human + disability rights activist | bolshy diva | trans rights = human rights | disability consultant | views are my own | sam-i-AM | antifa
Toodyay, Western Australia
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Democracy and putting power back in public hands.
This is what we are going to do, right now.
independentaustralia.net/pol…
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Like Christine Applegate, I also spent a very worrying three months 'with MS', more than two decades ago.
This is how misdiagnosis happens.
abc.net.au/news/2026-10-21/c…
There isn't really a definitive test for MS, even now. You can be misdiagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) because there is no single test that definitively proves someone has it. Doctors piece together symptoms, neurological examinations, MRI scans and sometimes spinal fluid tests.
The biggest problem is that several other conditions can produce similar symptoms and even similar-looking brain lesions.
They get it wrong when your neurologist interprets MRI abnormalities as MS-related without enough supporting evidence, or applies the diagnostic criteria to symptoms that aren't particularly specific to MS.
There's a diagnostic criterion - the updated 2024 McDonald diagnostic criteria, published in 2025, which include newer MRI techniques. One is the central vein sign, which helps doctors distinguish between lesions caused by MS from those caused by migraines or blood vessel disease.
Specialists can also look at your spinal cord scans and spinal fluid results, and check whether another condition better explains the symptoms that you have.
Nobody should stop taking MS meds suddenly or without a review, including, preferably, of your old scans. And there is recent research reviewing people referred to specialist MS centres with an existing diagnosis has found that around 15% were misdiagnosed.
That's not necessarily the rate among everyone diagnosed with MS. But this may be hopeful for some who have been diagnosed with the condition - it's possible that you have another, more treatable condition, like functional neurological disorder (FND).
With FND, some people who have lost the ability to walk regain it through specialist treatment that retrains movement and neurological functioning. Others experience lasting disability despite treatment.
FND doesn't necessarily involve the progressive nerve damage seen in MS, so there can be considerable potential for recovery. But the outcome depends on the individual, the symptoms and access to appropriate treatment. And you can also have FND (or other conditions) AND MS, of course.
It must be awful for @1capplegate, given that she has done so much work for the MS community, and for the community who has seen her as one of their own.
But she is still a person with lived experience of disability and your diagnosis doesn't change that. We are a large and diverse community, and it's not all about diagnostic representation.
Fingers crossed for Christina and something that potentially is treatable with a good recovery rate. <3
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Sam Connor retweeted
Absolutely. The people need services, well funded and easily accessed, not budget cuts and more warfare and unregulated AI and environmentally destructive data centres to make tech billionaires wealthier...
I am getting increasingly uncomfortable with the buildings being lit up, the gushing praise and the almost saintly status being bestowed upon Helen Haines.
Because none of that is going to help Helen. And frankly, it feeds straight back into this angels & demons narrative that has taken over everything.
Helen is a remarkable woman. But I reckon she’d be the first to tell you she’s also an ordinary woman, an Australian citizen who went to work on Monday and had her life torn apart.
She voted against the government’s NDIS changes. She’s been a strong ally to disabled people & now she faces a long recovery in which she may need many of the very supports she has fought to protect.
And what I want to know is whether she’s getting the best possible care in hospital. Whether there are enough nurses to nurse, without having to double as disability support workers. Whether ambulances are still ramped up the wazoo and emergency departments are bursting at the seams.
What I want to know is whether Helen will get the prosthetics, orthotics, wheelchair, home modifications & personal support she may need to rebuild her life.
And here’s a particularly cruel irony.
Helen is 65. Unless she was already an NDIS participant before her 65th birthday, she cannot access the NDIS now.
So who is going to fund and provide those supports? How many systems will she have to navigate? How many bureaucrats will get a say in what she needs?
I want Helen to have every possible opportunity to recover, to go home, and, all the Gods willing, to return to the life and work she loves. Without having to fight for every bloody thing along the way.
And I want to know why we are still so hopeless at preventing violence against women.
The man accused of attacking Helen reportedly had significant mental health concerns. His lawyer told the court today that he has a rare neurological condition. There have also been reports of chronic pain and difficulties accessing the NDIS.
