Ok it is done. I have finally managed to get someone from the Cochlear Implant Clinic on the line. It was a case of fifth time lucky. I called, got the answering machine and as I was leaving my details someone picked up. One can imagine some poor overworked receptionist just working away as the phone rang.  The receptionist was probably just hoping that I would leave a message so that she could finish her wedding invitations. Guilt seems to have gotten the better of her and she decided to pick up. The rest, as they say, is history. I really should not be such a cynic.

In the end getting a referral was easy. I made a doctors appointment about something completely unrelated. As it turned out the unrelated issue was not an issue of any kind, but it was a relief to know that. Unrelated issue dealt with I popped the question about a written referral to the Cochlear Implant clinic. “Sure”, said the Doc, who had just met me for the first time. She got on the computer and started writing. She asked me to confirm when I had lost my hearing and that was it. Referral was printed and I was out the door. Unrelated issue dealt with and referral received, all in under ten minutes. The Doctor did not even look at my ears. Cost – $71.00. I sure wish I could earn that much for ten minutes work.

Assessment turn around at the clinic is apparently 4 to 6 weeks. I scanned the Doctors letter and I emailed it to the clinic. They have acknowledged that it had been received. They asked me to send them an audiogram. They did not seem to fussed that I did not have one. After all I was calling through the National Relay Service. That was probably evidence enough that I was very deaf.

I mean what crackpot would want to have a cochlear implant even though they are not deaf. I guess there might be some devious and not well people who have a fetish about having surgery, even when it is not needed. Years ago there were some students of sign language who used to tell us, “I wish I was Deaf”. Wannabes we called them. Even they would not go as far as impersonating a deaf person so that they could have a cochlear implant. And anyway they would need to have a bilateral implant to become deaf.  Nah it wouldn’t happen, they would get found out eventually. That said, there are some strange people out there so I would not discount the possibility entirely.

In the mean time I wait and continue to gather as much information as possible. I read an interesting account from a parent whose 18 month old baby had just received the implant. Apparently when the implant was switched on it scared the Bejaysus out of the poor kid. The kids discomfort with the cochlear implant is such that the parents cannot get the kid to wear it. When they try to put the implant on the kid throws an almighty tantrum and pulls the implant off. In desperation they sought advice from other parents whose children have had the implant.

The responses were interesting. It is clear that there are other kids who refuse to wear the implant when switched on. A lot of parents encouraged the use of bribery. Give lollies for prolonged wearing of the implant they would say. One can imagine parents with a bag of lollies in one hand implant in the other, a bit like Pavlov’s dog and the bell. After five minutes they throw a lolly. After ten minutes throw two and so on until the kid associates the implant with nice things and wears it without issue.

Some parents were horrified at this approach. The baby is not a dog they would say. Some thought it was better to just take a slow approach. When the child wears the implant or allows it to be put on just encourage them with affection and praise. Let the child get used to the implant at their own pace they encouraged. Eventually, they advised, the child will accept and learn to love the implant.

I found this interesting because these are the stories you very rarely hear in the public domain. Instead you see parents crying with joy and little kids eyes lighting up as they are switched on. Clearly this is only part of the story and one wishes that the media could provide a more balanced coverage of what happens when a child is switched on. The media should be highlighting the benefits and also the challenges.

This is also true of some of the other issues in relation to having an implant. There are clearly pros, cons and the possible risks. All of this information is important so that people can make informed choices. It is certainly true that media coverage and promotion of the implant glosses over these issues. The media do not really gloss over these issues; they do not discuss them at all.

Two weeks ago a friend visited our home. He had been implanted six years ago. He decided to get implanted because he felt that it would increase his job prospects as a teacher. He was explaining that six years on he still had vertigo and that for a while he had lost his sense of taste. He said that while he did not regret having the implant some of the side affects he was experiencing actually made him feel more disabled than before.

My friend is from Britain. I asked him whether the Doctors gave him detailed information about possible side affects of the implant. He thought about this for a while. He concluded that they had not given him a lot of information about possible side affects. His view was that they focused more on the benefits. They told him that he would get great benefit from the implant many times. He wishes that he had received more balanced information.

