The news depresses me greatly at the moment. Each morning, I read my feed on BlueSky over coffee and vegemite toast, and it turns into doom-scrolling. The only thing that has cheered me up recently is the story of the Perth Zoo elephant Permai being relocated to South Australia in order to combat loneliness.

4. Participate or organize boycotts of companies that are enabling the Trump regime, starting with Elon Musk’s X and Tesla, and any companies that advertise on X or on Fox News

I did a quick review of public Australian university accounts (plus Bond University) on X, and the majority are active. Flinders University and Queensland University of Technology are exceptions, together with the University of Canberra and The University of Newcastle. The table below shows my findings. (Apologies for the poor formatting of the table - my html skills are rusty.)

I classified accounts as follows:

1. Stated Inactive if the account has an indicator that the account is inactive, irrespective of when the last post was created;
   
2. Functionally Inactive if the account has not posted in the past month, but no obvious indicator that the account is inactive;
   
3. Active if they had a post in the last month.

Here's the message that appears on the X account for Flinders University:

Only two universities had no presence on X that I could find - the new Adelaide University and the University of New South Wales. 

Call to Action

I will write to the Marketing Director for the university where I currently work to respectfully suggest that they should cease using X to promote the university's activities, as associating the university brand with a platform whose proprietor uses Nazi salutes and flirts with the far right in Germany is ultimately damaging.

I will also write to the Marketing Director for the university from which I graduated to suggest the same.

Universities Australia (whose X account appears to be active) helpfully publishes a directory of Australian university Marketing Directors.

It is not the boycott that Robert Reich advocated, but universities withdrawing from X helps to stop the normalisation of anti-semitism and hate speech. I urge you to write to the universities with which you have a relationship also.

Video of three train types taken at Østerport Station, Copenhagen on 30 August 2024: 

• Double-decker regional train travelling from Helsingør to Køge hauled by an electric Siemens Vectron engine 
• Local S-tog (S-train) 
• Øresunds tog (trains that travel across the Øresund bridge between locations in Denmark and Sweden)  

I love travel, I love planning travel, I love researching travel options. But mostly I love travel. I first travelled overseas with my parents in late 1978 / early 1979 to the Phillipines, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. I travelled to New Caledonia on a school trip in 1983. I first travelled to Europe in 1985 as an exchange student. My most recent trip was in August-September 2024 to Copenhagen, Denmark, after a 10-year break from international travel. This is my jumping off point to discuss changes in travel from the 1980s to now.

Nyhavn canal with multi-coloured buildings and boats. Photo taken August 2024.

What hasn't changed

Travel from Australia to the UK, Europe and North America is still a massive schlep

When I first travelled to Europe, it was on Yugoslav Airlines (an airline that not longer exists) from Melbourne. The flight stopped in Singapore and the Middle East to refuel, before a change of aircraft in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (a country that no longer exists), then stops in Zagreb and Stockholm, before finally landing in Copenhagen. It took roughly 36 hours.

Our most recent trip to Copenhagen was on Singapore Airlines, with a single stop and change of aircraft in Singapore. It took roughly 30 hours, although 8 hours of that was a long layover in Singapore. Admittedly this is faster, more direct and on better / more comfortable aircraft than in 1985. Even in 1985, there were faster, more direct and more comfortable options. The 1985 Yugoslav Airline aircraft appeared to have been leased or purchased from an African airline - not a comment on African airlines, but an observation that the aircraft was old. 

Nevertheless a 12-13 hour flight leg in economy is still hard work. Jet lag from crossing 8 or 9 time zones still sucks.

Travel as a wheelchair user is still harder than it needs to be

Wheelchair users are first to board the plan, and last to disembark (by a long shot depending upon the availability of airport assistance staff). We need to pick our airlines carefully for those that provide the best support, and getting that assistance requires a visit to the GP and filling in a form to disclose our diagnoses, even though a diagnosis is not really germane to the provision of support. 

