Transcript:

Hi everyone.

I wanted to start by acknowledging that July is Disability Pride Month. Disability Pride Month means different things to different people. For some, it’s a celebration. For others, it’s still a journey. And that’s okay.

One of my favourite poems is you get proud by practising. It reminds us that pride isn’t something we’re born with or something that suddenly appears one day. Pride is something we build. It grows every time we choose to show up as ourselves, challenge low expectations, support one another or simply refuse to apologise for who we are.

Wherever you are on that journey, whether you’re loudly celebrating your disability identity, quietly beginning to embrace it, or still finding your way, you belong. Pride isn’t a destination. It’s a practice. And every one of us has the right to travel that path at our own pace.

At DANA, we’re incredibly proud to work alongside so many disabled people who continue that long tradition of advocacy, leadership, and collective action.

I also wanted to share a few updates with you. Our policy team continues to work at pace on targeted amendments to the NDIS Bill. We’re having active conversations with government and stakeholders about plan changes, funding reductions, plan renewals and other issues that matter deeply to people with disability.

To strengthen that advocacy, we are looking for examples from practice and from lived experience. If you’re a person with disability who has experienced difficulties changing your plan, seeking a review, appealing a decision, or you’re concerned about how the new legislation could affect you, we’d really like to hear from you.

We’re also keen to hear from disability advocates and advocacy organisations about the issues you’re seeing emerge through your advocacy work, and the impact these changes are having on the people you support. Every example helps us translate lived experience into practical advocacy and strengthens our work to protect the rights of NDIS participants.

If you’d like to share your experience or discuss a potential case study, please contact the policy team at policy@dana.org.au

And finally, a quick update from the National Centre for Disability Advocacy. The latest national data continues to demonstrate the extraordinary demand for advocacy across Australia. In May alone, 426 people were waiting for National Disability Advocacy Program advocacy across 38 organisations, 551 people were waiting for NDIS appeals advocacy across 24 organisations. Advocacy organisations also provided 1742 instances of information, advice and referral that aren’t captured through formal reporting channels, demonstrating the significant additional demand being met by the sector.

These figures reinforce what we already know: demand for independent disability advocacy continues to outstrip capacity, and they strengthen our case for a sustainable, well-resourced advocacy sector.

Thanks everyone and thanks, as always, for the work you do every day to make that vision a reality.