Panel: Kath Duncan, Hannah Murphy-Walsh, Pauline Ventuna
and Jax Jacki Brown
The assumption that people with “disability” need help doesn’t allow for mutuality. Just like everyone else there are all kinds of relationships and power exchanges – ours just might be more obvious.
Jax Jacki Brown
I became a wheelchair user at 14.
Learned at the Rehabilitation Hospital about independence,
being able to direct your own care) is tied to adulthood.
Losing physical ability means becoming infantilised.
Affects our ability to be able give to society
and whether society values that.
Pauline Vetuna
It’s bullshit. Not an idea we need to address.
Need other human beings, need agency… everyone does.
Hannah Murphy-Walsh
I’m comfortable with the word ‘disability’ and identifying with it but it took time. Acquired injury stigma was an internalised stigma.
Disabled people are marginalised externally –
being disabled is not the problem but all the shit that comes with it.
Pauline Vetuna
Societal space see us as tragic or inspirational – we don’t get to be full human beings.
Jax Jacki Brown
When dependence is seen as bad then
independence is seen as good – we need interdependence.
Kath Duncan
With my cultural background I just ‘get it’. Independence is also a myth, not just dependence. Independence is valorised e.g. paid work, not seen as contributing.
Pauline Ventuna
People assume we can’t/don’t contribute in meaningful ways. We’re seen as less than other people. People assume my partner must do all these things for me but we work it out… negotiate like any other relationship.
Jax Jacki Brown
Agency gives us the right t withdraw as well as the right to contribute. I’m very dependent, rely on my friends for everything. I have something to give, so do they. We don’t get lost in the bottom line. Slow down. Recognise. Make a human connection.
Hannah Murphy-Walsh
A user-based system is best for the strongest advocates, everyone else falls through the cracks… as much faith in the NDIS as any other government scheme.
Hannah Murphy-Walsh
If the choices are infiltrate or dismantle I’m a ‘dismantler’. I don’t see this as an individual problem but a human rights issue.
Jax Jacki Brown
We need to shift the way people see disability.
I still have to point out blind spots to my own community.
We need to manage ableism the same way we manage racism.
Pauline Ventuna
The standard needs to be universal access –
a change for one is a change for the group –
makes it better for everybody.
Jax Jacki Brown
The conflict across abilities is unnecessary –
adaptations can be ignored or used.
We all move through and take up space differently.
Kath Duncan
The idea of ‘needing to be fixed’ (influences of society and culture) – body or mind is a bad starting point. Meeting their perspective of normal and being as close to normal as you can.
Jax Jacki Brown
itellyouarise 