​Tracy Mackey

Before I start, I begin by acknowledging the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation whose land we meet on.

I recognise their strength, resilience and capacity on this land, which they have inhabited for more than 40,000 years.

I pay my respects to their Elders past, present and emerging, and I extend that respect to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples here.

I also acknowledge any people with lived experience of disability who are with us.

Official launch

Today we celebrate an important contribution to the disability sector, with the publication of Disability Practice: Safeguarding Quality Service Delivery.

Let me begin by congratulating the co-editors, Professor Christine Bigby and Alan Hough, and the authors of each chapter for your achievement. I am sure your work will be a key resource for researchers, students and practitioners in the field of disability practice.

It was an honour to contribute the Foreword for this book and I thank Christine and Alan for extending the invitation.

Background to the Foreword

I was approached by Alan and Chris to write the Foreword around April last year.

At the time, I was just over a year into my role as NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commissioner.

We’d not long launched our first Strategic Plan internally, where we’d firmly stated our commitment to:

the rights of people with disability

high quality supports and services, and

greater choice for consumers.

So, it was very motivating when I read an early draft of Disability Practice, as I’ll call it, and saw the importance it also placed on understanding the quality of life, rights and lived experience of people with disability.

In the Foreword, I suggest that focusing on quality encourages us to focus on the best possible outcomes when we design and deliver disability supports and services – rather than guarding against the worst.

It reminds me of the expression, plan for the worst and hope for the best.

Disability Practice tells us – no – we won’t hope for the best. The rights of people with disability demand more. Instead, we must plan for the best and set about achieving it.

About the book

Disability Practice should – and undoubtedly will – become a valuable resource for people with disability, and everyone supporting them to live the life they want.

Woven into its pages is the knowledge and insight of 13 experts in disability care, reinforced by detailed clinical research, evidence, and lived experience.

It’s an impeccably thoughtful and well researched book that successfully identifies many of the barriers people with disability must overcome to enjoy the quintessentially Australian ‘good life’.

As you’ll see quite plainly in Disability Practice, the ‘barriers’ they identify seem obvious in many cases.

And, as I suggest in the Foreword, I suspect that’s largely because they’re so invisible to most Australians; they’re privileges we enjoy unconsciously.

Yet, for people with disability – and their supporters and carers – overcoming those barriers can be very a fraught and unnecessarily complex process.

What I find most insightful about Disability Practice is its use of real-life case studies to articulate the challenges it identifies, and the solutions needed to address them.

At the Commission, we often talk about people with disability being at the centre of our decision-making.

Many people might think, “well, of course, who else would you be thinking of?”!

But I suspect most people in this room will appreciate that it’s so easy to say, but so much harder to do.

Who among us ­­- policy-makers, service providers and academics – is not aware of how easy it is to slip  into a mindset that we know what’s best for people with disability? Through its use of case studies, Disability Practice reinforces the stance we’ve taken at the Commission by clearly showing how vital it is to listen to – and understand – people’s lived experience of disability.

More importantly, it shows the value of including people with disability in the process of solving the problems they face.

In Chapter 3 of Disability Practice, Aaron Jackson and Christine Bigby remind us of the importance of the voices and perspectives of people with intellectual disabilities to service provision (page 4).

They emphasise the critical role of family in the lives of some service users, particularly with severe or profound intellectual disabilities.

They say: “Service providers should prioritise effective communications with individuals with disabilities and their families to establish an open dialogue about mutual expectations, needs and concerns.” (page 56)