A newsletter for
people interested in issues relevant to people from NESB
with disability and their families and carers. Produced
by the Multicultural Disability Advocacy Association of
NSW (MDAA).
If you have any queries,
questions, comments or any other contributions please
contact us by email (mdaa@mdaa.org.au)
or phone (02) 9891 6400.
NEW at
MDAA
The Committee and
staff of MDAA wish you a wonderful and relaxing Holiday
Season
MDAA will be closed from Thursday 25th December 2008
to Monday 5th January 2009
New Assistant
Director
Hi Everyone,
I started working at MDAA at the beginning of November
and immediately moved into AGM mode. Editing the Annual
Report was a quick way to learn a lot about this busy
organisation. I went straight on to develop the 2009
Organisational Plan with staff at their quarterly state
wide meeting and then followed it up by attending the
launch of the new information booklet and DVD "Raising
Kids Together" for families of a child or young person
with disability from Afghanistan, Iraq and Sudan. One
thing you can say about MDAA is that there is never a
dull moment.
Please feel free to drop into the office and introduce
yourself if you are in the neighbourhood or alternatively
email me on: lyn.lormer@mdaa.org.au
or phone on 9891 6400. I will look forward to meeting
you.
Lyn Lormer
Report back from MDAA's Annual
General Meeting
MDAA held its AGM on 26th November 2008 at the
Granville Youth & Community Centre. The new
Committee is made up of both old and new faces. They
are:
Alberto Castillo, Anne Napoli, Athana Fan,
Chris Livanos, David Abello, Dulia Mandinic, Erlinda
Van Der Braack, George Buxbaum, Gerard Nayna, Milanka
Zivanovic, Pusparanee Mcintosh, Rachel Lazarov, Tony
Shoushani.
Please check out our website for MDAA's annual
report.
Launch of "Raising Kids
Together"
This project, funded by DADHC, was a collaborative
effort between MDAA, Information and Cultural Change
(ICE) and Multicultural Health Communication Services
(MHCS), to develop an information and resource kit for
families from Afghanistan, Iraq and Sudan who have a
child or young person with disability.
The Information Kit was launched by Lauren Murray, the
Executive Director of Community Access at DADHC on behalf
of the Minister for Disability Services on Monday 8th
December 2008. Despite the weather there was a great turn
out from each of the target communities, with over 60
people celebrating the completion of this wonderful
resource.
The Kit has the DVD and the information booklet in 6
languages. These are: Arabic, Assyrian, Dari, Dinka, Juba
Arabic and English. Demand for the Information Kit is
already growing. You can order your kit by ringing MDAA
on 1800 629 072 or 9891 6400.
Please see attached  35kbPress
Release from Paul Lynch MP, Minister for Ageing,
Minister for Disability Services, Minister for Aboriginal
Affairs.
Disability Rights Awareness
Training for Ethnic Community Workers
MDAA has received a grant to provide a free two day
training course in disability rights awareness for
workers from different ethnic communities in five
locations across NSW: Wollongong, Newcastle and Griffith
and two locations in Sydney.
Participants in the training will:
- be encouraged to examine their own cultural
understandings and experiences of disability and how
these influence their attitudes and responses to
people with disability and to using the legal avenues
available to resolve the problems experienced by
people with disability and their families;
- learn about specialist and generalist legal rights
services and how to contact them, including community
legal centres, Legal Aid Commission, disability
advocacy groups;
- have an opportunity to establish their own
networks to ensure ongoing exchange of information,
support and expertise.
Enhancing the knowledge of ethnic community workers
will reduce the barriers people from NESB with disabilty
experience.
This training will be advertised in this newsletter so
please watch out for more information during 2009. You
can also register your interest by emailing mdaa@mdaa.org.au
as places with be limited.
State
News
DADHC's draft
policies on supported accommodation places and
maintaining respite capacity
A round table was called by the Minister for
Disability Services end of October to gather comments on
the two draft policies. MDAA raised serious concerns
that both policies failed to consider the needs and
interests of people from NESB with disability and their
families. The write up of the consultation was received
end of November. MDAA will continue to work with DADHC
to ensure that the specific amendments suggested will be
included.
Commonweath
News
National Disability
Strategy
MDAA provided a submission on the development of the
National Disability Strategy. The Department of
Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous
Affairs has been conducting consultations with
organisations and individuals. MDAA's submission focused
the barriers experience by people from NESB with
disability and suggested possible strategies to address
these barriers.
MDAA made the following recommendations:
Recommendation 1:
The NDS includes more targeted consultation
strategies that will commit government agencies to
include people from NESB with disability at all levels
of program planning and delivery.
Recommendation 2:
Principles of substantive equality underpin the
NDS.
Recommendation 3:
The Commonwealth Government to review and amend
legislation to ensure it reflects the principles and
spirit of the UNCRPD.
Recommendation 4:
The Government commits to improving access of
people from NESB with disability and considers
interpreting and translating costs in all funding
agreements.
Recommendation 5:
A targeted communication strategy is developed for
people from NESB with disability.
Recommendation 6:
A review of data collection methodologies,
including Minimum Data Set and Census, to ensure a
better capturing of the intersection of cultural
backgrounds and disability.
Recommendation 7:
Periodic review of the effectiveness of the NDS to
meet the outcomes outlined in the strategy to be
conducted by the Department of the Prime Minister and
Cabinet and the Commonwealth Ombudsman.