We don’t yet know his motive or the full circumstances of his medical care.
None of that excuses what happened to Helen. Not one bit.
But nor should we ignore what happens when people with serious illnesses, disability, homelessness or drug dependency fall through the cracks of systems that are supposed to help them.
Mental illness doesn’t make someone a violent criminal. And women should not have to pay the price when someone becomes violent, whatever the reason.
I want women to be safe walking down the street. I want people who need treatment to receive it. And I want governments to stop waiting until somebody is dead or catastrophically injured before they take any of this seriously.
We are well past the tipping point.
And I’m sure the government will shortly announce another grand plan to fix the NDIS market, as though concentrating services in the hands of increasingly large corporate providers & private equity interests, while destroying jobs and choice, is somehow going to improve our lives.
It won’t help Helen. And it won’t help the thousands of other Australians already fighting to get the care they need.
The bitter irony is that Helen Haines & Jordon Steele-John, himself a survivor of violence, are precisely the kinds of politicians who understand what’s wrong with these systems and have been trying to fix them.
We need politicians from every side of politics working together to make things better. Not more theatre, not more political point-scoring, and certainly not more bloody platitudes.
I don’t object to people expressing their love & admiration for Helen. I share it.
But if we really want to honour her, perhaps we could start by making sure the systems she fought to improve actually work for her, and for everybody else.
Prevention is always better than remedial treatment.
And both are a hell of a lot better than thoughts & prayers.
You can light up every building in Australia.
But you can’t illuminate your way out of a broken health, disability & care system.
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From the @TheAusInstitute - Cancellations for people who fail to reconnect with employment services within four weeks are set to resume on October 26, more than two years after being paused.
“We are extremely alarmed by this announcement that will see the screws turned even tighter on welfare recipients who are already under so much strain,” said The Antipoverty Centre co-coordinator Jay Coonan.
Two subsequent reports by the Commonwealth Ombudsman exposed unlawful cancellations and failings in how affected people were compensated.
But welfare groups have accused the government of pushing ahead without detailing how it has fixed the identified failures.
“Last year, our own analysis revealed that roughly 310,000 people had had their payments cancelled illegally,” said Economic Justice Australia CEO Kate Allingham.
Read the full piece on The Point:
Welfare groups criticise Albanese government's plan to restart Centrelink payment cancellations | The Point thepoint.com.au/new/261021-w…
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Hundred percent agree with this.
If you have a look online, he was not able to get NDIS support and could not afford his medication for chronic pain. I imagine he was self medicating - that's generally what leads to schizophrenia in the absence of a medical history of it.
And then there is justice, and police. He had hit someone in the head in Woolies with a brick prior to this event.
If the person who hit Helen Haines was suffering a mental health episode people should be asking why was he not being treated. I have not seen any media critical of mental health services in the bush. People suffering a psychotic episode often have no options.
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I am getting increasingly uncomfortable with the buildings being lit up, the gushing praise and the almost saintly status being bestowed upon Helen Haines.
Because none of that is going to help Helen. And frankly, it feeds straight back into this angels & demons narrative that has taken over everything.
Helen is a remarkable woman. But I reckon she’d be the first to tell you she’s also an ordinary woman, an Australian citizen who went to work on Monday and had her life torn apart.
She voted against the government’s NDIS changes. She’s been a strong ally to disabled people & now she faces a long recovery in which she may need many of the very supports she has fought to protect.
And what I want to know is whether she’s getting the best possible care in hospital. Whether there are enough nurses to nurse, without having to double as disability support workers. Whether ambulances are still ramped up the wazoo and emergency departments are bursting at the seams.
What I want to know is whether Helen will get the prosthetics, orthotics, wheelchair, home modifications & personal support she may need to rebuild her life.
And here’s a particularly cruel irony.
Helen is 65. Unless she was already an NDIS participant before her 65th birthday, she cannot access the NDIS now.
So who is going to fund and provide those supports? How many systems will she have to navigate? How many bureaucrats will get a say in what she needs?
I want Helen to have every possible opportunity to recover, to go home, and, all the Gods willing, to return to the life and work she loves. Without having to fight for every bloody thing along the way.
