At this year's AGM the
members of MDAA elected a new committee:
Chairperson: Milanka Zivanovic,
Vice-Chairperson: David Abello, Treasurer: George
Buxbaum, Secretary: Pushparanee MacIntosh. Ordinary
members: Ace Boncato, Alberto Castillo, Anne Napoli,
Athana Fan, Dulia Mandinic, Hannen Abdallah, Dulia
Mandinic, Rachel Lazarov and Tony Shoushani.
Congratulations to all and thanks to all who nominated
and all who participated in the democratic process of
electing a Committee.
Thanks also to David Borger, local
member for Granville, who stepped in on behalf of the
Minister who could not come.
Diversity
Management Leadership Program
15 leaders and change agents employed in the human
services sector have commenced the program with a two day
introductory workshop focusing on diversity, self
awareness, diversity management, dealing with judgements
and cultural competence.
One of the many conversations centred on tackling
prejudice, racism, any kind of phobia within the
workplace. A helpful framework for countering racism can
be adopted from www.racismnoway.com.au. These strategies
include:
Know your rights and responsibilities; Challenge
racism whenever it occurs; Be a positive role model;
Assess your own attitudes, values, behaviours and need
for further training and knowledge; Recognise and value
cultural diversity; Create inclusive environments;
Encourage the involvement of consumers, families and
community members from all backgrounds at all levels of
your organisation.
Afghan, Sudanese
and Iraqi communities - Information Kit and DVD about
children with disability and their families
MDAA, ICE and MHCS are working together with people
from the Afghan, Sudanese and Iraqi communities to make
an Information Kit and DVD about children with disability
and their families and the services available.
There are several ways you could assist us:
- You may know children with disability and their
families from those communities who may be interested
in getting involved, telling their stories, acting,
voice-overs, etc.
- You may have worked with children with disability
and their families from those communities and can
share some of your learning, insights, understandings,
etc.
- You may have some knowledge you acquired elsewhere
that you could share with us.
How to assist us: Please email
theresa.clark@mdaa.org.au
or call her on 9891 6400.
Cultural
Competence Training in Bathurst
We will deliver a one day workshop in Bathurst on 11
February 2008 for NGO services working with people with
disability.
The aim of the workshop is to enhance the cultural
competence of people who work with people with
disability, with the expected outcome of higher quality
service delivery to people from non-English speaking
backgrounds with disability and their carers.
COST: Free & Lunch is provided
For more information and to register please go to
http://www.mdaa.org.au/service/industry/country.html
and follow the links.
Supported
Living
With the NSW Government busily
redeveloping the large institutions of Lachlan and Peat
Island, despite over 100 years of evidence that locking
people up in institutions does not work, (12 years ago
the then Liberal Minister Ron Dyer said in parliament:
"As I have said before in this House, Peat Island is an
outmoded, outdated, Dickensian institution. There is no
place for Dickensian institutions in New South Wales in
1995. The legislation requires that Peat Island and other
large residential centres be closed."
12 years later the old Dickensian
institutions are getting a new coat of paint, a few new
buildings and people with disability and their families
are still looking for alternatives that support the
rights, dreams and aspirations of people with disability
and provide opportunities for living decent lives in the
community.
In Queensland a group of families
decided 17 years ago that waiting for the government to
deliver is like waiting for Godot in Samuel Beckett's
famous play. They got together and set up Homes West
which is supporting 12 people with disability, 5 of whom
came from institutions and 8 of whom need 24 hour
support, to live independently in the community. Of the
12 people, 4 get no government funding at all. At a
recent presentation hosted by the NSW Council of
Intellectual Disability, Margaret Ward, one of the
parents who started Homes West, said one of the keys is
an understanding that life is a journey and not a
solution and that nothing happens without people being
intentional and having a strong commitment to a vision
and ongoing planning.
To read about Homes West go to www.homeswest.org.au/
To get ideas about how to get
started go to www.supportedliving.org.au/resources/familiesachieving.html
New
Government
Below is a list of the new Cabinet, Ministers,
Parliamentary secretaries, etc.