I guess I am in a fortunate position of having worked in the disability sector for 25 years. I am quite cluey about a lot of issues and know the questions to ask. Not everyone is in the same boat. Interestingly another friend with the implant suggested that my focus on the cons to date suggests that at this point I am not ready for the implant. This is probably true. Time will tell. Stay tuned for the next update when I have my initial assessment interview in the coming weeks.

Rebuttal readers generally hate politics, particularly national politics. I know this because readership generally drops at the mere mention of both Abbott and Gillard. An exception was the article about Bernie Brookes which broke all records – But that was more, I suspect, because it was the flavour of the moment. Yesterday was Budget Day so in this version of The Rebuttal I thought I would make comment on the funding of the NDIS….. ZZZZZZZZZZZZ Do try to concentrate because,  nevertheless,  what follows is an important observation.

The NDIS will be funded in full by 2019. Measures have been put in place to ensure that the scheme will continue. In doing so Labor have ensured that the roll-out of the NDIS will not be hampered even if the Government changes. According to Labor figures the NDIS will provide care and support for 410 000 people with a disability.

We should not be celebrating just yet. Even though the NDIS is now part of legislation and even though it has the support of both sides of politics, there is much work to do. Now is the time that people with a disability must remain diligent and vocal or they may well find themselves with a program that is developed that is not quite what they envisioned.

Of late I have had a few discussions about the Governments view of “Self Directed Funding”. I strongly believe that the Governments vision for this and the vision of people with a disability and their carers is poles apart. I believe the Governments vision is that funding will be allocated to the individual. These individuals will then use this money to purchase supports from an approved list of suppliers. In this sense they can only choose what the Government views as appropriate. A better way of seeing this is self directed entitlement.

Now the vision of people with a disability, I believe, is very different. I believe they feel that self directed funding is just that. The only criteria they believe should be there is that this funding be used for their supports and services. In this sense if a person with a disability chooses to use a friend or family member to carry out their care they should be able to do that and pay them. After all isn’t this what choice is all about? They might choose to go on holiday overseas and choose to pay a colleague to go with them so that they are cared for on holiday. That colleague can be a friend or a family member and be paid for.

As far as the way people with a disability are thinking I do not believe the Government, or any of the politicians for that matter, are on the same page. The proof, as they say, will be in the detail. Me thinks we all need to be watching carefully as the trial NDIS regions begin to commence in June or July. This will give an indication of just how autonomous the Government believes self directed funding should be. There may be some rude shocks.

The second issue we need to be looking at is just how far reaching the NDIS will be. Officially the Government is using a figure of 410 000 people. Now in 2004 the Centre for Population Studies in Epidemiology in South Australia suggested that there were 3.25 million people or 16.6% of the population with a hearing loss.[1] Now not all of these will require support but many will and that figure does not include people under 15 years of age. Suffice to say 3.25 million is 7 times more than the numbers that  the Government are claiming will benefit from the NDIS. So are the deaf being considered as part of the NDIS? The short answer is no! Hearing Rehabilitation, assistive technology, hearing aid replacement and maintenance, interpreters, captioning and so on, all things that are vital, none are really being considered as part of the NDIS.

I mean the number of people with Autism in Australia is said to be 1 out of every 166 people or approximately 136 213 people.  In Australia over 700 000 people are said to have an intellectual or developmental disability. There are said to be 292 700 people who are Blind or vision impaired and there are a whopping 3.4 million who have some form of physical disability[2] .

Now if we add up the numbers for autism, vision impairment, intellectual/developmental and physical disability this comes to 4 528 913. The Government figure of 410 000 people being supported by the NDIS only equates to 9% of that figure. It is worth noting that I have not included the statistics for hearing loss in this figure and we have not even touched on mental health yet.

I accept not all the people who have a disability will require support under the NDIS but 9% of the population of people with a disability, and that is excluding hearing loss, seems proportionally low. The figures are not adding up. It’s clear to me that there is much work to be done. The Governments thinking and the thinking of people with a disability are poles apart. The NDIS is here YAY!  BUT the hard work has really only just begun.

