Inquiry into disability neglect sits for final time
Hundreds of people have turned out for the final sitting of the Disability Royal Commission. In an emotional ceremony, the inquiry's commissioners thanked people with disability for offering their evidence of violence, abuse, neglect, and exploitation.
Transcript
00:00 It was a very packed gallery today. Hundreds of people with disability, their families
00:07 and carers turned out to really witness this Royal Commission come full circle, to see
00:12 it draw to a close. Many of the people in the room are people who fought to get this
00:17 Royal Commission up and running in the first place, so it was quite a powerful day to have
00:21 everyone in the room together. Chair of the Royal Commission, Ronald Sackville, opened
00:26 up the session, or the final session today, with some reflections on, I guess, just how
00:31 much hard work had been put in from the disability community, not only in getting this Royal
00:36 Commission up and running, but also the huge amount of work that the community did in providing
00:41 evidence. Let's have a listen to what he had to say.
00:45 The abuses exposed by the Royal Commission demand an urgent and comprehensive response
00:49 from all Australian governments. I cannot claim that the final report covers every conceivable
00:55 issue within the scope of the terms of reference. That, as a practical matter, would have been
01:00 impossible. But we have attempted to provide a blueprint across a range of areas that fulfil
01:06 our mandate to propose, again I quote from the terms of reference, what should be done
01:11 to promote a more inclusive society that supports the independence of people with disability
01:17 and their right to live free from violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation.
01:22 We heard reflections from all of the commissioners today. I guess the one that really hit home
01:27 for me was from Commissioner Rhonda Galbally. She's a person with lived experience of disability
01:31 herself. She talked about how 50 years ago the disability rights movement really tried
01:36 to make a start in changing the situation for people with disability. But what she learnt
01:41 during her work at the Royal Commission is that not a lot has changed. She specifically
01:45 spoke a bit about education and how there was lots of frustration for people still when
01:51 it came to creating inclusive education for people with disability.
01:55 For example, I've been told that there is fear that having disabled students in mainstream
02:01 classrooms will be detrimental to the education of non-disabled students and use up too much
02:08 teacher attention and school resources. Yet research presented to the commission shows
02:16 that this fear does not have any legitimate basis.
02:21 The final report will be handed to the Governor-General on the 28th of September, so next week, at
02:26 which point then we wait for it to be tabled in federal parliament and made public. And
02:30 then obviously there will be a lot of people analysing this report and commenting.
02:34 [BLANK_AUDIO]