Add Category
How do you respond to the findings of a generational investigation that ran for over four-and-a-half years, probed the failing of institutions and dredged up long-held traumas for those who participated?
Yesterday, state and federal governments started releasing their responses to the final report of the disability royal commission.
The reaction from disability advocates was as swift as it was damning.
Marayke Jonkers, president of the peak national body for the estimated 5.5 million Australians with disability, said members were "devastated, disappointed and completely caught off guard" by the federal government's response.
Greens senator Jordon Steele-John — a key parliamentary figure in getting the royal commission set up – went a step further, calling it an "insult".
The disability community fought long and hard for this inquiry to ensure their stories of violence, abuse and neglect entered the public record.
Now they have, no-one can ever say they didn't know what was happening to people with disability.
But after yesterday, some in the community are questioning whether re-living their pain was really worth it.
A community feeling let down
This royal commission was a decade in the making.
The disability community knew the inquiry was a moment they would never get back.
They were hoping for a new dawn, one that would end the violence and abuse. They had to make it count, and they did.
Almost 10,000 people with disability, their families and advocates put their pain and trauma on the line.
Through powerful, and at times harrowing testimony, the community held each other with bravery and strength.
By sharing their horrific experiences they allowed the public to understand, even for just a brief moment, what they had and continued to endure.
Australians were told what it felt like to live with intellectual disability and be sexually assaulted in your own home by your support worker.
To search your local tip for scraps to fix your wheelchair.
To have your child removed from you right after birth.
To be paid $2.50 an hour for manual labour, or to be denied a job simply because you were disabled.
The disability community expected a comprehensive response to the 222 recommendations it made for sweeping change. It wanted governments to be as brave as those who had shared their most traumatic stories.
Instead, as many of those people who gave evidence picked through the response yesterday — ten months after the inquiry's final report and four months after the recommended deadline was missed — there was anger.
It also didn't go unnoticed in the community that the Prime Minister, so often the face of royal commission responses, wasn't at the press conference. It was also suggested supporting just 13 of 172 recommendations it was responsible for without a caveat doesn't scream enthusiasm.
The government did accept an additional 117 recommendations in principle, which means it supports the intent of the recommendation, but may implement it in a different way.
Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth noted some of the commissioners' recommendations were "very prescriptive".
There were aspects of the response the community was united behind, such as the commitment to reform the Disability Discrimination Act, which received in-principle support.
There were also recommendations campaigners expected to garner a commitment that didn't, including creating a federal disability department. That was "noted".
Other key recommendations many wanted to see addressed didn't get firm support, most notably the phasing out of special schools, group homes and segregated employment — environments where some of the highest levels of abuse occur.
Children and Young People with Disability Australia called the lack of firm commitment on segregated education a "failure of leadership" and a "betrayal" of young people with disability.
So, what next?
The scale of reform, and the once-in-a-generation opportunity to do so, meant a quick fix was never going to happen.
The commissioners came back with complex, nuanced recommendations; some of which even they couldn't all agree on.
The fact so many recommendations straddled jurisdictions and sectors also complicates matters. The federal government was at pains to point out 16 different ministers were involved in this initial response.
The Commonwealth says it will continue to work with the states and territories, as well as people with disability, to implement reforms and flesh out the details.
Governments will also have accountability through six-monthly public reports on the implementation progress.
But advocates are concerned that the scale of this response doesn't match the scale of the violence happening to people with disability.
They're also worried by the lack of a clear road map.
"The core thing about being a disabled person [is] the concept of stability. We need to know what our goal posts are," Disability Leadership Institute CEO Christina Ryan says.
"We didn't relive that trauma and violence for our benefit. We wanted to see meaningful change and there isn't a time frame for that happening," Ms Jonkers says.
And as Ms Ryan says, the longer the full response takes, the further away a fully inclusive Australia is — and in the meantime, people with disability will continue to face violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation.
"Just because we've lifted the rock and had a look underneath, it doesn't mean that what's underneath the rock isn't still there," she says.
Loading