This is Australia!  Australia is a land of plenty. Australia is a land of the fair go. Australia is sunny beaches and open spaces. Australia is sunshine and Koalas. It’s not all good though. Watch out for those spiders and the snakes because they cop a bit of a nasty bite. Apart from that Australia is a land of plenty and opportunity. Most of all it is the land of a fair go. Or is it?

In this rich land of opportunity did you know that, “Aboriginal infant mortality is one of the highest in the world. Forty percent of Aboriginal children end up in hospital with acute respiratory illness with admissions for pneumonia 80 times higher than for non-aboriginal children.” Or that, “The life expectancy for Aborigines is 15 years less than for the rest of the Australian community with Aborigines in their 30s and 40s dying at a rate 12 times higher than other Australians of the same age.” Or that, “In places like Redfern and La Perouse in Sydney, Inala in Brisbane and many other city areas, unemployment has forced Aborigines into overcrowded and substandard housing which breeds serious health problems.” Or that, “…  the jobless rate is as much as 90 percent in some areas. In country towns of NSW and throughout Australia the social conditions which flow from this can only be described as a disaster.” The catalogue of social inequality and unfairness confronted by Aboriginal people goes on and and on. It makes a mockery of any claim that Australia is the land of a fair go.[1]

I was horrified recently that a visitor to this country had been told that Aboriginal people needed to get over it. He was told that what happened years ago was not good but that Aboriginal people are holding a grudge and that they needed to move on. Basically he was saying that he had been told that the social woes of Aboriginal people are their own fault and are related to the fact that they are still living in the past. I was gobsmacked.

This is the country that stole children from Aboriginal parents. They did so under the misguided and elitist apprehension that White and European culture was superior. Stealing children from Aboriginal parents happened because White Australia wanted Aboriginals to be like them. It was done because White Elitist thought Aboriginal children would be better off in ”civilised” society. More than 100 000 Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their parents and this was still occurring as recently as the 1970’s, less than 50 years ago.

The horror of this period in Australia’s history is unimaginable. Suffice to say the damage done to the stolen generations is being felt savagely even today. Individually it is well documented that Aboriginal children who were stolen suffered from low self-esteem and mistrust of people. They often felt guilt and shame because they were told stories that they were taken from their parents because the parents did not love or care for them. They suffered anguish because they were often told that their parents were dead only to discover later that this was a lie. Mostly they lost their identity and culture as their communities were torn apart. They were forced to grow up WHITE and later when they discovered their true culture and identity the anger and grief was immense. The consequence of all of this and more is still being felt today. It beggars belief that White Australians of today could believe and state openly that Aboriginal people need to “move on.”[2]

In 2002 I moved to Alice Springs for a year. My wife had been struggling to establish her teaching career in Adelaide and an opportunity arose to become a Visiting Teacher for the Deaf in Alice Springs. We sold our house and took off to Alice Springs. It was a real eye opener. The first thing that strikes you is not the heat but the dogs.

The dogs are everywhere running around the streets. In the major cities it is a rarity to see dogs running about. But it was common to see two or three dogs trotting along the footpath. Often one would be a female that had recently given birth. You knew this because the teats of the dog were enlarged and swayed under her as she ran. The dogs are your first indicator that the social structure of Alice Springs is very different.

At first glance Alice Springs, apart from the beautiful Macdonell Ranges, is nothing but a nondescript suburb. When you live in Alice Springs you very soon realise there is White Alice Springs and there is Black Alice Springs. The Whites typically live in modern well kept houses. This is particularly apparent around the Alice Springs Golf Club which is surrounded by what are best described as POSH houses.

If you walk a little down the road from the Golf Club you will find some Aboriginal houses. After the pristine houses surrounding the Golf Club  the Aboriginal houses are a reminder of the social inequality that exists in Alice Springs. The Aboriginal houses will have rubbish and debris scattered in the front yard. Many of them have grating covering the windows to prevent them being broken. There is the almost mandatory broken down Holden or Ford in the drive way or yard. Graffiti covering the houses is common. Over-crowding in the houses is apparent.

