The website for the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disabilities provided a leaflet of useful information for those who planned to attend its hearings at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre last week. Venue maps, transport guides, floor plans, and the contact details for free counselling support were all included.
However, the website failed to mention that the Exhibition Centre was also the venue for the Australian National Cheer and Dance Championships. Apparently there are 52,000 registered cheerleaders in Australia and every single one of them seemed to be in Melbourne, along with their parents, grandparents, siblings and coaches. The sequins! The pom-poms! The hair-bows! I felt as though I’d wandered onto the set of Bring It On and couldn’t find my way out. The middle-aged man on a mobility scooter looked like a potential source of information, but no. He was there for the cheerleaders.
The royal commission outreach team were heavily outnumbered but eventually I was able to identify one of them — more by the lack of glitter on their outfit rather than by their purple staff-tag. I was ushered through the security check and into the hearing, where the sombre discussion on the shortcomings in disability housing stood in marked contrast to the sparkle and razzle-dazzle of the cheerleaders.
A significant number of people with visible disabilities had chosen to attend the hearings in person, while others around the nation followed the livestream and commented online using the hashtags #DisabilityRC, #DisabilityRoyalCommission and most pointedly #OurRoyalCommission.
The frequent reference use of the term “our royal commission” signals the determination by disability advocates to retain ownership of the investigation for which they have fought long and hard. They have not hesitated to express dissatisfaction with the backgrounds of some of the commissioners, and with the high ratio of parents and service providers during the commission’s early hearing.
“Nothing about us without us”, as the slogan proclaims. Disability activists are determined not to be excluded from the royal commission that is fundamentally about abuse committed against members of their community.
On Thursday, the cheerleaders at the Exhibition Centre had been replaced by battalions of Stormtroopers, smurfs, and Disney princesses as the place was invaded by the munchkin guests of the Variety Kids’ Xmas Party. Meanwhile, the events under discussion in the commission hearings, where Yooralla CEO Sherene Devanesen was giving evidence, were as dark as anything from a Grimms’ fairy tale.
As disclosed by media reports in 2012, a staff member who was ultimately convicted of raping four disabled people in Yooralla’s care was allowed to continue working there, without residents and their families being notified of the allegations against him. Devanesen was questioned at length on issues ranging from why Yooralla’s submission to the commission described the crimes committed by their former staff member as merely “allegations”, to Yooralla’s failure to offer either an apology or compensation to all of the staff member’s victims.
And as other witnesses to the commission have testified, the structural issues that allowed the abuse at Yooralla to occur are yet to be addressed. Group housing remains the dominant model for disability accommodation, with residents given little or no say in where and with whom they live.
The advent of the National Disability Insurance Scheme has so far failed to deliver significant change in this area, with new housing still being built along the old, failed model. Criminal assault and abuse is the most serious consequence of this failure, but the denial of basic rights such as choice of housemates, service providers, and respectful conduct from those who provide the most intimate of personal services also has a debilitating effect on the health of disabled people.
The peak-hour commuters shoved me out of the way as they boarded their tram, indifferent to my elbow-crutch and pleas to be allowed on board. I gave the departing tram the finger as it pulled away, wondering for a moment whether the royal commission had empowered me to express my anger in this way.
But no, I decided. It was just that after hours and hours of listening to stories to abuse and trauma, I simply had no more shits to give.
Resident mix and selection process is a core issue of group homes almost totally overlooked since they started in the 80’s replacing institutional care. However it’s a very tricky matter and in essence doesn’t differ all that much from any share house or family home.
In disability there are two dominant philosophies that center, as always in life, about what to do about obnoxious or abusive or slovenly etc people. One side says put this minority in houses all together and let the majority live in relative peace and quiet. The other side thinks this is discriminatory and that problem folk shouldn’t be corralled together and should instead spread their unpleasantness wide even though it may adversely affect a majority who also have little say in where they live or can move to.
God luck sorting this out but if it could be done it would be one of the best ways to improve the lot of group home residents.
“in essence doesn’t differ all that much from any share house or family home” The difference being that the vast majority of people with disabilities in these predicaments do not have the choice to stay leave due to the lack of other suitable accommodation, not to mention that some may have severe limitations on their physical or indeed mental ability to relocate themselves.
Your view is disgraceful and your attitude to disability is disgusting.
The NDIS is based on market economics and the principle that the consumer will do what’s in their own best interest. This idea is meant to reward the providers that do a good job and punish those that do not. However, there are numerous examples where this principle has been challenged, the banking royal commission springs to mind in recent times.
In a similar way to how traditional markets work, a lot of the smaller providers have been gobbled up by larger providers because they have been unable to bear the brunt of additional administrative costs that the NDIS entails.