Hotel accommodation is still hit and miss. More hotels have accessible accommodation, but the nature of accessibility varies enormously, as does the ease with which the availability of accessible rooms can be identified and booked. The Hilton and IHG chains are standouts in generally allowing their accessible rooms to be identified and booked from their websites. Scandic Hotels have lots of accessible hotel rooms, and great information on their website about accessibility features, but customers need to email properties to confirm bookings for accessible rooms.

Public transport is the bright spot though. More accessible transport options are good news for getting around your travel destination as a wheelchair user. 

Australia still uses a paper incoming passenger card

Travellers entering Australia need to complete a hard-copy incoming passenger card. Singapore also requires completion of an incoming passenger card - SG Arrival Card (SGAC) with Electronic Health Declaration - but the Singapore card can (must) be completed online.

I'm guessing that the Australian incoming passenger card information is digitised at some point to perform risk assessments and share data with other agencies. See Collection of Passenger Name Records. In which case, having incoming passengers complete the passenger card online could expedite risk assessments and data sharing. From a passenger's perspective, it would be much easier to complete an incoming passenger card online before a flight, rather than scrabbling around to find a pen and fill in the information, much of which is redundant to provide for Australian passport holders. 

What has changed

Mobile technology

When we travelled to Europe 10 years ago, we took only one iPad. However, in the intervening 10 years, using digital devices to interact with the world around us has become ubiquitous. This time we took 2 iPads, 2 iPhones and 2 Apple Watches. We probably could have left one or both iPads at home, but the iPad is my preferred device for interacting with the web. Having an iPhone was not essential, but highly useful in the following ways (noting that these are obviously many of the same ways that having an iPhone is useful at home):

• Finding out the public transport options to get from A to B. 
• Needing to track down the meeting point given by the guy on Facebook Marketplace to buy beautiful Søholm ceramics from the 1960s. 
• Taking photos or video.
• Reading books. 
• Checking in/out for public transport tickets.
• Ordering take-away for pick up from the local Asian take-away.
• Transferring funds to cards being used overseas.
• Paying the gas and electric bills that came in whilst we were away.
• Checking the photos sent each day of our dog enjoying his stay at boarding kennels.

And in a strongly digital economy like Denmark, having Apple Watches for digital payment was hugely convenient.

The 2 iPads, 2 iPhones and 2 Apple Watches were not in themselves sufficient - we needed the following accessories to get best use out of them:

• Both iPhones have Telstra pre-paid SIMs. We bought pre-paid international roaming packs to give us access overseas. I topped up with a Saily data-only eSIM, thinking that I would need more data than I did, but this was unnecessary.
• A VPN to secure communications on hotel / public wifi networks. We chose NordVPN.
• Charging bricks that work with international power outlets. We found that Bunnings (somewhat surprisingly) had the best prices for travel power adapters, and we purchased two Jackson World USB Chargers to give us 4 USB-A and 2 USB-C outlets, with adapters to work in most places, including Australia.
• A case to carry and organise charging bricks and cables. There are lots of these on the market, with some really gorgeous (but expensive) examples. We opted however for a $10 case from Target that is also sold through KMart - Travel Tech Organiser Case - Anko. 

Influence / utility of social media

When we downsized in preparation for moving a couple of years ago, a handful of Lonely Planet travel guide books were amongst the items we donated / gave away. The internet has made dead-tree travel guide books largely obsolete. When I looked for up-to-date information about visiting Copenhagen, I consulted official sources, like the Visit Copenhagen website, but Facebook and YouTube as well. Specifically, a Facebook group for visitors to Copenhagen, with diverse membership comprising both recent visitors and current residents. 

When I needed advice about the best way to pay for public transport during our stay, I posted a question to this group and got very helpful advice about an option that I had not previously considered, and which ultimately saved us money. (For the record, it was the DSB app.) Want advice on hotel options? Or best day trip options from Copenhagen? Which bakery has the best pastries? Feasibility of schedule of planned activities? Should I cross Øresund to visit Malmö? The Facebook group for visitors to Copenhagen will generate plenty of responses and opinions, although not necessary a consensus view. It does take a critical eye to sort through the responses to decide what is useful.