I really hated it. I could not rid myself of the feeling that I was an intruder on their land. I felt a deep sense of shame that my race could live and exploit a land and reduce the real owners of the land to poverty. During the day many would gather to drink their flagon of wine in the middle of the dry Todd River. At night the paddy wagons would drive down the river to pick up those Aboriginal men who were so drunk that they were a danger to themselves and others. It was just an awful thing to witness.

I was fortunate in some ways to have been able to work with three Aboriginals who were deaf in my short time in Alice Springs. One of them was a beautiful, tall and regal young Aboriginal woman. Whenever I walked in she would beam me the most brilliant smile. She often would bring me food that her family had cooked the night before. Goanna is very tasty and kangaroo tail very tough.

Another was a young boy from a distant community. He was flown in from his community for school where he was a boarder. At 14 he could neither read nor write. My job was to help him with his homework. It was an impossible task because he had sat through class the whole day and not understood a word that had been said. The homework to him was just squiggles on a piece of paper. Both of us just ignored the homework and concentrated on developing our own communication. He would tell me tales of his home. He delighted in showing me the home signs for various animals. He would tell me excitedly how he drove a car and would mime how fast he went and how he would drag the back wheels into a skid. His would show me through mime and gesture the plumes of dust that the skid created behind the car.

There was another young woman from a remote mining town, a few hundred km South East of Darwin. They discovered that she was deaf very late in life. She had been befriended by one of the senior mining managers who paid for her to be flown to Alice Springs for her schooling. She hated it there and just wanted to return to her community. Her literacy was rudimentary. It was the same for all the Aboriginals in Alice Springs who were deaf that I worked with. She was a volatile but intelligent young woman and she knew where she wanted to be.

She wanted to go home and she made that clear for everyone. “School Finish” she would sign, “home home home” This was in 2003. Unrelated to the woman’s wish to return home my wife applied for a grant for her and another Aboriginal student who was deaf to attend the 2003 Sydney Australian Deaf Games. I was employed with another white woman to support them at the Games.

When we arrived in Sydney the young woman delighted in telling me that she was finished in Alice Springs. She would tell me that when the Deaf Games were over she was going back home for good. The problem was that she wasn’t. You see the authorities and her mining benefactor did not respect her wishes. She believed that she was going home but they had booked her to go back to school in Alice Springs. I suspect that they could not communicate with her and could not fully comprehend how much she wanted to return home to her community. She was 18 years of age by this time and although she was illiterate she was intelligent and knew her own mind.

One day during the Deaf Games we were talking about what was to happen at the end of the Games. She insisted that she was going home to her community. It was my unfortunate task to explain to her that this was not the case and that her ticket had her to return to Alice Springs. She tried to slap me. She let out a blood curdling scream. “NO NO NO!” she signed. She ran around the room gesticulating and verbalising loudly. Eventually I managed to calm her down. She sat in the corner of the room and sobbed for a very long time.

It was my job to get her on the plane back to Alice Springs. At the airport she continued to plead with me to let her go home to her community. I only managed to get her on the plane by promising to help her go home when I arrived back in Alice Springs. I was going back  to Alice Springs the next day. For a while she stayed with us at our home in Alice Springs. She carried around with her some scissors for protection. Her mistrust of people by this time was immense.

As I had promised her in Sydney, I set about helping her to return to her community. A meeting was organised by my wife. At this meeting both my wife and I argued strongly for her to be allowed to return home. The lead visiting teacher insisted that the girl should stay. After a long and tense meeting the young woman got her wish. The whole situation demonstrated  that, even to this day, that many White Professionals still have a superior and paternalistic attitude towards Aboriginal people. The situation remains one of the most harrowing that I have ever experienced.

This is the Australia that we live. What White Australia have contributed to the appalling situation experienced by the First Australians is something to be truly ashamed of. My admiration and respect goes out to all those Aboriginal people out there fighting the good fight for their people – I end this with a poem from an Aboriginal person from The Stolen Generation.

They had taken away my family!

The child within me cried,

The stolen life, the agony

Of many a year gone by.

