Hayes and Arielle

‘I think being an Aboriginal person – and this can’t be understated when it’s mixed with disability – is that you are subjected to an extraordinary amount of discrimination. I think it’s tenfold. Or even more.’

Arielle is a First Nations woman with disability and mother to several children – all of whom are ‘high achievers’. Her son, Hayes, has Asperger’s syndrome, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and other health issues.

Arielle told the Royal Commission that Hayes’s disability did not ‘become a school matter’ until his final years. She and Hayes approached two of Hayes’s teachers about reasonable adjustments for HSC exams and assessments in consideration of his disability. One responded, ‘Oh, if he’s that bad, why does he do well at school? He doesn’t look too retarded to me.’ Arielle told the teacher she found his language offensive, but ‘let it go’. ‘I didn’t want to cause problems for my son,’ she said.

Then Hayes told her the teacher was making ‘really discriminatory comments in class about Aboriginal people’. Hoping to empower her son, she urged Hayes to make a complaint to the principal, but that ‘didn’t go down well’.

Hayes reported to his mum that the two teachers were continuing to make ‘snide comments about his disability and about being Aboriginal’. Arielle made a complaint to the principal, who was reluctant to engage.

When a teacher wrote negative comments about Hayes in a school report, Arielle went to the principal again.

The principal called the teacher into a meeting with Arielle. He refused to remove the comments and stormed out, slamming the door on Arielle’s arm. The principal called the teacher back. He said ‘I’m not apologising to anyone, and particularly an Aboriginal person that thinks they can run a school.’

‘Anyway, this went on and on and on and on,’ Arielle said. ‘I made complaints. They did nothing. I made complaints. And in the meantime, my poor son was just really suffering, was crying, didn’t want to go to school.’

Things came to a head when the teacher texted another student. He was giving them extra marks, telling the student ‘that means you come first, and you beat [Hayes].’

Finding out about this, Arielle contacted the Minister and insisted all of Hayes’ exams be re-marked. This revealed under-marking of Hayes’s assessments in two subjects.

‘I just couldn’t believe it,’ Arielle said. ‘I was just beside myself. I was sick. [Hayes] was doing his HSC!

‘[Hayes], in the end, was dux of the school. Sucked in to all of them … But it’s been a really terrible, negative experience … the teacher is still there being racist.’

Arielle told the Royal Commission that, in dealing with the NDIA, she too experienced discrimination based on her disability and Aboriginality.

Prior to becoming an NDIS participant, Arielle had been on a support package that allowed her husband of more than 30 years to be her paid carer.

This arrangement was really important to Arielle. She had been sexually assaulted as a child and then, some years later – at the time she was paralysed in her arms and legs and unable to speak – she was raped by a carer. ‘And so, I am incredibly frightened of care workers,’ she explained.

But when Arielle was transitioning to the NDIS, the case manager suggested Arielle’s circumstances were not ‘exceptional’ enough to warrant a family member being a paid carer. Arielle recounted her traumatic history, but the manager implied she should get better therapists to help her.

‘How do I know you’re just not trying to make money?’ the manager asked her. ‘We know that Aboriginal families can’t really be trusted with, you know, having family as carers.’

Arielle was furious.

‘I’m not working at the moment because I’m sick – but I’ve worked really hard. I’ve done everything that society could expect someone to do … Still, she was there acting like I was trying to scam or … it was just racist and discriminatory based on disability.’