Page 1410 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 12 May 2021
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services are being underfunded and they fear that the levy is not being used for what it should be, I become deeply concerned. I urge Minister Berry to make sure that the crisis centres are receiving sufficient support through the levy for both victims—parents and children.
I thank all our front-line community service providers for all their hard work and personal sacrifice. I know they do not think of their positions as just a job, like many other people; they all give a large part of themselves and willingly share the pain of the people who come to them for aide. The nobility of their work cannot be understated. We owe it to them to be responsible with this money.
Disability—Women with Disabilities ACT
MR DAVIS (Brindabella) (5.07): When I get to my office first thing on a non-sitting day, I do tend to be a little bit resentful of my party-room colleagues for inflicting on me such a very broad array of policy responsibilities for the Greens, but by the end of the day, after I have had the pleasure of meeting with six, eight or 10 Canberra groups, all with very interesting things to say about the interesting things they do, I end up leaving with a great sense of gratitude.
One of those wonderful groups that I had the pleasure of meeting with last week was Women with Disabilities ACT. The reason I think it is important to highlight Women with Disabilities ACT is that they are working in a space where many of the groups that we are accustomed to hearing from are those who are delivering services in a real, tangible way to people in their sector.
The Women with Disabilities ACT organisation has a slightly different purpose; that is, to engage in systemic advocacy. Rather than case-by-case management of different women with disabilities trying to navigate the public or private sectors, this organisation gets to the root of problems and works with government and the community to try to develop solutions.
I had the pleasure of meeting their CEO, Kat Reed, who came in to meet with me last week and gave me a little introduction to their organisation, which I would like to share with you today. Women with Disabilities ACT is a youth-led systemic advocacy and peer support organisation that they stress is for women, girls and non-binary people within the ACT—that is, women, girls, feminine identifying, and non-binary people with a disability—that they say experience multiple disadvantage due to the intersection of gender discrimination and disability discrimination.
Women with Disabilities ACT’s experience and advocacy spans over 25 years in areas of violence prevention, housing, training, equity and representation. They follow a human rights philosophy based on the Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Their motto is “Strong women, strong voices”.
I will give some broad statistics on women with disabilities in the ACT that may be of interest to you, Madam Speaker. There are approximately 41,200 women in the ACT with a disability. Fifty-three per cent of people in the ACT with a disability are female, yet they make up only 34 per cent of NDIS participants in the ACT.
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