The cover up; the pretence.

The falsehood: All those lies.

Didn’t they know I’d find out the truth one day,

And now I just ask WHY?

All their words and all their kindness

Can never fill the pain.

Can I ever trust the people,

That I believed in, once again?

The stole me from a lifetime,

My heritage. My home.

My family. My identity.

My spirit all alone.

But to let them win, would be a sin.

To give up would be a crime.

I must search on. I must fight on.

To find what is rightfully mine.

To find my heritage; my family.

My home and identity.

To find the person who was lost to me.

Me… the Aborigine!

Poem by Pauline McLeod [30].

This article is dedicated to my friend Jody – Keep up the good fight!

I witnessed the most marvellous rant this morning. A friend had attended a fundraising function in Wales. The fundraiser was to raise money for the National Deaf Children’s Society in Britain and also for a cancer charity. It was a simple function, bingo. Yet despite it having a focus on deaf people the organisers had failed to consider the communication needs of people who are deaf. Said my friend, “I told the organisers (I was cross at this point), there is no point in raising money for deaf people if you are going to exclude them. So they told the bingo caller to slow down.” Even though the organisers apparently told the caller to slow down he/she didn’t. My friends elderly mother tried too help but it was all too fast. My friend, well known for her assertiveness, let fly, “Let me say this: there is NO point at all raising money for charities if you cannot change your attitude. That money is going to go straight to London, meanwhile deaf people locally are still excluded. What exactly are you raising the money for (apart from organisation overheads)? To ensure deaf people are included? It is the ultimate oxymoron.”

One can imagine that seeing an event about raising money for deaf people that a deaf person would want to attend. The deaf person would assume, rightfully so, that all bases would be covered. After all it’s for deaf people so one would be quite within their rights to expect that the organisers would know what deaf people need … But no! As they say about the word assume … It makes an ASS out of U and Me. You see in the disability sector there is an infuriating habit for organisations to employ or contract people who know absolutely nothing about disability. These people have a frustrating ability to cock things up. Like the diversity for disabled organisation who were giving an award to a person in a wheelchair but neglected to provide a ramp for the person to get up on stage. CLUELESS

Too often people employed in positions of power in the disability sector have this awful welfarish mentality. They think that all people with a disability require help, the poor souls. It’s lovely to help isn’t it? See those lovely, poor and disadvantaged deaf people over there … Their life is shit! But buy a raffle ticket and we will make it all better. Be good, look into your soul and help those less fortunate. Theres a dear.

I copped abuse a few years ago for writing an article about a deafblind man in Adelaide who does fundraising for the deaf there. He sits in shopping malls and waves a can about. Passers by, taking pity, drop money in his can. I had known the fellow for some years but I was appalled at what he had been reduced too. People would actually avoid him and give him pitying looks. You could see them as they passed him by whispering to each other. No doubt they were saying what a poor fellow he was.

My argument was that such fundraising initiatives paint a truly negative picture of people with a disability. It paints a picture of beggars in need. Poor people on the corner, like the homeless – helpless and in need of your spare change. Of course we don’t want the homeless being painted like this either. But this is what these types of fundraising initiatives do. They paint a “woe is me” picture where the power is purely with those that part with their money. This type of mentality is something that people with a disability abhor. I will tell you this for nothing, these types of fundraising initiatives are organised by people who have absolutely no experience in disability whatsoever. They might have a marketing background but they are absolutely clueless as to what people with a disability need or want. Consequently the message of most fundraising is inherently negative.

In the situation with the deafblind fellow I even offered, free of charge, to help them to design a more positive campaign. Don’t get me wrong, I understand there is a need for fundraising, I am not that naive. However, I strongly believe that this fundraising can be done in a positive way. After being abused by the organisations CEO for writing what I did I offered to help. I suggested that you could set up a table where the fellow demonstrates how he uses assistive technology and computers to be more independent. I suggested that these demonstrations could highlight the positive programs that the organisation provides. The message could be to donate to contribute so that these programs can continue. My belief is that this type of positive promotion is a far better fundraising tool. The CEO ignored my offer of help. Sadly the deafblind fellow continues to wave his can in shopping centres. He does so simply because the organisation refuses to consider alternatives.

