00:00 It was a very packed gallery today. Hundreds of people with disability, their families
00:07 and carers turned out to really witness this Royal Commission come full circle, to see
00:12 it draw to a close. Many of the people in the room are people who fought to get this
00:17 Royal Commission up and running in the first place, so it was quite a powerful day to have
00:21 everyone in the room together. Chair of the Royal Commission, Ronald Sackville, opened
00:26 up the session, or the final session today, with some reflections on, I guess, just how
00:31 much hard work had been put in from the disability community, not only in getting this Royal
00:36 Commission up and running, but also the huge amount of work that the community did in providing
00:41 evidence. Let's have a listen to what he had to say.
00:45 The abuses exposed by the Royal Commission demand an urgent and comprehensive response
00:49 from all Australian governments. I cannot claim that the final report covers every conceivable
00:55 issue within the scope of the terms of reference. That, as a practical matter, would have been
01:00 impossible. But we have attempted to provide a blueprint across a range of areas that fulfil
01:06 our mandate to propose, again I quote from the terms of reference, what should be done
01:11 to promote a more inclusive society that supports the independence of people with disability
01:17 and their right to live free from violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation.
01:22 We heard reflections from all of the commissioners today. I guess the one that really hit home
01:27 for me was from Commissioner Rhonda Galbally. She's a person with lived experience of disability
01:31 herself. She talked about how 50 years ago the disability rights movement really tried
01:36 to make a start in changing the situation for people with disability. But what she learnt
01:41 during her work at the Royal Commission is that not a lot has changed. She specifically
01:45 spoke a bit about education and how there was lots of frustration for people still when
01:51 it came to creating inclusive education for people with disability.
01:55 For example, I've been told that there is fear that having disabled students in mainstream
02:01 classrooms will be detrimental to the education of non-disabled students and use up too much
02:08 teacher attention and school resources. Yet research presented to the commission shows
02:16 that this fear does not have any legitimate basis.
02:21 The final report will be handed to the Governor-General on the 28th of September, so next week, at
02:26 which point then we wait for it to be tabled in federal parliament and made public. And
02:30 then obviously there will be a lot of people analysing this report and commenting.
02:34 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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