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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones. This is 7am.

In 1992, the UN General Assembly agreed that December 3 every year would be International Day of People with Disability.

It marked an early attempt to treat disability as a human rights and access issue – something that was becoming a movement across the world at the time. Here in Australia, It was the same year that Australia passed the Disability Discrimination Act. But thirty years later, how much progress has been made? And has society really stopped viewing disability through the lenses of medicine or charity?

Today, contributor to The Saturday Paper, writer and critic Olivia Muscat – on what the day means to her – and how it could be done better.

It’s Monday, December 5.

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RUBY

So, Olivia, would you mind beginning by just introducing yourself?

OLIVIA:

Sure, I'm Olivia Muscat. I'm a totally blind writer, performer, critic, disability activist and educator. And I think that sums it up in the shortest way possible.

RUBY:

Hmm, great, thank you. And the reason that we're speaking today is because we've just marked the 30th anniversary of the celebration of the International Day of People with Disability. So could you tell me a bit about what you've been thinking about this day as it approached?

OLIVIA:

Mm hmm. Yeah. Around this day, it's very much celebrating the achievements and contributions of disabled people. And I feel a lot of the time, the rest of the year, it falls back into that all contrast. And it's difficult for me to put into words, I'm sorry, because there's that feeling of needing to support rather than uplift. And I think those two things are very different. Support, you know, having the connotation of “Oh, they need help. We need to do things for them, but also look down on them”. Whereas uplifting, which is, you know, the vibe that tends to be given out around, you know, International Day of people with disability. It's very different. It's much more positive and that's great, but it sort of doesn't get carried through the rest of the year. And that to me is a very obvious contrast when nobody's kind of watching, when it's not in the public consciousness, we kind of get forgotten. Mm hmm.

RUBY:

And I imagine that you would have been involved in a lot of different kinds of events around this day over the years. Would you be able to tell me a bit about that and the ways in which you've observed people I'm thinking here of perhaps corporate organisations or even politicians engaged with the day? And what have you observed about the way that people tend to kind of use this event?

OLIVIA:

It's one of those days where people will throw a morning tea or an organisation might dig out the one person that works for them, that has a disability and showcase them on social media or ask them to speak at an afternoon tea for no sort of compensation for the extra work that they're putting in to sort of be the ambassador, be the spokesperson. A lot of the time it can feel really tokenistic. I don't like speaking on behalf of an entire community, but I'm pretty sure I would have people agreeing with me on that part. Very tokenistic representation for one day. Do an Instagram post or do a morning tea or, you know, shake hands with someone with a visible disability. And that's considered the way that people support this day. No talk of actual change, making things better. Yes, there is talk of that, but it kind of gets lost, I feel, in a lot of the “Yeah, look, I know one disabled person” sort of rhetoric that goes around a bit. And look, that could be a gross generalisation. And I know there are lots of people who don't do that and really make an effort to be allies all year round and do things differently. But it's really difficult to see organisations who will find it within their means to have an Auslan interpreter or an audio describer or a speaker with a disability for this, for this one day and then the rest of you don't even engage. It's not a priority at all.

RUBY:

And so do you think that in this kind of, quote unquote celebration of the day, the way. Ality of what it's actually like to live as a disabled person in Australia in 2022 is lost?

OLIVIA:

Yeah, it is, you know, quote unquote celebration and there is a lot to celebrate about being disabled and about being part of the disability community. And we should celebrate the achievements and contributions of people who are disabled. But we should do that all the time. We exist 365 days in a year.

And what it is to live with the disability isn't always something to celebrate. And that's not to say that our lives aren't to be celebrated, but the way we are treated and dismissed and excluded and excluded doesn't even feel like a strong enough word, if I'm honest. But, you know, the way those things come up constantly and happen all the time, that gets lost. And of course, you know, this is a day to showcase and centre people with a disability. And it's really good to showcase and get into the positive things because that's what people want to hear about. But these people that want to hear cool stories about disabled people who do interesting stuff and have interesting jobs and create cool art or play sport, those people, despite living awesome, amazing lives, I have no doubt facing discrimination and exclusion on a regular basis, if not every single day. And the people who want to celebrate the achievements sort of forget that maybe they are also contributing to this systemic discrimination of people with disability.

RUBY:

Can we talk a little bit more about that before we move on about the type of discrimination, exclusion and worse that people face in Australia?

OLIVIA:

Yeah, I can speak to my own experience. I always say that I'm the expert on my disability and by that I don't even mean that I'm an expert on blindness. I mean that I'm an expert on me and my particular lived experience. Even for me, who has it, I'm reticent to say, but I also think I do have it pretty good a lot of the time in comparison to a lot of other people. Still, I marvel at the fact when I make it through an entire day and haven't had to come up against the most minor thing. Might be a strange assumption about me because you know I can't see. So I still have people assuming that I can't read or write.

RUBY:

And you’re a writer.

