Art and the Individual Forum
28 February 2013, Newcastle Museum,
Speech Notes by Dougie Herd, Branch Manager, Research and
Engagement, delivered by Mr Rob Watkins, NSW Manager, NDIS Launch
Transition Agency, Department of Families, Housing, Community
Services and Indigenous Affairs,
Obviously, the National Disability Insurance Scheme has the potential over
time to assist people with disability to genuinely transform their life aspirations
and expectations. The world won’t change – as if by magic – overnight but if
we – and by that I mean everyone, not simply the Governments of Australia
but people at today’s meeting too – if we get this right people with disability
will have more choice and control over the support arrangements in their
lives. Ultimately people will live better, fuller lives and be more involved in the
communities of Australia in ways chosen by individuals.
Change takes time. The launch of the NDIS in July 2013 is simply the
beginning of the journey, not the destination.
The NDIS will fund the reasonable and necessary supports that will be part of
the mix that ensures people with disability live more inclusive and participatory
lives. The NDIS won’t provide every support that people need to get on with
life. It’s not intended to do so. The NDIS is about ensuring the supports
relating specifically to the needs of individuals with significant disability are
met in new ways with individualised arrangements, choice and control. But it
would be wrong of us to let other support and mainstream systems ‘off the
hook’ so to speak. Health services, education, recreation, leisure, cultural
services, etc, etc, etc have a duty to respond to people as citizens, on equal
terms. In some senses, the NDIS is part of the process of levelling the
playing field for people with disability. The NDIS will ensure that disability
support arrangements work. The rest of the world still has its responsibilities
to us.
One of the policy intentions of the NDIS is to support and promote the greater
social and economic participation of people with disability – not simply those
who are assessed as eligible for a support package through the NDIS. That’s
one of the reasons the NDIS will have local area co-ordinators whose jobs, in
part, will be about building, developing and opening up networks for inclusion
in local communities that will benefit all people with disability, not only NDIS
participants.
The Arts are one of the strongest contributors to social, cultural and economic
life in Australia. Engagement by people with disability in the arts – as
practitioners or audience members – is, therefore, a wholly legitimate means
of achieving increased social and economic participation. Some people with
disability will have a new job as their goal, others may wish to be more
included in a social club, reading group, surf life-saving club or stampcollecting association – whatever their individual preferences may be.
Others -including people at the Accessible Arts event – may make other
choices. If you write poetry, paint, take photographs, dance, draw, doodle or
dream of singing Verdi at the Opera House your NDIS personal plan may look
different from those of people with disability whose dream may be to become
CEO of QANTAS.
People with disability and excellence in the arts go hand in hand. Think
Beethoven, Stevie Wonder, Itzhak Perlman, Jacqueline du Pre, Vincent Van
Gogh. If they lived in Newcastle from 1st July 2013 each would probably be
eligible for support from the NDIS. Not all deaf people will write 9
symphonies. Few blind people will win as many Grammy’s as Stevie
Wonder. But you get my point.
All of the above invite some questions:
How can we ensure that when people with disability interested in the Arts
come to the NDIS and start conversations about what they want and need to
achieve their goals that those individuals will have the confidence, knowledge
and self-belief to make informed choices about support arrangements that will
enhance their abilities over time to engage with arts practice locally?
What might reasonable and necessary mean in the context of a support
planning discussion that focuses on arts engagement? Free seats at the
Opera House? No. Funding a support worker with skill / expertise / interest in
a related arts practice to assist the individual to engage with local arts
organisations, learning opportunities, workshops, etc? Maybe.
How open, inclusive, welcoming, accessible are local arts organisations,
venues, learning opportunities, collectives, work spaces, etc? If you have the
engagement support you need as an arts practitioner with disability will there
be willing faces to greet you, an open door, accessible info in the local
organisations that any emerging artist would need to connect with?
What might be the roles for local area coordinators when it comes to arts
engagement and NDIS participants with an interest in the arts?
What is the role of good non-government organisations like Accessible Arts
NSW in the ‘new world’ the NDIS will help to shape? How ready, willing and
able are disability and community organisations for a world of individualised
supports, personal budgets, self-directed or self-managed support, greater
choice and control?
People at the event today will have many thoughts on those and other
questions. The really important thing as that the conversations start and keep
going.
Sorry I can’t be there.
Best wishes to everyone. Dougie Herd, 28.2.13