And I want to know why we are still so hopeless at preventing violence against women.
The man accused of attacking Helen reportedly had significant mental health concerns. His lawyer told the court today that he has a rare neurological condition. There have also been reports of chronic pain and difficulties accessing the NDIS.
We don’t yet know his motive or the full circumstances of his medical care.
None of that excuses what happened to Helen. Not one bit.
But nor should we ignore what happens when people with serious illnesses, disability, homelessness or drug dependency fall through the cracks of systems that are supposed to help them.
Mental illness doesn’t make someone a violent criminal. And women should not have to pay the price when someone becomes violent, whatever the reason.
I want women to be safe walking down the street. I want people who need treatment to receive it. And I want governments to stop waiting until somebody is dead or catastrophically injured before they take any of this seriously.
We are well past the tipping point.
And I’m sure the government will shortly announce another grand plan to fix the NDIS market, as though concentrating services in the hands of increasingly large corporate providers & private equity interests, while destroying jobs and choice, is somehow going to improve our lives.
It won’t help Helen. And it won’t help the thousands of other Australians already fighting to get the care they need.
The bitter irony is that Helen Haines & Jordon Steele-John, himself a survivor of violence, are precisely the kinds of politicians who understand what’s wrong with these systems and have been trying to fix them.
We need politicians from every side of politics working together to make things better. Not more theatre, not more political point-scoring, and certainly not more bloody platitudes.
I don’t object to people expressing their love & admiration for Helen. I share it.
But if we really want to honour her, perhaps we could start by making sure the systems she fought to improve actually work for her, and for everybody else.
Prevention is always better than remedial treatment.
And both are a hell of a lot better than thoughts & prayers.
You can light up every building in Australia.
But you can’t illuminate your way out of a broken health, disability & care system.
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Information from a guy online on my feed (unverified but lines up with everything others are saying, including that Brendan Nugent attacked a man with a brick in Woolies not too long ago)
Kevin Nugent · 52m
He was robodebted, long term homeless prior to 2022, suffered chronic pain, struggled to get onto DSP, then struggled to get off it because it wasn’t enough and wanted to work but couldn’t find suitable work. (No relation)
And if this is true, this makes me even more furious than the attack itself. Because Australia is better than this. We should not have to cut essential services so that private equity billionaires and private wealth can increase.
Www.enoughaustralia.com
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The good news is that Helen is in Victoria, where @Limbs4LifeInc is.
She will get excellent peer support from the rock stars at Limbs, including Melissa Noonan. The rest, unfortunately, is up to Helen’s colleagues. (From Helen, four weeks ago facebook.com/share/r/1JbSezb… )
Sorry to hear this, Helen. Thinking of you and yours right now. I dearly hope you make a full recovery from this awful attack.
In the absence of any way to donate to Helen’s recovery directly, I’m making a small donation to Limbs. The link is here - limbs4life.org.au/donate
What a messed up way to join a community of people. But she was always in our community - our community is Australia <3
Breaking: Dr Helen Haines has lost a leg following the attack outside her electorate office and is still in a critical condition.
Thinking of her and her family.🩵
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Jeez. A woman I know and care about is fighting for her life, has lost a leg, and people are already fighting over whether the man accused of attacking her is a left-wing extremist, a right-wing extremist, a Nazi, a One Nation supporter, a cooker or a tree-hugger, a Zionist or a ‘Hamas supporter’. And on and on it goes.
Who does he ‘belong’ to? So we can justify, excuse or condemn, according to who we ‘belong’ to.
Apparently the important thing is to establish whose problem Brendan Nugent is.
I know Helen Haines well. She was a nurse, then a midwife. She’s one of those rare politicians who actually turns up, listens and gives a shit. She’s met with us many times about the NDIS. The ABC reports she’s critically injured and has lost a leg. I wish I wasn’t writing that. My heart hurts, thinking about it.
After listening to us fight to keep our supports, she will need them herself. If she survives this awful, awful, senseless attack.