This along with the closure of the public provider means there is less competition in the market. Meaning there is less choice and control for clients. The public provider often took on the high behaviour clients that the not for profits didn’t want a bar of, which leaves a massive gap in the market as many providers don’t want to fill the void.
I think the supported accommodation is getting better slowly. A lot of clients have a bit more say in where they want to live and who they want to live with. A lot of providers are putting more effort into client matching because it is in their own interest for all the clients to get along.
One of the problems is that it is a lot cheaper to set up properties in areas away from the cities which makes it hard for people that want to live close to their family or in a more urbanised area. The staffing pool has often been drained in more urbanised areas as well making it difficult to staff group homes.
It sounds awful that Shakira, you struggled to get on the tram & that people were so arrogant & unwilling to allow you to get on at the end of such a long day..
I live out on the edge of Melbourne & I’m not allowed really on public transport as though I generally have a walker plus cabs, or my motorised wheel chair too get me around in the city, this depends on where I’m going, this highlights the difficulties that physically disabled people have too face, every time they go into a lot of these major cities, along with the nature of the scrum like behaviour that’s part of the chaos that is getting on the trams & buses, caused by a lot of “ordinary able’s..”
Though, most of my experiences have been relatively positive in Melbourne…
I recently had a chat with the Yooralla people in regards to setting up my future housing, as due to my illness & physical disability, I will need to have housing that will adapt to my continually changing needs & the progressive nature of my illness…..
I’m so grateful Shakira that you highlighted some of Yooralla’s short comings & also the nature of their history, (which I was unaware of up ’til now) with how they have treated people with disabilities..
For me, when I spoke to them I highlighted the main thing that I needed to be able to do, in looking into care options, that specifically a non sharing option, no group/community homes would in my view be on the table for me, I can’t live in this type of environment it’s not safe, as its no better than an extended share housing arrangement, which I point blank refused to accept…..
I made it clear to the Yooralla people I spoke to, there had too be an option for me to live on my own, I’ve had too many bad experiences with share houses, or supposed friends that have come into ”care” for me, then in one case nearly sent me bankrupt, I ended up having to look after him financially (as he wouldn’t go out & work enough hours to keep his end of the bargain, despite being offered the hours he needed)…
Also in future when I need personal care & a carer too come to care for me, that is how I want it structured…
For me I did my fair share of house/ flat share thing for many years, as an able person, now that I’m physically less able than I was then, living in ”community” or group housing for me is not only off the table, but it’s not an option that I would even entertain…
They were a little surprised about how determined I was, but this is the thing there has to be more/better options available…
Too me there needs to be real progress in disability housing so that those of us who live with various physical, mental, or other disabilities have just as many rights to safe housing as most able people take for granted..
I left home at an early age, but I was able to make decisions for myself & determine who I would share with, where I was happy too live & what conditions I was prepared to live under, which on the whole worked extremely well & kept me safe for many year, so my whole thing is if people are better off taking their chances in the private share housing market than in group homes, there’s a problem…
it doesn’t sound like Yooralla, has advanced as far as it should have, when I speak to them next I will ask them what changes they’ve put in place to protect their vulnerable clients in these group/community homes…
Thanks for this article Shakira, the middle fingered salute was well warranted..
Keep up the good work Crikey..
Disability services are in a mess and the reports on failings are quite horrific… but a basic part of the problem is a lack of funding … which the Morrison government is refusing to fix … meanwhile the feeble response from Labor does nothing to embarrass the government… as a result nothing much will improve…
The disability services have been disabled by the NDIS as the locally sourced and locally managed services were supplanted and outsourced to distant bureaucracy which has been the major beneficiary of the NDIS – not the disabled.
Whilst this Royal Commission is running, the machine of money making, called unregulated aged care, created by Howard, continues its methods of causing death, after hopefully only a short period of extreme pain.
An across the road neighbor’s house was unsuitable for her needs, because she had been waiting on a public hospital waiting list for back surgery for so long that she lost a lot of mobility. She decided with the assistance of her niece and nephew to move into a nursing home.
Her house was sold within a month and the nursing home insisted on taking the whole $890,000 as her deposit. That left her no chance of getting her surgery done privately.
She is on so many pain killers and other unspecified drugs that her hands now tremble, she can not read (one of her great loves) and the Asian and middle eastern staff have such thick accents that she can not understand them. She has lost significant weight, which started at 55kg and she is now very frail.
I am certain that she, along with the majority of others will be dead within 6 months.
This is obviously the aim of nursing homes, as they can take 10% of the deposit for the first 12 months or part thereof.
Not bad, if you think about it, $89,000 and the majority of her pension and do that twice in a year or three times in a year. I observed a single quarter of a chicken sandwich on white bread with no salt or pepper for lunch, with a cup of tea. No wonder she is losing weight.
I have legal standing and am powerless to help her.
Welcome to the world of disability!