Disability

Disability – it’s a complex term. It is understood and experienced in many different ways. In Australia one in five people have a disability.

Arts Access Australia promotes wellbeing and the social models of disability and health, reflecting the World Health Organisation International Classification on Health and Functioning.

Previously, disability began where health ended; once you were disabled, you were in a separate category. Now the focus is on a person’s level of health and the impact it has on their everyday life.

We also acknowledge that anybody can experience some disability during their lifetime.

As an arts and disability organisation, Arts Access Australia embraces the social model of disability. Within this model a person is understood to experience a disability when the social or physical environment in which they live fails to accommodate them.  

This approach allows us to focus on positive actions to remove social and physical barriers to full participation in the arts, rather than trying to 'correct' the body of the individual. 

This understanding shifts some of the responsibility for social participation for people with disabilities from the particular individual to society as a whole. It also enables us to focus clearly on universal access, a very useful strategy for the arts and other people-focused industries. Universal access and universal design focus on making all environments, products and services accessible to all people.

Arts & Disability

In Australia people with disabilities are involved in the arts and cultural industries both as practicing artists and as audiences. Arts Access Australia promotes the notion of ‘wellbeing’ and we recognise that direct participation in, and increased access to the arts contributes to the wellbeing of people with a disability, their carers, family, friends and the community. Similarly art created by people with a disability makes a unique contribution to the cultural life of Australia.

We believe that everyone has innate creative ability and that it’s a human right to have access to cultural opportunities.

There has been some research in Australia on participation rates of people with disabilities with Arts and Disability written by Des Walsh and Juliet London (Australia Council 1995), Don’t give up your day job – an economic study of professional artists in Australia written by David Throsby and Virginia Hollister (Australia Council 2003) and the 2007 Cultural Ministers Council report Cultural Participation of Persons with a Disability and Older Persons being the most notable.

The findings of the Throsby research are that of the estimated 45,000 artists in Australia in 2003 around 10 per cent of those surveyed reported living with some form of disability. Of these about two-thirds report a physical disability and one-third have a mental illness or intellectual disability. Of the artists with a disability about 20 per cent say that their disability impacts on their artistic practice most of the time or all of the time while another 20 per cent say it has no effect at all. The Throsby figures should be used and interpreted with some caution as Arts Access Australia and our extensive member network was not consulted as part of the research.

The Cultural Ministers Council, using data from 2003 and 2005-06, found that in terms of attendance at cultural venues and events, within a twelve month period:

• 43 % of people with disabilities, and 34% of older people, reported attending the cinema, compared with 65% of all Australians aged 15 and over;
• 34% of people with disabilities, and 32% of older people, visited libraries, compared with 34% of all Australains aged 15 and over;
• 29% of people with disabilities, and 24% of older people, visited marine parks or botanic gardens, compared to 51% of all Australians aged 15 and over;
• 25% of people with disabilites, and 28% of older people, attended theatres and concerts, compared to 38% of all Australians aged 15 and over;
• 20% of people with disabilities, and 21% of older people, visited museums or art galleries, compared to 32% of all Australians aged 15 and over.

The report also provides a state/territory breakdown of attendance and provides self-identified figures for arts participation. The report does not include people in residential or aged care facilities.

The context for these reports are 2003 ABS figures indicating that one in five Australians, or four million people, have one or more disabilities. This figure is increasing, in particular with the ageing of our population. The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 1992 also covers people with short-term disabilities lasting less than six months where the ABS excludes them from surveys (potentially understating episodic conditions like mental illness for example).

Within this overall figure of one in five there are particular groups that stand out:

• Multicultural Disability Advocacy Association research indicates that while disability prevalence is about the same for people from non-English speaking backgrounds (NESB). In NSW, three out of four people from a NESB with a disability miss out on receiving State or Commonwealth funded disability services simply because of their ethnicity.
  
  
• A 2003 Study of the NSW prison system indicated that overall approximately 74% of those assessed had some kind of psychiatric disorder, either a mental illness and/or substance abuse disorder and/or a personality disorder. Looking at mental illness alone 46% of those coming into the prison had a mental illness.
  
  
• The 2008 Report on Government Services Indigenous Compendium states 2 in 5 or 40% of Indigenous Australians have a disability. What is also different from other groups is evidence that there are disproportionate numbers of Indigenous people with disabilities living in remote areas where there are least services.