Kirin

‘Employment is vital. You know you mix with the broader community, it engages people with disability in conversation and it gives us, or me, a sense of purpose. And I just don’t understand why it’s viewed as okay that people with disabilities be unemployed or underemployed in this day and age.’

Kirin is in her 40s and has cerebral palsy.

‘I have never accessed a disability service for my day-to-day needs,’ Kirin told the Royal Commission. ‘I was raised by a single dad who raised me with love and respect.’

Kirin’s father enrolled her in a mainstream primary school where one teacher expected her to meet the same goals as her classmates. But this was rare.

‘I remember … talking with the school principal and talking about my ambition, which was to go to university, and that wasn’t really taken seriously. And I remember he was, “You don’t really need to go to university.”’

Kirin went to university and later enrolled in an honours degree, but struggled without reasonable adjustments. To get to one class, for example, she had to climb stairs.

‘I use a motorised scooter to get around. I can walk a little bit, but three flights of stairs carrying books, a laptop and all that stuff was a pain. And, I mean, I did ask the teacher at the time whether or not, you know, we could relocate it. That was shut down.’

It took Kirin so long to climb the stairs she often arrived late.

‘By week four when I came up the stairs I heard the tutor make some really disparaging remarks about me being later and later and then everyone laughing. And then I stopped going.’

When Kirin started looking for a job, she discovered it improved her chances if she disclosed her disability early in the process.

‘I found out when I went into interviews [where] I didn’t tell them … they walked in, I was like, “Hi,” and I saw the shock on the panel’s faces.’

Kirin said when she’s applying for jobs and promotions, she’s often told she’s come second. 

‘It’s not like in the Olympics where you get a silver medal. It’s, I’ve missed out. And I feel like at the moment I’m up against able-bodied people, ableism attitudes.’

Kirin said she sees those attitudes throughout the community. For example, her children walk to school and she often escorts them in her motorised wheelchair. One day, she had a baby strapped to her chest in a carrier and a woman pulled up beside her ‘almost on the footpath’.

‘She just yelled at me about how I’m an unfit mum, how can I put my children in that risk … And then my little son … just said to me, “Why is she yelling at you?” And you know I had to just say, “I don't know, darling.”’

When she goes out with her husband, people often assume he’s her carer.

‘Or they like say, “He’s just a wonderful man, how amazing is he.” I’m like, yes he is amazing, but not in the way that you’re thinking, not in that patronising way that you’re thinking. That he’s so wonderful to be with someone like me. … just because he can walk, you know, unaided, can speak in a normal community standard … Does that mean I’m like a charity case that someone like him would want me?’

Kirin told the Royal Commission that to change attitudes, inclusion must be taught and applied at school.   

‘If we don’t talk about it at school how do they talk about it in the workplace? How are adults going to talk about inclusion when they don’t really know what that means?’