And senseless is the word. Police have Brendan Nugent in custody. They are investigating his motive. I know nothing about his health history. I don’t know if he’s ever applied for the NDIS, been refused entry or had support taken away. Neither do the people guessing on social media.
A social media commentator says they attended a school reunion with him recently. They say he hit a man in the head with a brick, in Woolies. That sounds senseless, too.
But I do know this.
Between July and December 2025, the NDIA decided 4,272 access applications from people with psychosocial disability. Almost 2,950 were refused. Only 31% got in.
Then, between April and June 2026, the NDIA revoked access for 5,855 existing participants across all disability groups. I’ve not found a psychosocial breakdown.
My own kid has autism, ADHD and schizophrenia. He’s a beautiful, talented young man, and I am proud of him every day for getting up and continuing to fight. He’s frightened, not violent. He’s creative, clever and feels too much about everything, including for other humans. And he hasn’t even applied for the NDIS because these days, there’s no point.
I want to know what this guy’s history is. Not just of any mental health struggles, but what support he had and tried to access. My own kid lived in Melbourne for two years, and that’s the heart of the city. I know what’s available and what’s not.
So yes, I want to know what happens to people who are turned away. Where they go. Who checks on them. How much support their families have. And why we have become so accustomed to treating people who need help as a budgetary problem or, conversely, an investment opportunity.
None of this explains what happened to Helen. Mental illness does not generally equal violence, and we don’t know if it played any role here. It is only the ‘bricked in Woolies’ (they don’t sell bricks at Woolies) and the apparent absence of motivation that makes me raise it. He knew Helen and she apparently had met him. She followed him on social media. She had taken the time to go out and meet with the Strathbogie group. She supported their cause.
But something is wrong when we stop asking what happens to people we turn away and try to fit them into a ‘side’ so that we can more readily attack them.
We are obsessed with dividing Australians into saints and bastards, left and right, OUR people and THEIR people. I have friends who vote LNP, friends in the Greens and Labor, a mate who works at Sky News. Because disability crosses all those boundaries. You’re a car accident, pregnancy or violent attack away from needing care yourself. Disability couldn’t give a shit which way they vote.
Brendan Nugent belongs to this country too, whether any political faction wants him or not. That doesn’t excuse a single thing he’s accused of. Being Australian means belonging to all of us, including the people we find hardest to understand, or like.
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2/ The things that we can fix is this. The system. I hope Helen is at St Vincent’s, where she worked as a young nurse. But I also know that she won’t get the care that she needs right now, because nobody is. Hospitals are stretched to the limit in this brutalist war between the States and Feds, as the Federal government increasingly refuses to fund health, as disabled people and pensioners are forced into hospitals and ramped and parked in ambulance bays.
Australia is the third richest country in the OECD.
There is enough money here to give people proper support. Instead we keep cutting it, then squabbling over whose fault everything is.
Helen is fighting for her life. Can we stop playing ideological pass-the-parcel for five fucking minutes and think about what sort of country we actually want to be?
I’ve had enough. If you’ve had enough too, sign up at enoughaustralia.com and help us end this bullshit.
(Stats are from NDIA December 2025 quarterly report and June 2026 revocation figures released under FOI.)
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@NotLaoTzu is the person that people are speculating is the perpetrator.
He is followed by Helen.
So she knew him, if that’s him. At least online.
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I have spent perhaps five years working this out.
And when it comes to anyone who needs care in this country, from kids to patients to the disabled to the elderly or wounded, Australia is headed in the wrong direction.
My hypothesis is that, by 2037, Australia could have a largely government-funded but privately controlled human services system.
Government will still pay for care. In fact, it may spend more than ever.
But it will increasingly cease to be the organisation that decides how care is delivered, employs the people delivering it, or directly controls the infrastructure on which that care depends.
Instead, government will become the purchaser of services, the setter of financial targets, the collector of personal information and, increasingly, a financial partner of the businesses delivering those services.
A relatively small number of large organisations could control much of the infrastructure through which Australians access disability support, aged care, veterans’ services, mental health support, employment assistance, childcare and social housing.
