DisabilityCare Australia, the national disability insurance scheme, will become a truly national scheme, with Western Australia signing up on 4 August 2013.

This agreement between the Commonwealth and Western Australian Governments means that a two year launch will commence from July 2014.
The Commonwealth and WA Government will jointly fund a DisabilityCare Australia launch site in the Perth Hills area, with around 4,300 participants.
This will be delivered by the DisabilityCare Australia Agency under national arrangements set out in the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) Act 2013.
The two Governments will also jointly fund two sites that will operate under the Western Australian My Way model, in the Lower South West and Cockburn-Kwinana, with around 4,080 participants.
These sites will be delivered by the Western Australia Disability Services Commission under State legislation.
Around 8400 West Australians with disability, their families and carers will benefit from the DisabilityCare Australia and MyWay sites in WA.
As with the other launch sites, there will be an independent evaluation of the services and outcomes in both sites during the launch period so that any positives and negatives can be shared and taken into account in the future delivery of services in Western Australia and full roll-out of DisabilityCare across Australia.

National Week of Deaf People (NWDP) is a weeklong celebration of Deaf people and the Australian Deaf community.

It is an opportunity for Deaf people to:

• Celebrate Deaf community, language, culture and history
• Make the public aware of their local, state and national Deaf communities
• Recognise their achievements

 
It is also an opportunity for organisations involved with the Deaf Community to:

• Showcase their services and/or products
• Build/maintain relationships with Deaf people
• Be recognised for giving Deaf people a fair go

This year, NWDP will be held from 19-25 October 2013

National Day of Deaf People (NDDP) will be on Sunday 20 October 2013.
The theme for this year is the same theme as the World Federation of the Deaf International Week of Deaf People for 2013:

“Equality for Deaf People”.

Be creative and start thinking about how you can celebrate Deaf culture!
The types of things you could organise for NWDP are:

• Deaf Festival Day/Expo
• Information pamphlets/posters
• Workshops/forums
• Deaf Comedy/Quiz/Theatre/Debate
• Film nights
• Open days

You will need to register your event with Deaf Australia to make sure it is a part of the official NWDP program. Registration also means your event will be listed on Deaf Australia’s website and will be promoted along with all the other official NWDP events, so people know what is happening all over Australia during that week.
To register, read the Terms of Reference on the Deaf Australia website, then fill out the registration form and send it with your flyer and any other promotional materials to your Deaf Australia state branch for them to collate and send to head office. ACT, NT and Tasmania can send their registrations direct to Deaf Australia.
You must register with your state branch by Friday 13 September 2013 in order for everything to arrive at Deaf Australia on time.
When promoting your event, there is some information you must include:

1. Title of event
2. Date/time
3. Venue
4. Organisation name
5. Contact person
6. Contact details (email, phone TTY, fax etc)
7. RSVP details (if needed)
8. Official NWDP logo

Remember you must include the Deaf Australia NWDP logo on all promotional materials, such as flyers, posters and DVDs etc. It is very important to use the logo so that that everyone will know your event is part of the official NWDP program.
If you are promoting your event verbally or using Auslan (eg on radio or TV), you need to be clear that NWDP is Deaf Australia’s national week for celebrating Deaf culture. For example, you could say: “As part of Deaf Australia’s NWDP, I have great pleasure in running this event…”.
Please download the registration information and start thinking about how you can get creative about celebrating Deaf people and culture during National Week of Deaf People!
 
[button url=”https://deafaustralia.org.au/wp-content/uploads/NWDP-collateral.zip” class=”button” size=”jumbo” color=”green-2″ target=”_self” lightbox_content=”” lightbox_description=””] Download all the NWDP documents (.zip 4.5MB) [/button] This file contains, the guidelines, registration form, NWDP logos (as PDF, EPS, JPEG and PNG files) and the logo usage guide.
[button url=”https://deafaustralia.org.au/wp-content/uploads/NWDP-Guidelines-2013.pdf” class=”button” size=”jumbo” color=”cool-blue” target=”_self” lightbox_content=”” lightbox_description=””] Download the NWDP guidelines only (PDF 444KB) [/button] [button url=”https://deafaustralia.org.au/wp-content/uploads/Event-Rego-for-NWDP-2013.doc” class=”button” size=”jumbo” color=”lime-green” target=”_self” lightbox_content=”” lightbox_description=””] Download the NWDP registration form only (.doc 256KB) [/button]  

Deaf Australia is always a hive of activity, busy with all sorts of tasks; working hard to make life better for Deaf people. Read more here about what we’ve been up to lately.

