a complete Parliament. Like, there's something kind of pathetic
about rushing through what are meant to be really considered review and consultation steps.
in the way that they do. So I'm totally there for that. I also think that this kind of is happening
at the political level, see, but there's a story around rushed administrative consultation by some
of the bigger agencies, including health and DSS. I've just noticed this year, so many
consultations and EOI opportunities just in the disability. space but a bit in the health space as
well with sort of mid-January deadlines and no doubt I think we should all be starting work at the
crack of sort of January but for community sector people and advocates you definitely need a
shutdown period from all of this and the bureaucrats and officials will be taking one I'm sure.
I actually think one of the things that needs some focus, I think federally, maybe from the causes,
but from all of us, is we're talking about having an ACT social compact again and reviving that.
I think we need a federal compact. Maybe this is one of the things that we can get out of the
Albanese government is some kind of agreement about how the officials in the federal government...
interacts with the community sector. Like it is from everything from contract management to
consultation. I don't know, like it feels like it did me. Absolutely. It's like, I mean, we need to
know on what terms we're all engaging and it's just, yeah, these things have been crammed through
all year. It's been exhausting. Well, it has been exhausting. And as we sort of reach our final
assessment, I think... time for us to reach for some moments of respite.
Yeah. So our last section is on our respite care package.
So what do you most want respite from at the end of 2025 and what do you think your chances are of
getting it, Craig? I want respite from sort of the Putin's armies of sort of,
and Z's probably, of cyber warfare and sort of trolling. that's working to simultaneously amper
nationalist movements in democratic countries, claiming cultural divisions, and undermining trust
in election. I mean, this stuff is so pervasive. now i mean like i inhabit some nerd culture spaces
even like doctor who forums you suddenly get people coming out with the kind of things that say oh
this is woke this is and you kind of go that's a message that's something it just looks to me cut
and pasted and resourced and you go okay i think this is the same phenomenon that we're seeing
everywhere else and it is this pervasive and exhausting and it is ruining good things and turning
people against each other. I think, you know, honourable mentions to the sort of new media tech
bros who are profiting from all of this in clicks and views.
Yeah, and I just want respite from this because it's everywhere. What are you looking to escape
from? I mean, the Trump administration is the big one here. US's politics,
they affect the entire world. It is a superpower. And Trump's behaviour,
his administration has been doing not just deliberately awful and aggressive things out to the rest
of the world, but the internal US politics that they're railing against. DEI,
the persecution of immigrants and, well, anyone who they think that looks like an immigrant or
defends an immigrant, all of that overflows here as well. Like, full-blown fascism in the U.S.
charges up racism and xenophobia here. It makes it sort of seem to a lot of folks here that that is
acceptable or that the kind of lesser eaffles are somehow just allowed to be let slide because,
oh, you're not the U.S., like, it could be worse. It's really noticeable, certainly as a trans
person, there is so much stuff that overflows from the US to here, and it does affect policy,
especially go and look at what's happening in Queensland to gender-affirming care for children.
And then we have the sort of consumer impacts of the US's decisions, things like the deregulation
of companies in the US leading to global monopolies, and that impacts things like our online
infrastructure. We've seen the Amazon outages and cloudflare outages this year that took out half
the internet. partially because the whole thing is based on a few companies and the US is allowing
more and more monopolies to form and that is going to make things worse and worse for all of us.
Just the Trump and the US politics, we need a break, please. Yeah, we definitely need a break.
I feel like we should end off with just a bright spot. So a bright spot in my year has been...
the opportunity to do this podcast, see, and to work with you and our audience.
And I think we are starting to grow an audience for this. So I just wanted to offer some best
wishes to our friends and to our listeners. A shout out to our wonderful producer,
Sarah Guys at 1IPH and our funders in Hands Across Canberra and the Community Broadcast Foundation.
A podcast takes time. And as we're sort of saying, it's complicated and a bit of a journey.
And we appreciate the effort and the ambition of the 1IPH crew. Absolutely second that.
I also really want to send some holiday wishes, some happy wishes to anyone who's working in
rights, equality, justice, the community space. And you just take a well-deserved rest at the end
of the year. I know that Craig and I would both like to acknowledge all the effort and the
activists that have put in this year, particularly in such trying circumstances.
so many areas of our lives and acknowledge everyone who's come through that year and really stepped
up around defending the rights of disabled people. Thank you all for that and I hope that we can
bring on some more awesome voices next year as we move forward. And any final words from you,
Craig? Look, whatever your culture or belief, we thank you for listening as we got this podcast
going and wish you a safe... restful and peaceful end to 2025.
Thanks for bearing with us. We'll see you again in February 2026 and Merry Christmas.