mulberry road: The thing is, Mr Abbott, fixing the broken...

19:51 1st Feb 2012

The thing is, Mr Abbott, fixing the broken disability system we have in this country isn’t like saving all your pocket money until you could finally afford that CD player you desperately wanted when you were 12. It’s not a luxury item that we can simply do without until there’s some spare cash floating around. What you said yesterday made it very clear that you see improving the living conditions of people with disabilities and our families as an indulgence.

This is beyond alarming. Whether or not we have the money, this can’t wait. The seven-year timeline outlined by the Gillard Government is already far too long for many people with disabilities and our families. If you were really interested the quality of our lives (and our votes) as citizens, your speech would have been a commitment to making this happen sooner.

“As far as I’m concerned, there should never be first and second-class Australians based on where they were born, how they worship, or the length of time their forbears have been here,” you said. But your relegation of the NDIS to the if-we-have-the-spare-cash basket would rather suggest that you find the idea of a second-class based on whether or not you were born with a disability to be perfectly acceptable.

I don’t.

Are you hoping to delay fixing the system for long enough that we’ll all just go away and forget about it? We’re not going to.

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Disability funding is no indulgence, Mr Abbott - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

What a ghastly individual he is. Let’s hope the rest of the party has a conscience and a connection to the rest of the community. We will not go away, Tony A.