Some will be conventional private equity businesses. Others will be investment-backed not-for-profits and social enterprises. Their ownership structures will differ, but many will operate in a system designed around government contracts, economies of scale, financial returns and measurable outcomes.
The central change will be that government increasingly purchases an outcome rather than guaranteeing the support a person needs.
The foundation for several parts of this already exists. It is being actively developed and some of the legislation passed last week, in the midst of that media flurry, will facilitate this happening. It is no single part of legislation but many parts, taken together, that give rise to this.
And the most important point is that nobody needs to secretly coordinate the entire system for it to develop this way. The financial incentives, procurement rules and investment structures can drive it in that direction on their own.
Australia is headed in the wrong direction. Our government is not listening to what people want and need.
Next week we will be holding a meeting and asking people to talk about not just these issues, but solutions. Sign up on the enoughaustralia.com website and we’ll send you more information.
Because we are the third richest country in the OECD. And there is enough to go round.
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Haines now serves as the deputy chair of the parliamentary committee on the Nacc.
As late as this afternoon, in a statement released just an hour before the incident outside her electorate office, Haines welcomed the appointment of a new Nacc commissioner and deputy, saying it was a needed “reset” of the integrity body.
“The proposed appointments are an opportunity to rebuild public confidence and ensure the Commission can do its job with independence, credibility and integrity… The task now is to ensure the NACC has the leadership, culture, and public trust it needs to investigate corruption effectively and uphold the highest standards of integrity,” she said.
theguardian.com/australia-ne…
All our love to Helen and family.
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Sam Connor retweeted
Wishing the incomparable Helen Haines all the very best and hoping that everything is alright.
There may be more to come, but we will simply send our very best wishes for now.
xxxx
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Fuck.
facebook.com/share/v/1FGQch1…
All my love and best wishes to Helen. She’s a lovely human.
And wtaf, a ‘targeted attack’??
She may have lost her leg and is in critical condition.
What is going on in Australia right now?
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There is too much that stinks about this.
I’m going to have a look under the table.
Hold that dead cat, will you? :)
I’m going to start with the places that the smell is strongest, because there are things that just do not math for me.
Like the fact that we have political disclosures for MPs spouses, but not for Senators’. There has got to be a reason for that.
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This post is dedicated to the short but brutal reign of David Shoebridge.
Last night, Senator Jordon Steele-John published an extraordinary statement describing his experience of domestic violence, stalking, a police investigation that ended without charges, and the political manoeuvring he believes has surrounded him for nearly a decade.
He also made it abundantly clear that he is NOT on leave, never agreed to be, and believes Shoebridge misrepresented him.
Then I heard from a NSW Greens source that Shoebridge has called an emergency party-room meeting tomorrow morning to EXPEL JORDON.
If that information is correct, what the ACTUAL FUCK?
A disabled senator, a survivor of violence, publicly describing unimaginable trauma, asking for a fair investigation, and now potentially facing political execution before that investigation has reached a conclusion.
For WHAT? Refusing to disappear quietly? Telling his side of the story? Getting the police involved about stalking and a blackmail threat against a sitting member of Parliament?
And here's where it gets particularly fucking interesting.
In 2017, Shoebridge passionately defended Lee Rhiannon when the Greens excluded her from party-room decisions over her opposition to Turnbull's Gonski school funding legislation. Rhiannon, who wrote Sold Off Sold Out about privatisation, was fighting for public services and grassroots democracy.
Shoebridge insisted she belonged in the party room.
Apparently principles have an expiry date.
Now people are asking questions about the internal factions, preselection ambitions, and where Sarah Hanson-Young, Mehreen Faruqi and Sophie McNeill stand in all this.
Four WA Greens MPs, Brad Pettitt, Sophie McNeill, Jess Beckerling and Tim Clifford, signed a statement applauding Shoebridge's swift response while calling for natural justice.
And Jordon says a former staffer accessed an old internal document in July, then took up a WA Greens media role. Who hired that person? Why was the document accessed then? Who benefits from its resurfacing now? And is that person's office involved in any subsequent investigation or terms of reference for an inquiry?
These are questions requiring answers, not proof of a conspiracy.
