Disability report reveals widespread discrimination.

Speaker 1 00:00

A new national report has revealed shocking cases of discrimination and neglect faced by Australians with disability released by the Disability Advocacy Network Australia Dana, the report details people being evicted while hospitalized, stranded without accessible transport, and stripped of decision making rights through overused guardianship orders. I spoke to CEO of Dana l Gibbs about the serious implications for people with disability.

Speaker 2 00:33

I think the systemic advocacy report highlights the incredibly valuable work that disability advocates are doing across the country, who are often people with disability themselves, about these kind of urgent situations that happen when people with disability are evicted from housing who are treated appallingly and don't have the same rights as other Australians. We do see that people with disability are forced into insecure, inaccessible and incredibly expensive housing, and that is causing enormous problems.

Speaker 1 01:10

Why are more disability providers currently applying for guardianship, and how does this affect people's rights at the moment,

Speaker 2 01:23

guardianship is when somebody else has the legal power to make decisions about you, and we're finding that far too often, NDIS service providers are applying to take the decision making away from people with disability that They provide services for this means that people with disability have no say over what happens to them, and they certainly don't have any kind of choice or control over their own disability services. We think this should not be allowed at all, and that NDIS service providers should not be allowed to take out guardianship over a person with disability that they are providing services for. We are really strongly working on this, as are many of our members. We think this is a fairly straight forward fix to stop people with disability being stripped of their rights.

Speaker 1 02:16

What sort of changes would you like to see in that guardianship law to better support people with disability.

Speaker 2 02:22

I don't even think it has to be the guardianship law. The NDIS quality and safeguards commission does regulate NDIS providers, and it would be reasonably straightforward to for them to make it so that they are not allowed to do this while they are providing services. We think that there is far too much conflict of interest in the NDIS provider market, and advocates are working all the time with people with disability who have been ripped off because of that and because they don't have access to independent information and advice when they're trying to find a provider to support

Speaker 1 02:59

them. Well, I guess transport access is also an important issue at the moment. What needs to be done to avoid long transport delays that could impact someone with disability.

Speaker 2 03:15

Too much about public transport still is not accessible. The standards came into place in 2002 which is now a long time ago, and we're no closer to a fully accessible public transport system. So lots of people with disability rely on wheelchair accessible vehicles like taxis to get them around. And there's a big problem with both availability of those vehicles, but then also the reliability of them. So people who need a wheelchair accessible taxi to go to work or school or to a medical appointment are often getting stranded and not able to get to them at all. So we don't think this is this is fair in any way, and particularly in regional areas like where I am, wheelchair accessible vehicles are really thin on the ground, and we need many more of them, and they need to be significantly more reliable so people with disability aren't stranded at home. What

Speaker 1 04:15

difference would more funding in disability advocacy make?

Speaker 2 04:21

So right now, we're seeing really big waiting lists across the country in our disability advocacy services so people with disability who are waiting weeks and weeks to get the support they need and offered help with urgent situations. So we need a significant increase in advocacy funding, both individual and systemic, so that people with disability can have someone to walk alongside them, you know, to tackle some of these huge barriers to an equal to being part of a

Speaker 1 04:55

community that was CEO of Dana l Gibbs speaking. Walking to the wire and.