Date, Location, # participants

Tuesday 9 April 2013, Geelong Vic (Melissa Lowrie), 25
Wednesday 1 May 2013, Gosford NSW (with DSNSW), 30
Monday 6 May 2013, Burnie Tas, 14
Tuesday 7 May 2013, Hobart Tas, 15
Tuesday 7 May 2013, Launceston Tas, 14
Thursday 16 May 2013, Mackay Qld, 4
Friday 17 May 2013, Townsville Qld, 8
Saturday 18 May 2013, Mareeba Qld, 7
Saturday 18 May 2013, Cairns Qld , 16
Thursday 23 May 2013, Melbourne Vic, 5
Monday 27 May 2013, Sydney NSW, 4
Thursday 6 June 2013, Darwin NT, 5
Tuesday 11 June 2013, Bendigo Vic, 2
Wednesday 12 June 2013, Ballarat Vic, 6
Wednesday 19 June 2013, Perth WA, 50
Wednesday 19 June 2013, Perth WA, 25
Saturday 22 June 2013, Adelaide SA, 45
Thursday 27 June 2013, Brisbane, 65
Total number of participants, , 340
[/table]  
Captioning Working Group
The Working Group will meet again on 22 August.
Cinema Captioning
Cathy Clark represented Deaf Australia at the ACAG meeting on 30th July.
Qld Civil and Administrative Tribunal Hearing on Deaf people and jury service
Our Office Administrator Gaye Lyons, in a personal capacity, filed a complaint against the Queensland Government for discrimination in refusing to allow her to do jury service. The case was heard at the Qld Civil and Administrative Tribunal on 4-6 June. Another staff member and I went along on 5 June to offer support to Gaye, and Gaye and I were then interviewed by Channel 10 TV news. It was on the news that night. The decision on the case has not yet been handed down.
Deaf Jurors research project
We agreed some time ago to be a partner to a research project (an extension of an earlier project led by Jemina Napier at Macquarie University) and the project is now going ahead. It will involve several universities but is led by University of Sydney. Our role is to have a representative on the reference group and help identify Deaf research participants. The first meeting will be in August.
Census
In May I sent a letter to the Deaf Society of NSW supporting their submission to change the Census question about language used at home.
Royal Commission into Child Sex Abuse
I met with one of the Commissioners and the Commission secretary on 3 July to discuss how best to ensure that Deaf people know about the Commission, can access it and tell their stories to the Commission. They were very open to information and suggestions and I expect to have more follow up discussions with them.
DETE Auslan Short Courses
Deaf Australia has had an agreement with the Queensland Department of Education, Training and Employment (DETE) to provide Auslan classes for Queensland School staff since January 2009. The provision of these classes had to go to tender again because there is a time limit on how long such an agreement can be. We submitted a tender offer and await the outcome. So all DETE Auslan Short Courses had to stop and there have been no classes since the end of June.
Disability Rights Research Collaboration Roundtable
The University of Sydney and People with Disabilities Australia are collaborating on a new initiative – the Disability Rights Research Collaboration As part of this project they will seek to build links with Disable People’s Organisations working to improve the recognition of rights for people with disability in Australia and the Asia Pacific.
They are hosting a roundtable on Political Participation, Inclusion and Decision Making on 9 August to explore how political participation and decision making for people with disability can be thought about in new ways. I will make a short presentation at the roundtable.
Captioning on free to air TV multichannels
The Department for Broadband Communications and the Digital Economy sent us a letter with two proposals for increasing captioning on free to air TV multichannels. We sent a letter rejecting both proposals, saying that we want 100% captioning between 6am and midnight on all multichannels within three years. (The main channels – ABC, SBS, 7,9,10 must have 100% captioning between 6am and midnight by June 2014).
ALRC inquiry into legal barriers for people with disabilities
The Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) is doing an Inquiry into Legal Barriers for People with Disabilities. It appears that they will consult with organisations like Deaf Australia and will also develop discussion papers for us to respond to. The inquiry was announced on 24 July. [/accordion] [accordion title=”Key Priority 4: Organisational stability and growth” active=”no”] Information Management
