Disability Pride Festival 2023

Abigail passed a motion in Parliament about the success of this year's Disability Pride Festival.

(1)That this House notes that:

(a)Australia's third annual Disability Pride Festival was held on Saturday 16 September 2023 at Ashfield Civic Centre with the theme of "Solidarity not Charity", which was attended by:

(i)members of the disability community;

(ii)allies of the disability community;

(iii)Deb Roach, world pole dancing champion;

(iv)Daniel McDonald, First Nations Auslan user and artist;

(v)Jaci Armstrong, chairperson of Guide Dogs Australia;

(vi)Summer Giddings, para-athlete;

(vii)Your Story Legal Support;

(viii)Abigail Boyd, The Greens, MLC;

(ix)Dr Amanda Cohn, The Greens, MLC;

(x)Kobi Shetty, The Greens, MP;

(xi)Dylan Griffiths, The Greens, councillor;

(xii)Liz Atkins, The Greens, councillor;

(xiii)Marghanita Da Cruz, The Greens, councillor; and

(xiv)many others.

(b)disability pride is a global movement that means different things to different people, celebrates the diversity of the disability community and reclaims the history, culture and languages of the disability community;

(c)the first Disability Pride Festival was held in Boston, Massachusetts in the United States in 1990, to commemorate the Americans with Disabilities Act being signed into law, which was at the time a step in achieving civil rights protections for people with disability;

(d)Disability Pride Month is celebrated every July across the world, and is also celebrated at various times of the year in the form of parades, festivals, conferences, workshops and awareness events all of which aim to promote awareness and honour the vibrancy of disability pride;

(e)disability pride stands firmly against the ableism that exists throughout the entirety of the systems we stand upon, and fights against the charity model of disability which assumes that all people with disability are objects of pity rather than human beings who live in a society that is fundamentally constructed to disable a significant portion of people from living full and dignified lives; and

(f)the 1.37 million people with disability living in New South Wales face significant obstructions, barriers and inequalities in society in relation to all areas of life including health, education, the workforce, accessing infrastructure, using transport and housing.

(2)That this House calls on the Government and all members in this place to affirm support for disability pride and all associated events and celebrations.

Read the full transcript in Hansard here.

TAX SUPERPROFITS TO PAY WORKERS MORE

NSW is missing out on tens of billions of dollars. By introducing a progressive coal royalty structure similar to the one in Queensland, we would have raised an extra $20 billion last year.

The NSW Government owns and controls, on behalf of the people of this state, the rights to the minerals and materials that naturally occur in NSW land.

Huge fossil fuel companies are only able to extract and sell these commodities with the consent of the State. It’s time they paid a fair price for that privilege.

The fossil fuel industry has made hundreds of billions of dollars out of their cosy relationship with governments. Granted permission to extract and sell coal, these large multinational fossil fuel corporations pay just over 7% in royalties back to the people of NSW – keeping the rest as mega-profits for themselves. These companies have a track record of taking more than their fair share and leaving communities suffering and stranded with poisoned groundwater, devastated landscapes and a stranded workforce when it suits their business models.

Globally, the hyper-inflation of fossil fuel prices driven by price-gouging opportunism and war profiteering from Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has delivered record windfall profits to these already obscenely wealthy corporations. In the last year, NSW coal exports totaled over $70 billion dollars, but the people of NSW will only see about 7 cents in every dollar, or about $6 billion dollars of that amount.

Rather than going toward schools, hospitals and public infrastructure, billions of dollars went into the pockets of multinational mining corporations. The Greens believe there should be more money for schools and hospitals and less for mining billionaires.

Sign our petition calling on the NSW Labor Government to increase coal royalties to invest in communities.

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Disability Pride Festival 2023

TAX SUPERPROFITS TO PAY WORKERS MORE

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