The Facebook group does get lots of visitors asking how to get from Copenhagen airport to their hotel, and whether they should take a taxi, an Uber or rent a car. (Hint - the answer nearly always is take the Copenhagen Metro or train. And Uber does not operate in Copenhagen.) There are several user-generated YouTube videos describing in detail how to travel from the airport to central Copenhagen. Like this one or this one or even this one. Such videos a very useful for wheelchair users, as even though they are not created specifically with wheelchair users in mind, being able to 'walk' the path via a video assists in identifying whether there are insurmountable access barriers. It is not perfect by any means, but definitely better than a printed guide.

Payment methods

In 2011, we travelled with travellers cheques, but found it hard to convert them outside of larger cities. Ten years ago, we took a combination of cash and cards, including the Commonwealth Bank Travel Money Card. This card is a pre-paid credit card which can store cash in up to 16 different currencies. The idea is that you watch exchange rates prior to travel and convert and store cash when exchange rates are most favourable. 

I am a big fan of the Travel Money Card, but mine gets most usage not for travel, but as a risk-free credit card. When I need to enter credit card details into a website, e.g. when there is no PayPal option, I will transfer cash to my Travel Money Card and use it rather than my actual credit card. I keep a minimal balance on my Travel Money Card, so that if it gets hacked, little damage can be done.

The Travel Money Card has two drawbacks for travel though:

• You can only store cash in up to 16 currencies, and these do not include the Danish kroner. The Commonwealth Bank has clearly picked the currencies that are going to be most useful to its target market, and unfortunately these currencies do not include the Danish kroner (or Swedish kroner or Norwegian kroner). This does not prevent the Travel Money Card from being used, but means that transactions will incur fees.
• The Commonwealth Bank Travel Money Card does not integrate with ApplePay, so I cannot use it on my Apple Watch. The physical card can be used to tap-and-go or swipe, but not being able to use it on my Apple Watch is a deal breaker.

With these drawbacks in mind, I started looking for alternatives. A little bit of Googling surfaced the concept of a neobank - digital-only financial institutions - and Wise as an example of a neobank. I looked at other neobanks, but was attracted to Wise because it is an authorised deposit-taking institution in Australia (initially registered with APRA under the former business name, TransferWise).

My Wise account has the following advantages over my Travel Money Card:

• Money can be sent and stored in 40 currencies, including Danish, Norwegian and Swedish kroner.
• Wise offers a digital card that integrates seamlessly with ApplePay. (A physical card can also be obtained for a small fee.)

In addition, the Wise app and website are really easy to use, and their exchange rates beat the bank's exchange rates. Wise charges transaction fees to load and send money, whilst the Commonwealth Bank does not, but for transactions not in Australian dollars, Wise still comes out in front.

For example, at the time of writing, the Commonwealth Bank would charge me $AUD153.37 to put $USD100 on my Travel Money Card, whereas Wise would charge only $AUD148.04 to put $USD100 on my Wise card, including fees of $AUD1.13.

Assuming you do not have a third-party paying into your Wise account, Wise needs an account from which it can debit funds when you add money. I use my Travel Money Card for this, and transfer money onto this as needed to top up my Wise account. In this way, the Travel Money Card is not obsolete; it is just relegated to being a supporting player for travel.

Conclusion

This blog post could easily have been titled 80s to Now: How Technology Has Changed Travel, because the common underlying theme to changes highlighted here is technology. Whether it is mobile technology allowing travellers to navigate to places they would otherwise be unable to go in unfamiliar cities; or social media technology providing a waiting pool of local experts to answer travel questions; or fintech solutions to make it easier and cheaper to access funds whilst you travel. There are undoubtably downsides to technology and travel - having to dodge selfie-taking tourists at popular spots comes to mind - but for an individual traveller like myself, the positive change aspects outweigh any negatives.  