Some years ago I applied for a managers role in a key organisation for deaf people. I got to the final round. Part of the final round was to have an interview with a psychologist. The psychologist would then assess your suitability for the job. The CEO arranged for this to happen. For whatever reason he suggested it should happen via Skype. The psychologist contacted me to set up the interview. I assumed that because they had suggested Skype that the psychologist knew how to sign. It’s a nasty word that word, assume, and it bit me again. Of course she did not sign. Quite how we were expected to communicate I do not know.

But anyway a few emails later the psychologist and I worked out a system. I, having passable speech, would talk. She  would type her questions. So we connected. It was very clear when we connected that the internet connection was not very good. She could not hear me very well and what she typed did not immediately come through. I found myself answering a question in detail only to find she was typing something to try and clarify  a point I had made. What she typed didn’t show. All I could see was her head and shoulders. Suddenly I looked up and she was frantically pointing downwards with two fingers towards what seemed to be her neither end. Eventually we managed to get a brief conversation going for five minutes and she suddenly said she had enough information, she had another appointment, she wished me luck and logged off. Suffice to say I didn’t get the job.

Later on a worker from the same organisation contacted me for assistance. This was in the early stages of the NDIS. This was when the Government was consulting about the NDIS to assess whether it was needed and wanted. The person that got the job that I had applied for was writing a submission for the consultation. I did not know this at the time. The worker visited me to ask me questions about the NDIS and self directed funding. I was more than happy to oblige and provided her with a heap of information and internet leads.

A few months later the findings of the consultation were released. I was reading through them and found the submission from the organisation that had turned me down for the role. Blow me down – I kid you not – virtually word for word they had quoted the information that I had provided to their worker in good faith. They had clearly used the internet leads that I had provided them too because there were passages that could be attributed to these articles. I was more than a bit taken aback, after all I had applied for the role that the author of the submission had won and had been turned down. It was a bit like a punch in the face to see them using my knowledge with absolutely no reference to the help that I had provided. Ok the author of the submission might have known a bit about disability, but she knew EFF all about deafness. But she got the job – Go figure.

You see this all the time. CEOs are employed for their business acumen but have no idea how to relate it to disability or deafness. They portray all the wrong messages and keep promoting the woe is me mentality. You see fundraisers who have a million degrees in marketing but no idea what the deaf or people with a disability need. Hence they continue to target the heart strings.

Even with the NDIS politicians are clearly being guided by the clueless. Nearly every time you see Tony Abbott or Julia Gillard promoting the scheme they are sitting next to some fellow or woman who is in a wheelchair and they smile up to the camera paternalistically. You hardly ever hear them talking of the economic benefits of the scheme or of how the scheme will allow people with disabilities to  contribute more to society. Or of how many jobs will be created by it. Instead you hear about how it will HELP.. How much CARE it will provide and worse, how much it will cost! And of course this cost is being met by the generous dollar allocation of the Pollies. What about the message that its an investment and that the return will be huge. Who is advising the Pollies …. More clueless people no doubt.

There I have said it – rant over!

Hands up if you didn’t know who Bernie Brookes was before Wednesday the 1^st May? I certainly didn’t.  In one ill thought out moment our Bernie, the CEO of the Myer Group,  has become perhaps the most reviled man in Australia amongst people with a disability and their advocates. As we all know Prime Minister Gillard has proposed an NDIS Levy to help fund the NDIS. This will be an extra .5% on top of the current Medicare Levy. This will take the levy from 1.5% to 2%.

While the disability sector rejoiced Bernie had a brain fade. Bernie suggested that because Australians had been asked to pay a little extra tax that they would spend less at Myer. Consequently Myer would suffer, sales would, fall and jobs would go. What is more Bernie said it was the wealthier Australians that would suffer the most because they actually had to pay more of the Levy. This is what Bernie said, “The financial impost would be greater for wage earners in higher salary brackets, which could affect sales at department stores in particular since their customers typically have higher incomes.” The poor rich dears, my heart bleeds!