This whole thing stinks.
While Jordon has been fighting cuts to disabled people's supports, the Greens appear to be finding considerably more time for internal warfare than for the people they were elected to represent.
Investigate every genuine complaint. Protect everyone involved. Follow the fucking evidence.
But don't confuse political expediency with justice.
This is shit. The whole thing is shit.
And because sending ridiculous invoices is apparently all the fashion, we in the disability community has prepared one of our own.
$12,000. Itemised. Every last cent of the bullshit, because apparently it's okay to try and extract money from political parties.
But still, I guess capitalism never went out of fashion.
Payment due immediately.
enoughaustralia.com
ALT Alt text: Satirical invoice from Enough Australia titled “Political Assassination of Representation”, presented in black, white and bright teal. The invoice is issued by “The Disability Community” to “Whoever thought benching our Senator was a brilliant idea”, dated 18 October 2026, with payment due immediately. Ten sarcastic charges total $12,000, including an emergency party-room ambush booking fee, disabled representation disposal levy, progressive principle reversal surcharge, factional numbers-stacking fee, preferred-successor consultancy, inner-circle solidarity package and media pressure-management fee. “Not applicable. No actual goods, services, transparency or common sense supplied.” Four payment terms demand consistent principles, proper due process, continued political representation for disabled people and an end to interference with their Senator. “If your principles only work for the right people, they are not principles.” https://enoughaustralia.com.
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While Australia stared at the crippled dead cat they just threw on the table, Labor and the Liberals were quietly passing legislation that should have been front-page news.
The dead cat was Jordon Steele-John.
I don’t know for sure who threw it there. But I know what happened in Parliament while everyone was looking.
On Monday 12 October, Labor and the Coalition backed the Health Insurance Amendment (Incentive Payments and Other Measures) Bill 2026.
Sounds harmless, doesn’t it?
It creates a legal framework for more than $1.4 BILLION a year in government payments to healthcare providers, including corporate-owned businesses.
But buried in that legislation are powers to let ministers decide payment rules, demand records, share personal information, investigate providers, recover money and authorise computers to make decisions, including decisions requiring judgement.
Parliament’s own Human Rights Committee had already warned that these information powers could seriously interfere with Australians’ privacy and that the safeguards might not be good enough.
They passed it anyway.
Then came the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Technical Changes No. 2) Bill 2026.
More computer-made decisions. More use of income data to calculate family assistance and child support. New powers to change certain decisions already under review by the Administrative Review Tribunal.
Some provisions improve review rights. Others expand automated administration.
After Robodebt, you might reasonably expect Parliament to examine every one of those powers with a microscope.
And then there was the Aged Care Legislation Amendment (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aged Care Commissioner and Other Measures) Bill 2026.
This changes aged-care subsidies, accommodation deposits, means-testing arrangements and government debt recovery.
It also establishes a limited pathway for reconsidering certain aged-care assessments.
Not the unfettered right for qualified assessors to override an algorithm when it gets someone’s needs wrong.
After months of pressure, the government finally agreed on Thursday to an independent review of its aged-care assessment system.
Now consider what we’ve been uncovering at Enough Australia.
Private equity buying up healthcare businesses. nib acquiring independent NDIS plan managers. Publicly funded services being consolidated into corporate groups. Governments increasingly relying on data, payment rules and automated administration.
These laws do not hand Medicare or the NDIS to nib. But they help build the administrative and funding environment in which large corporate operators can do business.
We, the public, pays for it. The government writes the rules. Private businesses can receive the money. And increasingly, computer systems help decide who qualifies, what gets paid and what happens when the records don’t agree.
Labor and the Coalition did not agree on every amendment, particularly in aged care. But they supported key parts of this expanding administrative machinery.
And who was sitting in Parliament on Monday warning about exactly this?
Jordon Steele-John.
On Tuesday, he supported an amendment seeking to abolish the controversial aged-care assessment tool. Labor voted it down.
On Thursday, the government announced a review of that system.
By Thursday afternoon, the headlines were about Jordon himself.
The decade old allegations against him deserve a fair, independent investigation. So do the decisions being made about the rest of us.