Kevin Rudd, MP — Prime Minister
Julia Gillard, MP — Deputy Prime Minister;
Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Social
Inclusion
Wayne Swan, MP — Treasurer
Senator Chris Evans — Leader of the Government in
the Senate; Immigration and Citizenship
Senator John Faulkner — Special Minister of
State; Cabinet Secretary; Vice President of the Executive
Council
Simon Crean, MP — Trade
Stephen Smith, MP — Foreign Affairs
Joel Fitzgibbon, MP — Defence
Nicola Roxon, MP — Health and Ageing
Jenny Macklin, MP — Families, Housing, Community
Services and Indigenous Affairs
Lindsay Tanner, MP — Finance and Deregulation
Anthony Albanese, MP — Infrastructure, Transport
and Regional Development, Local Government; Leader of the
House
Senator Stephen Conroy — Deputy Leader of the
Government in the Senate; Broadband, Communications and
the Digital Economy
Senator Kim Carr — Innovation, Industry, Science
and Research
Senator Penny Wong — Climate Change and Water
Peter Garrett, MP — Environment, Heritage and the
Arts
Robert McClelland, MP — Attorney General
Senator Joe Ludwig — Human Services; Manager of
Government Business in the Senate
Tony Burke, MP — Agriculture, Fisheries and
Forestry
Martin Ferguson, MP — Resources and Energy,
Tourism
OUTER MINISTRY
Bob Debus — Home Affairs
Chris Bowen, MP — Assistant Treasurer, Minister
for Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs
Alan Griffin, MP — Veterans' Affairs
Tanya Plibersek, MP — Housing, Status of
Women
Brendan O'Connor, MP — Employment
Participation
Warren Snowdon, MP — Defence Science and
Personnel
Craig Emerson, MP — Small Business, Independent
Contractors and the Service Economy; Minister Assisting
the Finance Minister on Deregulation
Senator Nick Sherry — Superannuation and
Corporate Governance
Justine Elliot, MP — Ageing
Kate Ellis, MP — Youth, Sport
PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARIES
Maxine McKew — Prime Minister and Cabinet
Greg Combet — Defence
Mike Kelly — Defence
Gary Gray — Infrastructure, Transport and
Regional Development
Bill Shorten — Families, Housing, Community
Services and Indigenous Affairs
Bob McMullan, MP — Foreign Affairs
Duncan Kerr, MP — Foreign Affairs
Anthony Byrne, MP — Prime Minister and
Cabinet
Senator Ursula Stephens — Social Inclusion and
the Voluntary Sector
John Murphy, MP — Trade
Senator Jan McLucas — Health and Ageing
Laurie Ferguson, MP — Immigration and
Citizenship
For your information below are some of the issues and
promises of the new Labor Government Disability and
Carer Policy:
"Labor believes that all people should be
able to participate as valued members of a civil
society. Disability should not stand in the way of
people being active members of their communities,
workplaces, families and society."
To support people with disabilities and their
carers we need to:
- Increase access to mainstream services like
health, housing and transport.
- Provide disability services that meet the support
needs of people with disabilities.
- Recognise the support the families and carers of
people with disabilities provide.
- Offer practical assistance so that people with
disabilities can participate fully in the community,
including in the open labour market.
A Rudd Labor Government will:
- Guarantee the ongoing funding of disability
services by fast tracking the renegotiation of a new
CSTDA. Bring $962 million in funding for disability
services, which is currently outside the CSTDA, back
into the Agreement and provide it to the States and
Territories on a dollar for dollar matching basis.
This will increase funding by $1.9 billion in excess
of indexation.
- Make disability services reform the priority of
the next CSTDA. Reform priorities will include:
- Better measurement of current and future need for
disability services.
- Moving toward national population benchmarks for
key disability service types.
- Making older carers a priority for all disability
services under the CSTDA.
- Quality improvement systems based on the National
Disability Services Standards for all CSTDA
services.
- Improved service planning and strategies to
simplify access to services.
- Focusing on early intervention, life long planning
and increasing the independence and social
participation of people with disabilities.