We have done an analysis of our members and stakeholders survey and will put the results on our blog.
Partnerships
State Branches:
Deaf Australia’s board and I and the Deaf Victoria board and Manager had a meeting, followed by dinner together when our board had a meeting in Melbourne on 25-26 May.
We have received a copy of a letter that SA Deaf community have sent to Australia Federation of Deaf Societies requesting help with preventing the sale of the 262 building and their problems with DeafCanDo. Deaf Australia’s board will discuss this at their meeting on 11 August.
Deaf Children Australia
Ann Darwin and I met with DCA on 24 May.
AFDO
I attended the AFDO members meeting in Sydney 28 and 29 May.
National forum for peaks
The Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA), which funds Deaf Australia and other peak disability organisations, has requested that AFDO organise a national forum for peak disability organisations. AFDO is continuing to work on trying to set up this forum and I attended a planning meeting by teleconference on 4 July. It has become apparent that FaHCSIA wants this forum to review how the disability peak sector and funding is structured in the future.
Everyone’s funding is under threat including ours.
One of the peak organisations has sent to the Minister a proposal to withdraw direct funding from a number of organisations, including Deaf Australia, and for Deaf people to be included in a cross disability organisation or an organisation for people with sensory disability.
The proposal is included for discussion at our next Board meeting, and I have been working on a document that sets out some thoughts for the review.
This forum will happen on 18 and 19 September.
I believe that Deaf people need representation from an organisation that specifically focuses on Deaf people, culture and issues, and being absorbed into a wider organisation would not be appropriate for the Deaf Community.
We all need to be fully aware of what is going on and ready to get involved with this process in a meaningful way, in order to have a strong presence and protect our members’ rights for the type of representation that best suits them now and into the future.
You can help us show that Deaf people need their own representative organisation by becoming a member of Deaf Australia and telling us what you need us to advocate for on your behalf and encouraging your friends and family to do the same.
AFDS
Deaf Australia’s board and I attended a meeting with some of the CEOs and board members of the Deaf Societies on 25 May. We discussed how we might better work together in positive ways.
WFD
Deaf Australia will host meetings of the new WFD Oceania Region in Sydney on Tuesday 15 October (afternoon) and Wednesday 16 October (morning), as well as the WFD Ordinary Members meeting in the afternoon on 16 October. Peter Davies has very kindly offered to help us with the arrangements for the meetings.
We will also share an information booth with the WFD at the WFD Conference and the International Deaf Festival in October in Sydney in October.
ASLIA
Ann Darwin and I met with Paul Heuston and Teresa Cumpston-Bird on 24 May. Ann Darwin and Paul Heuston signed a Memorandum of Agreement between Deaf Australia and ASLIA.
Capacity building
4Senses
The State Library of Queensland approached us and the 4Senses team and offered to host a special 4Senses event at the library, as the final event in an extended program they have had running for several months that is about Brisbane’s band culture. It will be a special 4Senses event on Friday night 15 November. Ticket numbers will be limited so be sure to buy your tickets early. [/accordion] [/accordion_set]

Election information in Auslan.

The federal election has now been announced for 7 September 2013 and all Australians have until 8pm on Monday 12 August to enrol to vote or update their enrolment details.
In preparation for the election, the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) has produced an AUSLAN guide to enrolling and voting.
This AUSLAN video guide is hosted on YouTube and provides easy instructions and information for people who use Auslan as their preferred language.
Don’t miss out on having your say! Watch the video and make sure you are enrolled by the due date.
For more information, visit the AEC website: www.aec.gov.au