Please refer to MDAA website for the full submission.
264kb
National
Disability Strategy
Deductible Gift Recipient
Campaign
The Local Community Services Association (LCSA), the
peak body for Neighbourhood Centres in NSW, is seeking
support for a national campaign to extend Deductible Gift
Recipient status to all organisations in the community
sector. An outline of the rational and a sample letter to
federal politicians can be found at the LCSA website at:
www.lcsa.org.au
Please be proactive as this will benefit all of us and
our clients.
National Conference on
Caring 2009
Please follow the weblink for more information on this
upcoming Conference www.astmanagement.com.au/caring9
News from across the
World: International
Usually in this section we
feature articles from around the world but this time we
thought this home grown deserves the spotlight.
Migrants with disabilities
deserve a better deal
By Jan Gothard
03.12.08
Public interest in the issue of migration and
disability over the last three weeks has been
astonishing.
Even the 2001 self-immolation outside Parliament House
and subsequent death of Mr Sharaz Kayani, a Pakistani
refugee whose daughter was denied entry to Australia
because of her disability, did not draw such sustained
media attention and had even less political impact.
Within recent days the Minister for Immigration and
Citizenship Senator Chris Evans has moved to overturn
decisions made by the government's Migration Review
Tribunal (MRT) and has granted permanent residence to
both the Moellers and the Robinsons, families living and
working in Australia but who have a family member whose
disability prevented them obtaining permanence.
The speed of ministerial response in the Moeller case
was absolutely unprecedented, as indeed was the rate of
the family's progress through the MRT itself. Last week
the Minister for Immigration and the Parliamentary
Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services, Bill
Shorten, announced that they would ask the Joint Standing
Committee on Migration to look at the health requirement
in the Migration Act and how this impacts on people with
a disability, and Senator Evans subsequently announced
that the health requirement may be waived for some
families already in Australia on temporary visas.
Evans and Shorten deserve praise for opening up the
debate, but there is a great deal that needs to be
changed. While the media and disability groups have drawn
attention to some of the more obvious injustices in the
system as it applied to the Moellers and the Robinsons,
other families outside the media's gaze are subjected to
the same overt discrimination.
Take the situation of migrant families who have
permanent residence but have not yet applied for
Australian citizenship. If they are careless enough to
have a child with a disability while temporarily outside
Australia, then that child will not be entitled to
permanent residence (unlike a sibling without a
disability, similarly born outside the country) because,
like the Moeller's son, the child will fail the health
test.
In some cases migration officials have advised
families in that situation simply to leave the child
behind! Such a point of view is reminiscent of the
mindset of administrators who, little more than a
generation ago, told parents of a child with a disability
to 'put their child away' and to get on with their lives.
That a child with a disability might be a loved and
integral member of a family seems not to occur to people
who can deliver such a message. If the law is an ass then
surely some migration officers are donkeys.
New Zealand families living in Australia are also
subject to some curious inequities. Should they have a
child with a disability while living here, they too will
find themselves ineligible when they apply for permanent
residence because their child will also fail to meet the
health criteria. Though they can continue to live here,
without the holy grail of permanent residence the family
will not be entitled to access health care or other
social benefits - though they are of course required to
pay taxes and thereby to contribute to the health care
made available to other families.
While Minister Evans intervened in the Moellers' case
within 24 hours of their rejection by the Migration
Review Tribunal, other less publicised families remain in
limbo. Some have been waiting for more than 18 months for
ministerial intervention - and this after an exhaustive,
extended and expensive battle through the MRT. The
Minister's decision to investigate waiving the health
requirement for onshore cases promises imminent relief to
some families, but there are others equally deserving,
who can contribute just as much to Australia, whose lives
remain on hold. Onshore or offshore, these families
deserve a resolution.
Let's hope that behind the scenes, Senator Evans will
continue to act with the zeal and compassion which he
applied in the Moeller case. However ministerial
intervention is no substitute for legislative change.
Equally, it is critical that the forthcoming inquiry not
be captured by migration interests but focus on the
issues raised by the UN Convention: the rights of people
with disabilities and the notion of equity which
Australian society and the Rudd Government have otherwise
embraced through policies of social inclusion. This
suggests clear directions for change.
The clause within the Disability Discrimination Act
which exempts migration practices and regulations must be
scrapped and the policies and practices of the Department
of Immigration reviewed to end discrimination against
people with disabilities and their families. Assessment
procedures need to be transparent, consistent and
equitable. The present view of people with disabilities
as a burden on the community, a view which permeates
current migration practice, must be abandoned, and the
positive contribution made by people with disabilities
and their families given full consideration. And finally,
if a family otherwise meets migration criteria,
disability alone should not be grounds for rejection.
Had a better system been in place, the tragedy which
engulfed the Kayani family, and the anguish and
frustration endured by the Moellers and Robinsons and
nameless other families, could have been avoided.
(Jan Gothard is a parent, historian and member of Down
Syndrome Western Australia)
Source: www.abc.net.au
_______________________________________
Diana Qian
Executive Director
Multicultural Disability Advocacy Association of NSW
Ph: (02) 9891 6400 Fax: (02) 9635 5355
PO Box 9381, Harris Park NSW 2150
www.mdaa.org.au
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