A few months ago, a friend and colleague mentioned that he had installed Mirabella Genio smart light globes at home, that they operate from their phones. Initially, I discounted the idea of using something similar in my home. We had moved not long ago into a newly built home, with recessed lighting in the ceiling in most rooms, which seemed at first glance to obviate any need for smart lights.

Except when I thought about it some more, I realised that the lights we use in most rooms are not the recessed lighting in the ceiling, but stand-alone lamps, many of them vintage. And for the most part, these lamps were inaccessible to me - either I could not reach to switch them on/off, or the switches were too hard to operate.

I started to research options for smart lights that could provide a greater degree of accessibility, and ideally be controlled by voice command. I quickly found that voice control would only be achievable with a smart home platform - Amazon's Alexa Hub, Google Nest Hub or Apple Homekit Hub.

Decision #1: Which smart home platform?

Apple is not the obvious choice in this field - more devices support Amazon's Alexa and Google Nest, and their home hub devices are wider in variety and cheaper. Amazon's Alexa supports Android and iOS devices, whilst Apple Homekit supports only iOS devices. However, as a household, we are Apple die-hards, deep in the Apple ecosystem. 

I was keen to proceed with this project with existing devices wherever possible, i.e. not needing to purchase new devices was a bonus. And our Apple TV 4K was able to be an Apple Home Hub. This meant that Apple was our chosen smart home platform. In retrospect, the Apple Home app was an added bonus, available on macOS and iOS devices, and easy to use. 

Decision #2: Existing Apple ID or new Apple ID?

Both my partner and I have our own Apple IDs. Having just gone through an exercise to disentangle accounts from an ISP-provided email address after the ISP decided that it no longer wanted to provision email, I was keen to ensure that any accounts used to operate the house 'infrastructure' were equally accessible to both of us. 

This meant creating a new email address (Gmail account) and a new Apple ID based on that new email address. I then set up Family Sharing with the new Apple ID as the family organiser, and our personal Apple IDs as 'family members'. This meant that configuration of smart devices would be independent of both our personal Apple IDs, but management of devices in Apple's Home app could be shared with the personal accounts. 

It is worth bearing in mind that Apple Family Sharing appears to be intended for parents to manage their kids' usage. As such, it has some limitations, particularly around purchase sharing. 

Setting up our existing Apple TV 4K as a home hub required a change of default user to the new family Apple ID. The Apple TV was a gift to my partner a couple of years ago, and very much her domain. It appeared for a while that changing default user would mean my partner losing her personal settings, so we put this on hold.

Decision #3: Which Apple Home Hub device?

Decision #4: Which smart lights?

We have so far configured seven smart lights in five different rooms. These lights can be managed using the Apple Home app on macOS and iOS devices (including Apple Watches), or via voice command using 'Hey Siri' in the presence of an Apple HomePod or a macOS or iOS device. Four of these lights have automations set up to switch on the lights at a certain time each day, and switch them off at another designated time. A bit like a mechanical timer switch, except one that does not need to be reset if the power goes out. 

Most importantly, lights that were previously inaccessible to me are now accessible.

Afternote: And the Apple TV 4K?

Initially we decided not to proceed with using the Apple TV 4K as a home hub. However, we have just recently taken a deep breath and set up the Apple TV 4K as a home hub. Fortunately, this did not result in any loss of settings for my partner. The motivation for revisiting this decision was the possibility of using a stereo pair of Apple HomePod Minis as TV speakers. (The Apple HomePod Minis were bought through Facebook Marketplace - one nearly new, the other brand new, and still with cellophane wrapping intact - for a substantial discount over retail price.) 

This proved to be one of the most fiddly/tricky parts of this project, as the Apple TV 4K did not recognise the HomePods until it was disconnected from ethernet. Further investigation is required to see if we can get the HomePods to work as speakers whilst the Apple TV 4K is connected to ethernet.