The disability community who had been largely celebrating the Levy announcement were shocked. How dare any one suggest that people with a disability would be responsible for Myer’s problems. Collectively disability divas all over Australia rose as one. Social media went into overdrive. Bernie’s comments were plastered all over Facebook and Twitter. In no time at all a Boycott Myer campaign was established. Myer’s Facebook page and website was inundated with comments from irate people and supporters of the NDIS. So great was the wave of protest that Myer were eventually forced to temporarily shut down their website.

The Myer PR team went into overdrive. By Thursday morning they had released an apology of sorts. But it was a begrudging apology. They pointed out that they supported the NDIS, they were sorry for any offence taken but they still thought the Levy was a bad idea. I can only describe this move by them as being. – Not very bright. This just made people even angrier.

Later in the morning, seeing the error of their ways, Myer  issued another apology. This time the apology was a lot softer. The second apology made no mention of the Levy. They simply said, “We certainly did not intend to offend anyone, and again, we are very sorry.” Myer made it very, very clear that they fully supported the NDIS.

All seemed dandy but then Bernie came back to issue another apology. Bernie wanted to reinforce that he was really sorry for the hurt that his comments caused BUT reiterated that he thought the Levy was bad for business. In a sense he almost said, “Sorry your upset but I still think you lot are a burden.”

Being the CEO of Myer one would assume that Bernie has a fair knowledge of finance and economics. If he does he certainly has not demonstrated this with his comments about the NDIS. If Bernie had done just a wee bit of homework he would have discovered that the Productivity Commission Report into the NDIS predicted that the NDIS, when operating properly, had the potential to contribute $9.2 billion to Australia’s gross domestic product. And that is on top of what is to be invested in it. One would have thought that a smart CEO would have done his homework before making comment. Bernie is clearly not a smart CEO!

Indeed Peter Martin writing in The Age has argued that the NDIS Levy will, “Boost the nation’s economic performance.”[1] Martin’s argument is quite simple. The NDIS would create opportunities. He brings to our attention that the NDIS has the potential to create employment for 220000 people with a disability, many who were previously unemployable. These people, of course, will then become active economic contributors whereas before many were largely confined to their homes. They will spend their income on entertainment, on goods and on services. No doubt some would have gone to Myer. They might not now after Bernie’s comments.

Apart from creating opportunities for work the NDIS will mean that money previously spent by people with a disability on their care would now be spent elsewhere. Carers, previously time poor because they were caring for their disabled children, will have more time to participate in the community. Jobs are likely to be created in the disability sector for people to carry out the care that is needed. Equipment such as wheelchairs will now be fully funded and be more readily available. A spin off from this is that the NDIS is likely to create greater opportunities for innovation and manufacturing of aids and equipment. It’s almost like the NDIS will generate a whole new economy. Myer might have benefited from that. But then along came Bernie – OOOPS!

Meanwhile it was announced today that Myer shareholdings dropped 3.4%. Perhaps this is not related to Bernie’s comments, but still Karma is a bitch isn’t it? All over Australia people with a disability, their families and their friends are cutting up their Myer cards. All over Australia these same people are going to take their business elsewhere. And believe me that is a lot of people. One can imagine other fair minded people, not related to people with a disability but wanting to support an NDIS, will have taken offence and will also be taking their business elsewhere. Oh Bernie!!!! What have you done?

It’s not the NDIS Levy that will kill Myer – I think Bernie may have done that all by himself.

Ok it has been announced that there is to be a levy to fund the much discussed National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). Prime Minister Gillard has announced that the Medicare Levy will be increased by .05% to help fund some of the NDIS costs. The Levy will raise around $20 billion to make the NDIS sustainable. A quarter of this will be given to the States to help with the set up of the NDIS. In short the Levy will ensure that the NDIS has a sustainable source of revenue  to make it viable. The Levy is what was originally proposed but for some unknown reason was rejected. Most likely because it would be seen as “politically unpopular” . It will cost the average Australian $1 a day and for many it will actually be less than that. This will not happen immediately. It will now be a carrot dangled in front of people with a disability and their carers to entice them to vote Labor at the next election.

