This is a transcript of Emma  Bennison’s (DANA CEO) speech at the NDS Tasmania Conference on May 14, 2026.

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Good morning everyone, and thank you for having me here today.

It’s genuinely lovely to be here with you in Tasmania, home for me, and a place I care deeply about.

One of the things I value most about Tasmania is that communities here still feel personal. Conversations matter. The impacts of policy decisions do not feel abstract for very long because you see them playing out in the lives of people you know.

And I think that’s exactly why conversations like this are so important right now.

Because if I’m honest, the last few months have been hard. Hard for people with disability. Hard for families. Hard for advocacy organisations. And I know, hard for many providers as well.

There’s a level of fear and uncertainty in our community right now that I have not seen in quite some time. And yet at the same time, we are being told this is a budget about care and opportunity. For many people with disability, those words feel a long way from our lived reality. I say that not as someone observing this from a distance, but as someone living it.

I’m blind. I also live with anxiety. Like many disabled people, my ability to participate in public life is not something I can simply will into existence through determination and resilience alone.

I’m standing here today because support exists around me. Support to travel. Support to navigate unfamiliar environments. Support to manage the enormous cognitive and emotional load that can come with public life when systems are not designed with you in mind. Without those supports, I’d participate less. I’d contribute less. And the community would be poorer for it.

And that’s what worries me most about the current reforms. Not simply the policy changes themselves, important though they are. But the growing risk that people with disability quietly disappear from community life.

Not because we lack talent. Not because we lack ambition. But because participation becomes too exhausting, too complicated, too unsafe, or simply impossible to sustain.

Last night gave me a very ordinary example of what that can feel like. I boarded yet another flight for work, tired, emotionally spent, and carrying the same small bag I had already taken on several flights that week.

I asked a flight attendant for assistance to lift my luggage into the overhead locker, something which normally happens as a matter of course when I fly. I was told staff were unable to help because of workplace safety rules. Another crew member apologised quietly, but the answer remained no. Now, I understand workplace safety matters. I genuinely do.

But what struck me was not simply the policy itself. It was the absence of flexibility, problem-solving and shared responsibility. Nobody asked whether another passenger might be willing to assist. Nobody looked for a practical workaround. The system simply stopped at no.

By the time we landed in Hobart close to 10:30 last night, I was exhausted and, to my embarrassment, I burst into tears. Not because of one bag. But because when you are disabled, these moments accumulate. The emotional labour accumulates. The advocacy accumulates. The exhaustion accumulates.

And too often, people with disability are still expected to carry the burden of making inaccessible systems work, while the systems themselves remain fundamentally unchanged.

We’re already seeing enormous anxiety around reassessments, reviews and appeals. Advocacy organisations across the country are reporting growing demand from people who are frightened, confused and overwhelmed.

I do want to acknowledge the Government’s decision to extend supplementary funding for advocacy organisations supporting people through appeals processes. That funding matters.

But we need to be honest: the demand is already outstripping capacity. And many organisations are already stretched beyond what is sustainable.

I also welcome the announcement of the Inclusive Communities Fund and the Government’s stated commitment to co-design. Those are positive signals. But money alone cannot create inclusion. Because the biggest barriers disabled people face are not always funding barriers. They are attitudinal barriers. And no funding pool, no matter how large, can magically undo decades of low expectations, fear, stigma and exclusion overnight.

You only need to look at some of the recent public conversations about disability to understand the scale of that challenge. Narratives about burden. About cost. About sustainability framed only in financial terms. Very little discussion about contribution. Belonging. Citizenship. Or what Australia loses when disabled people are pushed further to the margins of community life. And I think we need to confront something uncomfortable as a sector.

Over time, we may have unintentionally outsourced inclusion to the NDIS. We have built systems that often assume disability inclusion belongs primarily within specialist services, specialist funding and specialist programs. And while those supports are essential, that was never supposed to be the whole story.

Because inclusion was never meant to live only inside a funding scheme. It was supposed to belong to our communities. To our schools. Our workplaces. Our sporting clubs. Our arts venues. Our cafes. Our neighbourhoods. 

But still, too often, disabled people are carrying the burden of making inclusion happen. We do the explaining. The advocating. The negotiating. The emotional labour. The administrative labour. We ask for accessible information. We chase responses. We educate organisations, even disability service providers in some cases. We justify our needs over and over again.

And honestly?

People are tired.

So where does that leave providers? Because I know many providers are also under extraordinary pressure right now. Financial pressure. Workforce pressure. Regulatory pressure.

Many are trying to navigate profound uncertainty while still delivering quality support every day. But I also think this moment creates an opportunity. A real opportunity for providers to help shape what happens next. Not simply by protecting services, although that matters. But by helping reimagine what genuine inclusion could look like in Australia.

And I want to offer five practical things providers can do right now.

First: fight for participation, not just compliance.

Of course governance matters. Risk management matters. Financial sustainability matters. But if we become so focused on systems, compliance and throughput that we lose sight of human beings, then we have lost something fundamental.

People with disability are not line items in a budget. We’re citizens. Workers. Parents. Artists. Leaders. Friends. Neighbours. And participation matters.

Second: build inclusion beyond service delivery.

The future cannot simply be more segregated programs where disabled people are grouped together because mainstream spaces remain inaccessible. 

There is absolutely a place for disabled people to come together in community, solidarity and mutual support.  But we should never mistake segregation for inclusion.

Providers are uniquely placed to partner with mainstream organisations: sporting clubs, arts organisations, businesses, local councils, community groups. Not just to provide services to disabled people, but to help communities build their own capacity to welcome us.

Third: employ disabled people at every level of your organisation.

Not just frontline roles. Leadership roles. Governance roles. Decision-making roles. Because accessible and inclusive organisations are rarely built without disabled people helping shape them.

And representation matters not simply because it is morally right, but because it leads to better decisions, better culture and better outcomes.

Fourth: reduce the burden on participants wherever you can.

Make accessibility proactive. Not reactive. Communicate clearly. Simplify processes. Assume diversity from the beginning. Because every unnecessary barrier drains energy that people could otherwise spend participating in life.

And finally:  speak up.

This sector has influence. Use it carefully. Use it responsibly. But use it. Not only when your organisation is at risk. But when people with disability are at risk of exclusion. Because sustainability cannot become a short-hand for pushing people out of the community.

And it certainly cannot become a justification for pushing people into segregated settings where we’re easier to overlook and easier to forget.

The true measure of sustainability is whether people can continue to belong. Whether they can continue to participate. Whether they can continue to live ordinary, visible, connected lives in their communities.

That’s the test.

And ultimately, I think this moment will force all of us to decide what kind of sector we want to be. We can become smaller, more fearful and more transactional. Or we can help lead something bigger.

We can help build communities where disabled people are genuinely expected, welcomed and valued. Communities where inclusion is not treated as a specialist add-on or an individual responsibility. But as something all of us are responsible for creating together.

Because inclusion was never supposed to belong to the NDIS alone. It was always supposed to belong to all of us.

Thank you.