Final thoughts

My father has recently had surgery that led to a few complications, such that he needs some additional help at home. His level of comfort with websites is reasonably small - last year, when I suggested that he might buy me a gift voucher from Etsy as a Christmas present led to his declaring that he never wanted to visit Etsy's website again. 

So I offered to put in a request for an ACAT assessment in order that he might get some additional help at home, or at least get put on the waitlist for a package.

So far, so good. I did the right thing and declared that I was completing the application form on behalf of my father, rather than completing the form as my father. I was contacted to advise that Dad would need to give his authorisation to the Department of Health and Aged Care for me to act on his behalf in this way. This seems entirely reasonable, so I downloaded the PDF form to record his agreement, completed the form, and arranged for him to sign in the right places, after reading the form's contents.

No problem so far. I scanned the form as a PDF and uploaded it into the My Aged Care portal, which sits behind the myGov portal. This generated an error message to indicate that file uploads could be no greater than 5 MB in size. Fair enough. Try as I might, however, I could not get the PDF file to be less than 5 MB in size. I deleted the instruction pages, keeping only the pages that had actual content needed for this authorisation, with no luck. So I tried another approach to export to PDF document in another format - this time, a PNG file. Success! The resulting file was under 5 MB in size and uploaded successfully with no error. My job was done.

Or so I thought. The following day I had a phone call from the Department of Health and Aged Care. The person on the other end of the phone line advised that they couldn't open my PNG files - they could only open JPEG and PDF files. OK. Back to the drawing board. I'll export each page of the form as a JPEG file and upload multiple files. So that's what I did. The resulting files were under 5 MB in size and uploaded successfully with no error. My job was done. 

Or so I thought (again). The following day I had another phone call from the Department of Health and Aged Care. The different person on the other end of the phone line advised that they couldn't open my JPEG files - they could only open PDF files. OK. Back to the drawing board. I'll export each page of the form as a PDF file and upload multiple files. So that's what I did. The resulting files were under 5 MB in size and uploaded successfully with no error. My job was done.

I expressed more than little frustration at the second person who rang from the Department of Health and Aged Care - not her fault or responsibility obviously that their web portal has more than few user interface issues - but I suggested she convey the following feedback to the department's web developers:

1. I am an IT consultant and I had difficulties navigating the file upload process. How on earth do people in their target demographic (people over 65 years of age) cope with this website, particularly people in the upper end of this demographic cohort? 
2. File sizes of 5 MB are too small. I get that you need to put some constraints on the file sizes that people can upload, but perhaps the department needs to pay AWS a bit more money for file storage and allow uploads to 10 MB.
   
3. There is no indication about allowable file types on the web page itself. I was completely unaware that they couldn't read PNG or JPEG files until they phoned me. At a minimum, the web page should indicate what types of files are acceptable. 
4. Better still, the web page should not allow users to upload files types that are not acceptable. This has security implications as well, particularly if the web page is allowing executable (EXE) files to be uploaded. (I was tempted to try this to prove a point, but didn't.)
5. Finally, the web page should not require me to provide the name of the uploaded file in addition to uploading the file, i.e. you've got the uploaded file, why do I need to tell you what it is called?

Good website design is not (or shouldn't be) a mystery anymore. The federal government with the assistance of its own Digital Transformation Agency should be leading the way in user experience (UX) design with departmental portals that sit behind the myGov portal, e.g. the ATO, Centrelink, My Aged Care, the NDIS, and especially those portals where users are likely to have accessibility needs or user interface requirements that are greater than those of the average user. Instead, we have a mish-mash of portals that look completely different despite serving similar needs, e.g. My Aged Care and the NDIS, where user experience is so poor that posting the form was looking like a better option than persevering with upload.

Last year was a milestone year for lots of reasons:

• COVID-19
• Vaccinations
• Decluttering and downsizing
• Tova's obtaining her first academic contract (not casual) job
• Me leaving Flinders University after 27 years and starting a new job at TechnologyOne
• Bugsy, our stumpy-tailed cattle dog, learning to sit and drop

Because leaving Flinders University after 27 years was such a huge milestone, I would like to reproduce the off-the-cuff speech I gave at my farewell morning tea. This won't be a faithful reproduction, undoubtably I will embellish some bits and forget others, but it will be the best I can recall.