Predictably the Coalition is critical of the Levy. Former Coalition treasurer, Peter Costello, has said the NDIS should be put on hold if the Government cannot fund it from general revenue. He claims that under his Government there were no deficits, no borrowing and hence Australia would have been able to afford an NDIS. Abbott has said if the budget was not such a mess then the NDIS could be funded from general revenue. Shadow Treasurer, Joe Hockey, has said a Levy will put pressure on Australians. He claims the extra cost will lead Australians to spend less and impact on business and the economy. Even the National Bank CEO has chimed in and said the NDIS should be put on hold because it costs a lot and Australia cannot afford it in the current economic climate.

Let me just respond to Peter Costello. The International Monetary Fund has called the Costello and Howard Government the most profligate Government in Australia’s 200 odd years. Costello and Howard are said to have paid off a debt inherited from Labor of $56 billion by sheer good economic management. Let’s be clear they did this by selling off Australia’s assets. This raised them $72 Billion. It was nothing to do with them managing the economy brilliantly;  they basically just sold off the farm. They just borrowed in a different way. Apparently of the $56 billion debt, $40 billion was inherited from the previous Liberal Government by Labor.  Come on enough of the crap Peter; go back to your retirement.[i]

Wasn’t the NDIS supposed to have bipartisan support? As my wheelchair using friend said yesterday – “My disabled arse.” Typically the moment that Labor come forward with a way to make the NDIS sustainable the Liberals come out with nonsense like its gonna send Australia broke… We have to have a Levy because Labor cannot manage the economy say the Liberals. Let’s be clear, Labor has managed the economy in these difficult times very well and leading economist the world over are in awe of Australia’s healthy economy which has grown for the 21^st consecutive year. Enough of this fear campaign about the economy. Australians are not stupid.

Most importantly enough of saying that the NDIS is a cost! It is not!  Anyone with a half brain will tell you that keeping  Australians with a disability bound to their homes because they cannot get enough care is a drain on Australia’s resources. This is 20% of the population of which a large proportion cannot contribute to the Australian economy simply because they cannot get out of their homes. Two showers a week ewwwww. Four year waits for wheelchairs oh FFS!  It is a scandal that parents in their seventies are still looking after their disabled kids because there is no care for them. Let’s be clear, the NDIS won’t fix all of this in a day but it is at least trying to do something about it. It’s a disgrace for anyone to say BUT IT COSTS TOO MUCH! Take a walk in the shoes of someone who can only get out and about once a month and say that to their faces.

Let’s also be clear that by improving participation and inclusion for people with a disability Australia is creating opportunities. It will mean more can work. More can get out to shopping. More can get to the movies. More can go out to eat. More can earn money meaning less are on pensions.  Only 53% of people with a disability work compared to over 80% for able bods. It’s well known that simply by raising this employment rate of 53% to 65% it will mean that people with a disability will contribute a further $43 billion to the economy over ten years. Hell, this will fund a quarter of the NDIS on its own.

Australia needs to get over this perception of the NDIS being a COST. It is not, it is an investment that will mean that not only will people with a disability live better lives but they will also CONTRIBUTE more to Australia  in a big way. The short sightedness of those that oppose the NDIS Levy is hard to comprehend. Sure setting up the NDIS is going to be a hard slog with more than a few headaches but Australia needs it AND NOW!

On the downside consider this … The scheme is said to be targeting 410 000 people with a disability. The NDIS is now called DisabilityCare. It is about CARE!  There are said to be anything between 3 to 4 million people who are Deaf and hearing impaired in Australia. Well sorry folks you simply will not be part of the NDIS. It’s not targeted at the deaf and arguably never was.

I will be shot for saying this, but I don’t really care. I think there are a group of people with a disability that have more pressing needs and this is who the NDIS should target at this point. If the deaf get considered in the NDIS later then well and good. I think what we have now is the envy of many people with a disability who have really pressing care needs. We deafies can put up and shut up while these people have their needs met. But in the meantime the Government needs to come clean on this instead of leading all us deafies up the garden path.