- Build six long day care centres to provide early
intervention for children with autism in addition to
the $190 million Helping Children with Autism
package.
- Establish a National Companion Card Scheme and
achieve national consistency on disability
parking.
- Give people with disabilities who are ageing
access to community aged care programs.
- Negotiate a National Disability Strategy with the
States and Territories to tackle the complex needs of
people with disabilities and their carers.
- Create a two year transition period for people
working in business services who want to move to open
employment.
- Review the need for legislative reform to
recognise the role and rights of carers through the
Office of Work and Family.
A Rudd Labor Government will implement all other
elements of the Disability Assistance Package,
including annual payments to parents of children with a
disability and measures relating to children's services
and employment services.
Labor does not support the current competitive
tendering processes for the National Disability
Advocacy Program based on the Coalition's narrow
criteria. Labor wants to create a system of advocacy that
provides effective services for people with disabilities
and their families. A Rudd Labor Government will address
the gaps in service delivery that currently exist through
collaboration with advocacy providers and all other
stakeholders. Labor does not consider that an adversarial
process of competitive tendering will deliver the best
outcomes for people with disabilities needing advocacy
services.
A Rudd Labor Government will implement this
recommendation by negotiating a National Disability
Strategy with the States and Territories to tackle
the complex needs of people with disabilities and their
carers. The National Disability Strategy will be overseen
by the relevant Ministerial Council and have a clear
place for the involvement of consumers, carers and
providers of disability support services.
Disability policy must be about more than individual
services. All portfolios have a role to play and some of
the most important issues can only be addressed across
government. A National Disability Strategy would be a
document that canvasses the full range of issues that
impact on disability policy including:
- How to fund, finance and deliver disability
services in the future.
- Prevention and early intervention.
- Increasing social and workforce
participation.
- The specific needs of various disability groups,
particularly those that are increasing in number.
- Improving the research agenda.
- New models of care.
Labor's approach to disability is focused on the
inclusion and participation of people with disabilities.
There are many practical measures that can support the
inclusion and participation of people with disabilities
in the community that provide immediate and tangible
benefits. Labor supported the signing of the
International Convention on the Rights of Disabled
Persons.
MDAA will work together with the National
Ethnic Disability Alliance to ensure that people from
non-English speaking backgrounds with disability will
benefit equitably from the promises made and the
aspirations articulated.
MDAA is also excited and looking forward to
contributing to the development of a national agenda for
social inclusion. The new Deputy Premier and Minister for
Social Inclusion, Julia Gillard, articulated the ALP's
policy for social inclusion at a recent ACOSS conference.
Among other things Julia Gillard said:
"…if we are going to solve the problem of social
exclusion we have to develop a new agenda that can bring
social and economic policy together to complement each
other. That's what Labor intends to do. In my view, such
an agenda must have two guiding principles:
- it must tackle the social exclusion of individuals
and communities; and
- it must invest in the human capital of all our
people, especially the most disadvantaged."
- Bringing economic and social policy together to
reduce disadvantage is going to take a massive effort
of cooperation between the Commonwealth, the States
and the not for profit sector.
To get things moving, Labor in government will
establish a Social Inclusion Board that will lead
consultation in the community, listening to leading
welfare advocates, economists and policy specialists. Its
task will be to advise the Government on what, how and
where our major social investment efforts must begin,
feeding into the operations of a new Social Inclusion
Unit to be established in the Prime Minister's
Department.
Let me be clear: our social inclusion initiatives will
not be about welfare - they will be an investment
strategy to join social policy to economic policy to the
benefit of both. For this reason, our Social Inclusion
Unit and Board will be made up of serious economic and
social thinkers, not just welfare representatives. This
won't be a memorial to good intentions - it will be about
action and hard-headed economics.
We have to change the way Governments at all levels
deliver services to tackle disadvantage. It's going to be
about bottom up not top-down measures to tackle
disadvantage - so we will be asking local governments,
non-government organizations and businesses to
participate in new place-based governance arrangements
that bring together Commonwealth, State and local funds
in the most effective way to lift up disadvantaged
communities.
