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Post by zorro1 on Dec 3, 2012 9:43:27 GMT 7
what a gutsy move! news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2012/12/03/11/01/disabled-women-heckles-pm-at-conferenceA wheelchair-bound disabled woman has interrupted a speech by the prime minister in Sydney, complaining that federal government rules restrict her to an unfairly low income. Play Video Part way through Julia Gillard's speech at the National Disability Services CEO conference on Monday, Mel Leckie read out a handwritten statement stating the tough situation she found herself in as a paraplegic. Ms Gillard stopped speaking and listened quietly, along with the large audience, and after the 28-year-old Adelaide woman had stopped speaking, told her the government was listening. Ms Leckie interrupted by saying "Prime minister, are you aware that the disability pension is nearly 67 per cent of national minimum wage?" She said people with permanent disabilities like herself were only allowed to earn $152 a fortnight and any earnings beyond that meant a reduction in pension payments. Ms Leckie said the pension alone did not even cover her ongoing medical needs. Ms Gillard replied, saying "we're listening" and she would arrange for a staff member from her office to talk to Ms Leckie. "But I would say this, I'm proud to lead a government that made an historic difference to the level of the disability support pension and to the way in which intersects with work so people get to keep more of the money that they earn through participating in the workforce." Ms Leckie later told AAP she had become a paraplegic after jumping from the roof of her school in a suicide attempt after being bullied at the age of 17. A spokesman for the prime minister's office later told AAP the government had been in regular correspondence with Ms Leckie and "it's likely she'll receive assistance under the NDIS". |
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Post by zorro1 on Dec 3, 2012 12:04:18 GMT 7
Ms Leckie later told AAP she had become a paraplegic after jumping from the roof of her school in a suicide attempt after being bullied at the age of 17. bloody sad this bit  |
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Post by baranghope on Dec 3, 2012 13:27:44 GMT 7
The problem is that the old free to air right wing media, as in Channels 7-9-10, mudslinging to the end, only showed Ms Leckie as a heckler (and saying I thought 57 %) and indeed made it look like someone was complaining about DSPers getting too much money. Out of context of course, they only used it against the PM. I wonder about Ms Leckie's real motivations.
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Post by Banjo on Dec 3, 2012 13:56:22 GMT 7
I wondered how close she would have got to a Liberal prime minister and how much notice the media would have taken even if she had got lucky.
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Post by newtodsp on Dec 3, 2012 14:25:34 GMT 7
A very inspiring woman, who raises so many valuable points. The disabled are very much discriminated against, and we need to stand together and proud. The other day I was shocked when I learned that the government does not even provide wheelchairs for the disabled, and that such chairs cost 20,000 dollars. This, in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, where private schools are giving money for overseas trips and the coal industry is giving subsidies of over 5.5 billion. In the UK, the disabled have higher workplace participation, and the state subsidises REAL assistance for the disabled such that they can participate. Here, we are the ignored and forgotten.
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Post by peter on Dec 3, 2012 17:22:43 GMT 7
In the UK the disabled also have access to the motorised transport that they need including motor vehicles paid through their Mobility Allowance.
Its called the Motobility scheme.
With all the money that the government spends, its hard to believe that they still cannot fund a motorised wheelchair once the need is established. Hard to believe that this could be true.
Put a broom through the welfare rolls, the politicians and the public servants and start again.
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free
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Post by free on Dec 4, 2012 9:48:48 GMT 7
A very inspiring woman, who raises so many valuable points. The disabled are very much discriminated against, and we need to stand together and proud. The other day I was shocked when I learned that the government does not even provide wheelchairs for the disabled, and that such chairs cost 20,000 dollars. This, in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, where private schools are giving money for overseas trips and the coal industry is giving subsidies of over 5.5 billion. In the UK, the disabled have higher workplace participation, and the state subsidises REAL assistance for the disabled such that they can participate. Here, we are the ignored and forgotten. This is what DSPoverseas really needs, people who are prepared to stand up and fight for the human rights of disabled people! "We need to stand together and proud". Great fighting words! I'm interested to know who still thinks the Liberal Party is going to do a good deal for us pensioners?! Its clear Hockey wants to minimise welfare.... Mr Hockey also fails to understand that the government are elected by the people, they should represent the people and I don't believe the Australian public wants an asian style safety net. How a society treats its ill, old, young and vulnerable is a reflection of its humanity. "How a society treats its ill, old, young and vulnerable is a reflection of its humanity." Brilliant, inspiring words! |
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free
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Post by free on Dec 4, 2012 10:19:48 GMT 7
But sometimes the discrimination suffered by disabled people, the human rights abuses, the violation of their inherent human dignity and human worth, is so egregious, is so extreme, that possibly the only way they can realistically salvage their inherent human dignity and worth is to get on a budget aeroplane and fly over to Asia.
"How a society treats its ill, old, young and vulnerable is a reflection of its humanity"
--Newtodsp (2012)
Anyone who has travelled to Asia will notice that they are much more socially cohesive societies, and the elderly and other vulnerable groups are given much greater respect, and are looked after.
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Post by Banjo on Dec 4, 2012 10:24:59 GMT 7
For sure, their families look after them, they get nothing from the government.
Take a look at what happens to the crippled and mentally ill in Asia where they have no families or the family is too poor to support them.
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free
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Post by free on Dec 4, 2012 10:37:52 GMT 7
Many members will have seen the movie called "Contact", starring Jodie Foster.
In this movie, the astronomer Jodie Foster is sent some messages, sent by extraterrestrial intelligent life-forms from outer space. The messages give the earthlings instructions about building a space-time travel machine that uses worm-holes to transport the astronomer through the galaxies, and then she arrives at a holographic image of a beach in Florida and talks with the extraterrestrials.
This is rather similar to the DSP Overseas Movement. We are trying to construct a Neo-Marxist Social Catapult. To reach down into the lowest depths of what Marx called the Lumpenproletariat, the disabled in their various forms, the blind, the insane, the people with no arms or legs trapped in the miserable darkened holes of a nursing home. And then to put them into the Social Catapult, and launch them into the skies, send them flying over the other classes, the proletariat, the bourgeoisie, the aristocracy, until they land in Les Champs Elysees.
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Post by Denis-NFA on Dec 4, 2012 10:42:43 GMT 7
come the revolution we will all have free drugs and we wont care
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Post by Banjo on Dec 4, 2012 11:21:03 GMT 7
All it needs is a great leader, an inspired man or woman of vision.
Applications to be sent to DSPoverseas, bribes welcomed.
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Post by newtodsp on Dec 4, 2012 12:53:15 GMT 7
"We need to stand together and proud". Great fighting words!
"How a society treats its ill, old, young and vulnerable is a reflection of its humanity." Brilliant, inspiring words![/quote] [/b] Thanks Free for noticing my contributions; lol, I am a passionate lefty 
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Post by Denis-NFA on Dec 4, 2012 14:55:47 GMT 7
Gee newtodsp, can I have your autograph.....
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Post by baranghope on Dec 4, 2012 15:16:31 GMT 7
As long as "free" writes such lurid socio-political recherche narratives for this forum . . . well, take me to your Leader! Great stuff. Meanwhile, as far as our mutual and unifying desire to live abroad I shall have to say that it is not our ailments that unite us . . . it is two facts. One, our customs login monitors any attempt at "free"dom. Denying it, and giving us punishment. Second, residency for most means paying rent, and paying that, we are stuffed on cash flow for even backpacking around certain favoured countries. I agree with you "free": we now have the least to lose by anarchism and assailing the bastions.
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