OLIVIA:

And I'm a writer. Yes. It's very frustrating. Like if I can write and can write quite well and you know, there are still people who will come up on the street when I'm just walking, just knowing where I need to be, grabbed me like touch me completely without my consent. And I know that happens to a lot of blind people and I know it happens to a lot of disabled people in general. People just treat us as if we have no autonomy over our own bodies. And I work with kids and I still speak to them about them being excluded from, you know, basic education. “Oh, this maths. Oh, how are we going to teach you? Don't worry. You don't need to know it anyway”. Everyone else needs to know it. Why don't they? People are facing, you know, neglect and lack of support. People can't leave the house because there's no one to assist them and people still get left to die. I just got really emotional about it. It still happens. People neglected to the point of serious illness and death, but we kind of brush that aside. Don't look at it. It doesn't exist. It was just a disabled person. Don't worry about it. And of course, no one is thinking those exact words in their head to their knowledge. But watch this person on crutches climb a mountain, watch this blind kid sing a song. It's cool. Aren't they great? Aren't they having a fun time?

RUBY:

We'll be back in a moment.

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Archival Tape – International Day of People with Disability ambassador Eliza Hull:

“For me, I feel like International Day of People with Disability is a way to amplify the voices of people with disability, to create more change, to disrupt stereotypes about people with disability,”

Archival Tape – International Day of People with Disability ambassador Nathan Basha:

“Having a day for people with disabilities, you're allowing them to actually feel valued, to feel respected, to know they can be honoured by having a day for them to embrace who they are.”

Archival Tape – International Day of People with Disability ambassador Uncle Wilfred Prince:

“I think International Day for people with disabilities, it's very important that we do this because it's the one day of the year that we are able to get out there to showcase our abilities, not our disabilities.”

RUBY:

Olivia, we’re talking just days after the 30th International Day of People with Disability – and you were just talking about the awful situations people with disability are put in in Australia, what the reality of that is in 2022. So in that context, can the day still have value? Can it make a difference?

OLIVIA:

I think it does have value and it can make a difference. I think can is the operative word there. You know, you can't be the focus all the time. So it's good to have a time where, you know, this is a time where we can talk about this and bring these issues to the sort of general consciousness, the non-disabled consciousness. If someone hears a speech or reads an article or a piece of writing from a disabled person that shifts their thinking, that's great. And that can never be a bad thing. Though it possibly needs to be more of an opportunity to, yes, showcase the positive, showcase the amazing things, but to encourage people to engage with the things that they can do to be different. And to hopefully make a positive impact on someone's life.

RUBY:

Yeah, well, let's talk a bit more about that. What would you like people to bear in mind? What would actually make a difference to the 20% of Australians who are living with a disability? What would you suggest that people reflect on and the actions that they could be taking.

OLIVIA:

That is a massive question. There are lots of things. I think disability is so varied, so broad, encompassing, so many different things and so many different access needs that it's sort of hard to answer. But the one thing I can answer with confidence is that please go and celebrate disabled people, but celebrate them all the time and acknowledge that, you know, there are still barriers and there are still awful things happening that you might be looking away from and acknowledge that maybe you're part of that and examine what you could do to change your attitudes and change other people's attitudes. And don't leave all the work to disabled people. And I hesitate to say “ask questions” because people still think it's okay to just walk up to a disabled person in the street and ask them really random stuff. You know, I still get people just coming up and asking me, so do you, like, dress yourself? And I'm like, Is this appropriate for the train platform? But you know, when it's appropriate, contextually ask questions and then don't be afraid of the answer, because the answer might be something you don't like. If you ask a disabled person a question about what they need or what you could do differently, and you're expecting to hear, Oh, no, you're great. Just keep doing what you're doing. You're probably in for a rude shock. It's about shifting attitudes. It's about shifting towards the social model of disability. Not the medical model.

RUBY:

Can we talk a little bit about that? Because I think what we've been speaking about so far is very much an individual response. But what about the kind of structural level of this?

OLIVIA:

Yeah. So I think shifting towards the social model. So the social model of disability is seeing it from the perspective that it's not someone's impairments or what you may think of their disability that's actually disabling them. But the way society is structured, the way societies built, that is actually the disabling factor. Really simple example is that if there's a book in front of me in print, I'm not disabled by the fact that I can't see. I'm disabled by the fact that that book is in a format that I cannot access. And if that book was in an e-book or audiobook format, that is something that should be available and, you know, generally is in that particular context, but it is about the structure of society, it's about the expectations of society and the way society was formed around non-disabled bodies. And that's the disabling factor for those of us who are disabled and engaging with disabled people to find out what they need, what their access needs are, and rebuilding things around that, whether it's systems, whether it's actual buildings. That's sort of a change, that would be amazing to see.

RUBY:

Olivia, thank you so much for your time.

OLIVIA:

Thank you.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today.

The federal government is attempting to work with states on energy price caps before Christmas, and is hoping to reach an agreement at Wednesday’s national cabinet meeting.

Over the weekend, NSW Treasurer Matt Kean signalled that at least his government will be supportive of reaching a deal with the Commonwealth, saying, quote: “We need to move and we need to move very quickly.”

And

A climate protestor who blocked traffic on the Sydney harbour bridge for about 25 minutes earlier this year – has been sentenced to jail.

Deanna “Violet” Coco received 15 months in prison with a non-parole period of eight months.

Human Rights Watch’s Australia researcher, Sophie McNeill called the sentencing quote: ‘incredibly alarming’.

I’m Ruby Jones. This is 7am - see you tomorrow.

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