It’s been a huge year, not just because of COVID-19, but because our movement has grown and achieved so much in such a short space of time!
By Senator Jordon Steele-John
Disability
Our Royal Commission into the Violence, Abuse, Exploitation and Neglect of Disabled People began public hearings in the last year with sessions held in Townsville and Sydney on education, healthcare, COVID-19 and the impacts of unauthorised chemical restraints on disabled people. I was able to attend the first hearing in Townsville last November, on education, and the second hearing in Sydney earlier this year, on healthcare, before the Commission was forced to delay public hearings due to COVID-19.
In June, a special public hearing was held on the impacts the COVID-19 pandemic has had on disabled people and the failure of institutional and governmental responses to the pandemic to properly support disabled people. The evidence heard in this hearing was particularly important as it highlighted much of the work that the Greens have been doing to try and ensure that disabled people were still able to access the support they needed to get through this crisis. A key issue that was raised time and again was the fact that people on the DSP and Carer payments were not given extra financial assistance - an issue that I have been working closely on resolving with Rachel’s office.
In late September, public hearings into the use of unauthorised chemical restraints were held. This is another issue that my office has been following closely. In February, during Senate estimates, we discovered that the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commissions had received almost 67,000 reports of unauthorised restrictive practices used against disabled people and we know that in the majority of these cases, psychotropic medications such as sedatives and antipsychotics were the main methods of restraint. As a disabled person, as a disability advocate, the evidence heard by the Commission so far speaks to the systemic and endemic nature of the violence and abuse we have been screaming about for decades, and the abject failure of our government to act.
Over the past year our online disability-led community, Accessible Australia, has grown to more than 3,100 members. We’ve held monthly meetings, forums and even online social events such as knitting classes to facilitate this growth, as well as brought real time updates about the Royal Commission and other aspects of our Parliamentary work to the community. We’ve also brought on three amazing community moderators to help achieve our goals of making this group an online space that is led by, and for disabled people!
Youth
Since its inception around this time last year, my office has been working closely with the Student Strike movement, bringing together 30 young people from around WA to form a climate action group who’ve been holding regular monthly meetings facilitated by my office. We’ve hosted online youth forums with Adam Bandt and Mehreen Faruqi on the key issues impacting young people, like jobs and education, and are working on doing a lot more in this space. We’re also in the process of bringing together a group of youth advisors from every state and territory to help advise my office on parliamentary and policy work in the youth space, which we’re tentatively calling the Youth Advisory Society, or YAS for short!
A year on from the incredible first student strikes, we must continue supporting young people to take radical direct action to secure their futures!
Peace
In my report last year I noted how excited I was to be taking over the Peace, Disarmament and Veterans Affairs (formerly Defence) portfolios. Post the recent portfolio reshuffle I am excited to share that I have added the Nuclear Issues portfolio to our area of responsibility as well. These portfolios put our team in a strong position to build on our proud Greens WA tradition of advancing the causes of peace and disarmament both nationally and globally.
Over the past year we have been particularly focused on drawing attention to the outrageous $270 billion Australia plans to spend on new weapons and military technology over the coming decades, while also raising awareness of the need to redirect public funds toward addressing the biggest threat that is facing all of us around the world: the climate crisis.
In the era of Trump, it’s never been more important to reexamine our nation's strategic alliances with countries such as the United States, and advocate for peaceful and nonviolent solutions to resolve international differences. It’s been a pleasure to collaborate with Greens members such as former senator Jo Vallentine in furthering this work.
State election
Finally, I’m so excited about the upcoming state election here in Western Australia and the opportunities it brings for our movement! We’re really hopeful that we can not only retain our four current upper house seats, but also re-elect an upper house member for the South Metro Region and make significant in-roads in the lower house seats of Fremantle, Vic Park and Maylands!
It’s clear that Mark McGowan’s Labor Government are more interested in supporting their corporate donors in the gas industry than pressing real action to address the climate crisis. Their support for fracking in the Kimberley and their failure to take action to remove corporate influence from our democracy present a real opportunity for us as Greens WA to offer a bold, transformative vision for WA’s future that actually addresses the needs of our community and planet.
I’m so energised by the fantastic work being done by campaign teams across the state and I’m looking forward to continuing our incredible work together as we draw closer to election day.
Finally, I would like to thank every single member for the incredible contribution you’ve made this year to keep our movement growing and able to support our community through this time of global crisis and rapid change. I’m so grateful to have the opportunity to work with and know all of you. Love ya guts!