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Labor leader Bill Shorten urges UK to make disability reform 'the next revolution' Labor leader Bill Shorten urges UK to make disability reform 'the next revolution'
(7 months later)
The The Labor leader Bill Shorten has used a visit to London to give his British political counterparts some free advice, urging them to make disability reform the country’s next “revolutionary moment".
Labor leader Bill Shorten has used a visit to London to give his While acknowledging the British healthcare system is superior in terms of the support offered to people with disabilities, Shorten nonetheless used a speech delivered in the Clement Attlee suite at Westminster to contend that more should be done.
British political counterparts some free advice, urging them to make He suggested statistics indicated people with disabilities in Britain still suffered from a lack of access, opportunity and equity.
disability reform the country’s next “revolutionary moment". “So tonight I encourage you to take up the cause of giving people with disability the right to an ordinary life – to make their fight for opportunity and equity your own – to make the design of a new, fairer system for people with disability Britain’s next revolutionary moment,” Shorten said.
While Shorten used his first visit as Australia’s opposition leader to tell counterparts in the UK the story of his own role in the debate which led to the creation of the national disability insurance scheme.
acknowledging the British healthcare system is superior in terms of the He used the story as a case study about why it was important to pursue substantial issues even if there was no immediate “popular acclaim or political dividend.”
support offered to people with disabilities, Shorten nonetheless used a Shorten said it would frame his approach as leader. “Above all, the lesson I take from my involvement in the NDIS – and intend to live by as Labor leader – is that substance will always matter more than show.”
speech delivered in the Clement Attlee suite at Westminster to contend He said media fragmentation and “rapid response” made it harder for politics to pursue substantial economic and social reforms. But he said while voters were “more attuned than ever to spin and realpolitik, they will reward a government that takes them into its trust by considering its idea on merit".
that more should be done. Shorten said the NDIS was big, expensive, and complicated – and the policy was designed to tackle a “relatively unknown problem”. But he said the ALP’s decision to push on and propose the scheme allowed a “national solution to a problem first identified by a federal Labor government in the early 1970s”.
He He said the lesson of all that was to press on with the “revolutionary moments” when the opportunities arose – because “you only need one victory to change your country, forever and for the better”.
suggested statistics indicated people with disabilities in Britain “For all of us, the supreme challenge of office is to recognise our revolutionary moment when it arrives, and to have the courage to seize it, wholly and boldly.”
still suffered from a lack of access, opportunity and equity.
“So
tonight I encourage you to take up the cause of giving people with
disability the right to an ordinary life – to make their fight for
opportunity and equity your own – to make the design of a new, fairer
system for people with disability Britain’s next revolutionary moment,”
Shorten said.
Shorten
used his first visit as Australia’s
opposition leader to tell counterparts in the UK the story of his own role in the debate
which led to the creation of the national disability insurance scheme.
He
used the story as a case study about why it was important to pursue
substantial issues even if there was no immediate “popular acclaim or
political dividend.”
Shorten
said it would frame his approach as leader. “Above all, the
lesson I take from my involvement in the NDIS – and intend to live by as
Labor leader – is that substance will always matter more than show.”
He
said media fragmentation and “rapid response” made it harder for
politics to pursue substantial economic and social reforms. But he said
while voters were “more attuned than ever to spin and realpolitik, they
will reward a government that takes them into its trust by considering
its idea on merit".
Shorten
said the NDIS was big, expensive, and complicated – and the policy was
designed to tackle a “relatively unknown problem”. But he said the ALP’s
decision to push on and propose the scheme allowed a “national solution
to a problem first identified by a federal Labor government in the
early 1970s”.
He
said the lesson of all that was to press on with the “revolutionary
moments” when the opportunities arose – because “you only need one
victory to change your country, forever and for the better”.
“For
all of us, the supreme challenge of office is to recognise our
revolutionary moment when it arrives, and to have the courage to seize
it, wholly and boldly.”