Well that was a week in politics wasn’t it? Make that a fortnight. It’s been so shambolic I have lost track of time. First there was the Royal Commission into Banking. To the surprise of no one the big banks have been ripping us off. The Government, who were dragged kicking and screaming to have the commission, have done – Nothing.

Then there was the Asylum seekers who are on Manus island. They can now come to Australia if they are sick. Mind you it is only them. Any new asylum seekers who are sick who and who wind up here on a boat can go and die. They don’t matter. Of course the Government is now trying to scare us all silly that the floodgates are going to be open to terrorists  and rapist from the lands of brown people.

You see they lost the vote and are the first government to lose a vote in Parliament for 90 years. That being the case they threw their toys out of the pram. Then Pauline Hanson was  accused of sexual harassment and two guys had a fight outside her office. Blood ended up smeared all over her door. Let’s not mention Trump who is apparently fat and healthy. Inspiring stuff this, hey?

In the midst of all this something that really does matter was lost. That is the push for a Royal Commission into the Abuse of People with a Disability. Senator Jordan Steele has a bill that he wants passed in parliament so that there can be a commission to investigate this abuse.

The Government, those jolly people, played delaying tactics and had this bill left hanging because they thought they might yet lose another vote in parliament. Meanwhile, people with a disability are being abused and are dying all over Australia. The Government is doing what it does best, nothing. I don’t say this lightly, but the current Liberal Government is the most appalling and disgusting Government, ever, in Australia’s history.

Let’s look at the figures for the abuse of people with a disability that I can find. Credit here to disability activist, Samantha Connor. I will list a few below;

• Feb 6 2019 – Carer sacked after being charged with indecently assaulting a teenage girl with a cognitive impairment while employed as a carer at a facility in Sydney’s southwest in July 2018.
• Feb 2 2019 – Three teenage girls fiercely attack, beat and kick an eighteen year old intellectually disabled man in an act of hate crime.
• Feb 2 2019 – The carer of a disabled teen faces court after being charged with torture and assault after allegedly strangling him with his own bib. He was aged seventeen at the time and required around the clock care.
• Jan 31 2019 – FaCS respite centre worker is found guilty of assaulting an autistic boy by trying to force feed him. The man was heard aggressively ordering the boy to “eat”, saying “f…king spit it out and I will f..king open your mouth” and told him he would break his neck.
• 11 January 2019 – Mentally ill man, Kenneth Francis Dunster, who was identified as a choking risk, chokes to death at the Millbrook Rise Rehabilitation Centre, New Norfolk in Tasmania.
• 9 January 2019 – 62-year-old support worker charged with the aggravated sexual assault of a 38-year-old cognitively impaired woman in October 2018.

In all Connor lists 18 cases that have been heard in 2019. Note we are only half way through February, less than two months into the year. All over Australia similar incidents of abuse are happening to people with a disability. What does the Government do?  It plays delaying tactics in parliament to save its own skin. Meanwhile Senator Jordan Steele is  trying to get this enquiry legislated. But what do the Government care? Those bloody brown skin people are gonna come in their millions and kill us all. Yep, this is Australia today.

And this abuse of people with a disability is well known. It’s been well known for a long time. Successive Governments have chosen to ignore it. People with a disability are being killed, assaulted, raped and systematically abused. Again Connor brings this to our attention;

30 June 2018 – Victorian Disability Services Commissioner releases report saying that there is widespread abuse and neglect of disabled people in Victoria, including 570 deaths in residential care facilities in a decade. The deaths included physical restraint, accidental choking on food and other items, inadequate supervision and inappropriate access to medication.

If you want to read this sordid tale click on the link above. Let it sink in – 570 deaths in a decade, just in Victoria! Just for having a disability. The majority of these appear to be at facilities run by the Government.

And there are more. A mother injecting urine into her disabled daughter to make her sick. A 44 year old man charged with drowning a disabled teenager. Carer charged for killing a disabled person, praying over its body and beating it with a belt. Autistic boy locked in a dark room and forced to urinate in a bucket. Mother sends disabled daughter to an aged care facility and the poisons her. These sordid stories go on and on.

What is our Government doing? It’s trying to save its own skin and fear mongering about asylum seekers who, in most cases, are doing nothing more than trying to save their own lives.

There is hope. Perhaps next week the Government will get its head out of its own arse long enough to listen to Senator Steele’s bill for a Royal Commission into the Abuse of People with a Disability. I hope so. I am not holding my breath because inevitably humans disappoint inevitably .… This week taught me that much. But who knows, they may surprise us!

FACT CREDITS TO SAMANTHA CONNOR.