A new report has laid bare shocking accounts of exclusion and discrimination experienced by Australians living with disability. It details stories of people struggling to find accessible housing, being left waiting hours for taxis and without opportunities to socialise.
00:00This report is all about systemic exclusion and discrimination.
00:06It's the second report of its kind that has been done by the National Centre for Disability Advocacy.
00:12Basically a bunch of advocates across the country who have come together and collated all the different stories they've been hearing in this report.
00:20Some of those are around three key areas, transport, housing and guardianship.
00:26Now, the report does say that discrimination and exclusion is happening to people with disability in almost every aspect of everyday life.
00:35But in these three key areas, I've chosen to pick out just to give you some examples of the stories that the advocates were hearing.
00:43For example, people with physical disability who are waiting hours for wheelchair accessible taxis to arrive.
00:50In one case, there was a woman who waited up to four hours for a taxi so that she could get to a funeral that she needed to speak at and she ended up missing the funeral.
01:00In other cases, regarding housing, for example, not only is it unaffordable for people with disability, like many other people are also experiencing across Australia, disabled or non-disabled, but it's not accessible in many cases.
01:15And people are being forced out of capital cities to find accessible housing.
01:20And in many cases, they're not finding it and finding themselves living in precarious situations.
01:25And then the report also mentions that in regards to guardianship, the advocates are seeing an increase in disability services providers applying for guardianship.
01:35Now, that basically means where people are allowed to essentially take control over, you know, a person and make decisions for them in terms of even where they spend their money, how they spend their money, where they live, etc.
01:50So advocates are very concerned about that in particular.
01:53So what have they had to say then in light of this report?
01:56Look, in many ways, the advocates told me that they were not surprised by a lot of these stories.
02:01They are stories that they hear very regularly.
02:03Obviously, they are supporting people and hearing from them on a regular basis.
02:08They say that they have been getting calls for their services by up to 50% on last year, which is quite a steep increase in demand for their services.
02:20And they say they want things like extra funding in order to cope with the increasing demand, but also in particular, a shakeup of the guardianship system across Australia.
02:31And for everyone to take stock of some of these stories and to know that they are happening and they're not things of the past, that they're happening today.
02:40And to many of the 5.5 people, 5.5 million Australians that live with disability.