Today I'm asking for your assistance in making this
work. Already, our policy down-payments to deal with
social inclusion are there for all to see and judge.
Labor recognises that education is critical to social
inclusion. The fact is that school completion rates among
low socio-economic groups in Australia are far too low.
If we're going to compete with other nations we simply
have to get more young people from disadvantaged
backgrounds to complete twelve years of schooling and go
on to further education and training.
Our goal of getting retention rates back up to 90
percent by 2020 will require big improvements among the
most disadvantaged groups. We're going to do it by
investing $2.5 billion to boost trades training in
schools.
And we're going to do it by ensuring every child has
access to a computer when they're at school - and, when
they get home, the computers, broadband, books and other
educational resources they need to study, through our
education tax rebate for families. In a world of scarce
education resources it makes sense to invest funds where
they will make the most impact - and this means years 0
to 6.
One of the most significant commitments of our social
inclusion agenda is universal preschool education for 4
year olds. And we're also teaming up with the Brotherhood
of St Laurence to establish 50 community based programs
to help parents develop their children's early learning
capacities.
Tackling disadvantage also means doing more to help
job seekers - particularly those facing the highest
barriers to employment. That's why we intend to improve
the operation of the Job Network and the Disability
Employment Network:
- by focusing more on early intervention;
- by ensuring struggling job seekers get the most
intensive assistance; and
- by putting the emphasis on preparing people for
sustainable jobs, not simply churning them through a
system.
We're going to commit an extra $20 million to the JET
Child Care programs to allow some 10,000 parents who are
studying to receive the benefit for two years. And our
Social Inclusion Board will be asked to develop a
national employment strategy for those with a disability
and mental illness.
Of course before we do anything else, we must ensure
people have a roof over their heads. 100,000 Australians
find themselves homeless on any night. Of these, nearly
half are under 24 years of age and 10,000 are children
aged twelve or younger.
While the services that are funded to assist the
homeless do their best - and manage to accommodate more
than 12,000 at any one time in around 7,500 shelters,
units and houses - this is not enough to meet demand.
To tackle this, Labor will invest $150 million over
five years to build 600 new houses and units for homeless
people across the country. Our aim is to halve the number
of people regularly turned away from shelters each
night.
We've also been listening to members of the National
Housing Affordability Summit and their call for a
National Rental Affordability Scheme, which will provide
investment incentives for 50,000 new affordable rental
properties in return for owners holding rents to 20
percent or more below the market rate.
Perhaps one of the cruellest aspects of the Howard
Government's neglect of the disadvantaged was their
scrapping of the Commonwealth Dental Health Program in
1996. Because the last thing you can afford when you're
poor is a trip to a dentist. As a result of that callous
decision, today some 650,000 low-income Australians are
on public dental waiting lists, some waiting for years in
pain.
This is totally unacceptable in a civilized society -
and to tackle it Labor is going to spend $290 million to
re-establish the program and treat up to 1 million
patients in the next 3 years. This is one of Australia's
largest public health problems and it is time it was
fixed. And it will complement our $2.5 billion National
Health Reform Plan that will work with the states to
improve our public hospital system.
Conclusion
Labor's social inclusion agenda will be as expansive
as it is inclusive. Today, I'm asking for your
cooperation. I know that many of you have been fighting
long battles against some of the most depressing and
punitive policy changes of the Howard Government
years:
- the abolition of the Commonwealth Dental Health
Scheme;
- the slow strangulation of the Commonwealth-State
Housing Agreements;
- the failures of the Job Network;
- the sheer vindictiveness of breaching rules
against the homeless and the ill;
- and the neglect of education; and
- closer to home for some of you - the gagging of
advocacy functions which give your communities a
voice.
Like you, I'm getting sick of protesting against
enduring disadvantage. I want to do something practical
to reduce it. A Labor win on Saturday will give all of us
here the opportunity to channel our cooperative efforts
into a positive strategy that will do just that. And
should we win, I look forward to working with all parts
of the community sector to start putting our strategy
into place. " (from http://www.alp.org.au/media/1107/spesi220.php)