Because while everyone was staring at the dead cat, Parliament was deciding who controls the money, who controls the information and how much power human beings will have when the computers get it wrong.
That’s the story we should be reading. Www.enoughaustralia.com
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I received a goodbye message from a disabled woman this morning.
She told me ‘she couldn’t take any more’. She had no hope left. Having someone like us in Parliament, someone who fought tirelessly for us, had been one of the things keeping her alive.
I searched her Facebook wall, found her CoS, who called her and contacted police. An ambulance was sent.
Her Facebook page has since entirely disappeared. I don’t have her number. This is the third incident like this in 2026.
I don’t know whether she’s alive. I don’t know whether she’s going to spend six months in hospital, like the last disabled woman who reached this point.
I don’t know what happens next.
But I know what happened this week.
A disabled man who sent Facebook messages to two women a decade ago, women who did not even make any kind of formal complaint to the Greens, a matter investigated by the WA Greens at the time, has been dragged through the political sewer and publicly compared to Bruce Lehrmann on Insiders.
A man found by a Federal Court judge, on the balance of probabilities, to have raped a woman.
Jordon has also been dealing with relentless stalking, has an AVO in place (as do others, against the same woman), and serious related matters are before police.
Apparently, none of that warrants the slightest consideration from the self-appointed guardians of decency.
And then there’s the particularly filthy business of ‘feels on wheels’.
An insult coined by Labor in 2022 because Jordon cried in Parliament over dead disabled children, now being twisted into something sexual.
What sort of miserable, grubby little bastard takes a man’s grief over dead children and repackages it as a sexual smear?
And what sort of journalist repeats it without establishing where it came from?
There is a special place in the political gutter for people who manufacture moral outrage out of somebody else’s suffering, then congratulate themselves on their integrity.
These grubs couldn’t recognise due process if it walked into Parliament wearing a fucking name badge.
They’ve confused cruelty with courage, public humiliation with justice, and political opportunism with principle.
Their compassion is a theatrical production with a press release and a remarkably convenient list of people who don’t qualify for it.
And while this circus was consuming every available inch of political oxygen, Parliament was getting on with the business of dismantling disabled people’s lives.
The very changes Jordon had been fighting. The ones you’re not talking about while you’re talking about this.
Cuts to essential supports. Data matching and surveillance. People being shut inside their homes and shut out of life. Disabled and aged Australians facing terrible harm at the hands of a government that treats us as disposable commodities.
Fuck that.
You can find an unreported complaint of an inappropriate Facebook message from ten years ago, but apparently you can’t find your conscience when disabled people are begging you not to destroy their lives.
What a thoroughly rotten collection of political cowards.
You have mistaken the absence of consequences for the possession of principles.
You know every word. Trauma-informed. Safeguarding. Human rights. Procedural fairness.
You can pronounce them all beautifully into a microphone.
You just don’t give a fuck about practising any of them when doing so might cost you a headline, a preselection - yeah, looking at you, WA Greens - a dead cat on the table or a convenient political scalp.
And spare me the lectures about protecting women.
Where was this righteous fury when disabled women testified about being raped, beaten and abused in institutions?
Where is it now, when disabled women and carers are trapped in violent homes because they cannot get the support they need to leave?
Where is it when women are telling you that the loss of their disability supports will put their lives in danger?
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2/ Where is it when a five year old child known to child protection is killed in his own home? A child like the one ‘feels on wheels’ cried for in your fucking inaccessible chamber?
You are brave with other people’s lives, righteous with other people’s trauma and catastrophically reckless with other people’s survival.
And now a disabled woman has said goodbye.
I hope to Christ she’s alive.
I hope the people who love her get to hold her again.
And I hope every sanctimonious politician, party operative and journalist who participated in this week’s frenzy takes a good, hard look at what happens when they treat the lives of disabled people as disposable political material.
Because there is a difference between being a decent human being and being seen to be one.
And you miserable political frauds have mistaken the applause of your own kind for evidence that you are either.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to plan how you are all going to lose the next federal election.
Australia is better than this.
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