NSW Parliamentary Forum

In the picture above: CID staff members Ben Alexander and Liz Evans speak at the Parliamentary Forum.

It was standing room only at CID’s Parliamentary Forum on Wednesday 18 October: “Intellectual Disability: Ending discrimination and embracing inclusion.”

The forum provided insight and real stories from people with intellectual disability and their guardians and family members.

MC Fiona MacKenzie AM said, “People with intellectual disability experience discrimination and barriers to inclusion every day of their lives.”

As CEO of CID, Georgina Reynhout said, “Let’s be clear – it is the community that needs to change in order to become inclusive – not people with intellectual disability.”

Shannon Lalor spoke about his experiences accessing information and using public transport as a person with intellectual disability.

Ben Alexander spoke about the value of employment and the challenges in finding a job as a person with intellectual disability.

Judy Harper outlined the deadly impact of bias and discrimination for people with intellectual disability in our health services and hospitals.

Then senior CID advocate Jim Simpson spoke about the recommendations in the recently released final report of the Disability Royal Commission and what these recommendations mean to people with intellectual disability.

Finally, the Hon. Liesel Tesch, Parliamentary Secretary for Disability Inclusion, speaking on behalf of Minister Kate Washington, spoke of her respect for the work of CID and of the work that the NSW Government is doing to improve disability inclusion for people with intellectual disability.

Making our community more inclusive for people with intellectual disability can be achieved. Here are some of our solutions.

Transport solutions

• Make all information about public transport accessible for people with intellectual. Use words and pictures that are easy to understand.
• Work with people with intellectual disability to design transport solutions that work for everyone.
• Train transport staff in disability awareness. This training should be the same across all providers.

Employment solutions

• End wages as low as $2.50 an hour for people with intellectual disability working in Australian Disability Enterprises (ADEs). With the right support, people with intellectual disability can work in open employment in the community with real wages.
• Meet the existing target of 5.6% of public sector roles held by people with disability by 2025. This needs to include people with different kinds of disability.
• Develop a strategy so that at least 1% of public sector roles are held by people with intellectual disability in 2025. This strategy should focus on both school leavers and adults with intellectual disability.

Justice solutions

• Expand existing court diversion programs for people with intellectual disability to be statewide.

Health solutions

• Expand the existing Intellectual Disability Health Service to cover all 15 local health districts in NSW.

You can read more about these and other solutions for making our community inclusive for people with intellectual disability on our website at our Everyday for Everyone campaign page.

Please consider what you can do to make our community more accessible and inclusive to people with intellectual disability.

Watch a video of the Parliamentary Forum here.