‘Ask if we as people with disabilities can’ – celebrating International Day of People with Disability

As a person with lived experience of disability and significant professional achievements in disability advocacy and leadership, Mr Innes spoke about how organisations like ours can build more inclusive workplaces and client services to improve equality for people with disability.

He highlighted the limiting factors that people with disability face in the areas of employment, leadership and the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and opportunities for reform, sharing examples from his personal experience.

‘People with disabilities are limited by other people’s assumptions about us,’ he said.

‘We experience what I describe as the soft bigotry of low expectations.

‘Even though I acquired a law degree using braille and audio material, and even though in offices we regularly scan print documents, one employer could not imagine how I could read files in print.

‘Even though I had managed to achieve the positions of a judicial officer and a commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission, one employer could not imagine how I, without making eye contact, could hold the attention of magistrates and judges.

‘Don't assume that we cannot do things. Ask if we as people with disabilities can. Give us jobs, not fatuous reasons why we can't do them. Support us to develop the skills to take leadership positions and then encourage us into them.

‘We stay in jobs longer. We take less sick leave. We make fewer worker’s compensation claims, and because of our experience managing complexity as people with disability just so that we can live our lives, we make better managers. We are a great value proposition for employers.’

Speaking about the NDIS, Mr Innes emphasised its social and economic benefits for people with disability and the community more broadly, as well as areas for its reform.

‘Lived experience of disability is a key component necessary to fully understand and accept the aims and purposes of the scheme to improve the quality of lives of Australians so that we can make a stronger contribution to Australian society,’ he said.

‘People with disabilities need to both take leadership roles in the scheme and partner with the scheme in its design, its implementation and its direction.’

He also acknowledged our work to support people reviewing NDIS decisions at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

Progress on our Disability Action Plan

The event was an opportunity to reflect on our progress since launching our Disability Action Plan 2022–2025 last December. In the plan, we committed to taking stronger actions of inclusion and equity for people with disability in Victoria, including our staff and service users.

We’ve made progress for our staff, clients and community but have a lot more work to do over the next three years.

Our CEO, Louise Glanville, described our organisation’s strong commitment to accessibility and inclusion for people with disability.

‘It’s the responsibility of our Board and our Senior Leadership Team in particular, but of all of us, to work towards a safe and secure workplace for the purposes of inclusion,’ she said.

Over the past year, we worked to reduce barriers to people with disability accessing our services. For example, we created information in Easy English and videos in Auslan about our services for people with a cognitive disability, hearing impairment or vision impairment. We improved clients’ disability descriptors in our systems, allowing us to better tailor our services.

We’ve also worked to improve recruitment and workplace support for our staff with disability as a new member of the Australian Disability Network. Some of our recent initiatives include establishing and supporting our new Disability Employee Network, more disability training for staff, improved building accessibility and planned improvements to our Workplace Adjustments Policy.

Our work to bring about cultural and attitudinal change to the inclusion and participation of people with disability in the community has also continued. Recent examples include our submissions to the review of the Disability Act 2006 (Vic), the Disability Royal Commission and facilitation of community submissions through the ‘Your Story’ Disability Legal Service through National Legal Aid, and the recent Disability Inclusion Bill 2022 (Vic) exposure draft.