But first, some background to explain what lead up to leaving. Flinders University restructured the Information and Digital Services area of the university at the beginning of last year. As part of this restructure, my substantive position as Manager, Student Systems, was disestablished and I was mapped to a new position at the same level, but without responsibility for supervising staff. Importantly, a new manager position was created for student and finance systems, but all the indications were that I would not be considered suitable for this position. My choice was to apply for the new mapped position, or apply for a voluntary redundancy. The voluntary redundancy provisions were very generous, but I still needed a job, as I was not yet close enough to retirement to be able to leave employment without another job on the horizon.

I did something I still cannot believe I pulled off. I worked my networks, and schlepped my CV around to organisations where I thought I had something to offer. This resulted in a couple of job offers just in the nick of time, including one from TechnologyOne.

So here's a version of the thoughts I gave at my farewell morning tea.

I started working at Flinders University on 4 January 1994, over 27 years ago. Just to remind you how long ago that was, especially younger colleagues who were born after 1994,  Paul Keating was Prime Minister. John Dawkins had been the minister responsible for higher education, and had ushered in changes that saw Colleges of Advanced Education (CAEs) merged to create new universities, e.g. University of South Australia, and/or merged with existing universities. As part of these changes, Sturt CAE was merged with Flinders University. In 1994, this change was still fresh enough that staff based at Sturt referred to Flinders University as 'up-the-hill' as though it was a different institution. Who are we kidding? Academic staff from that era STILL refer to Flinders University as 'up-the-hill' as though it was a different institution.

Professor John Lovering was the Vice-Chancellor, and the job of Vice-Chancellor was not yet the hectic, political management job that it would later become. A colleague joked when I first started that the VC's executive officer needed to wake the VC up to get him to sign things. Professor Lovering had, however, managed the Dawkins reforms, the introduction of HECS and a university-wide restructure that saw the creation of a faculty structure that lasted well into the next century. 

In 27 years, Flinders University has had five vice-chancellors:

• Professor John Lovering
• Professor Ian Chubb
• Professor Anne Edwards 
• Professor Michael Barber
• Professor Colin Stirling

Prof Chubb was my favourite for no other reason that I saw him wandering the corridors of level 3 of the Student Centre with a blood-stained shirt and tie, poking his head into random offices to say hi. He had obviously had some kind of accident, which caused him to visit the nurses in Health and Counselling for first aid. Whilst there, he took the time to investigate who was working in the nearby offices. 

During that time, I have had a number of different positions. However, it was a move to work in Student Systems in 2003 that set the course of my career for the next 18 years. With the exception of a brief period as Manager, Enrolment and Student Finance, I worked in systems-related areas for the remainder of my time at Flinders.

I was involved in two major system changes: the move from CS to Ci in 2007 to 2009, and the transition from an on-premise student system to a cloud-based student system in 2017 to 2018, plus lots of smaller release upgrades, including an upgrade comprising multiple releases in 2013. This period saw a proliferation of external systems and integration projects to connect these systems to the student system - CRM, timetabling system, examination system, HR system, curriculum management system, identity and access management systems. And let us never forget the C2R2 project in 2009 to 2010, where the university standardised topic unit values at 4.5 units, getting rid of 3, 6, 9 and 12 unit topics, reshaping the entire curriculum in the process. 

Throughout this time, I worked with some fantastic people. A vey small number of genuinely evil people as well (no-one who attended my farewell morning tea), and a small number of plonkers (again no-one who attended my farewell morning tea), but these were outnumbered by far by fabulous folks, like:

• Marlene Pitman
• Stephen Jones
• Gayl O'Reilly
• Michelle Evans
• Anna Jessep
• Mark Materne
• Pamela Monk
• Barb Richards
• Jill Smith
• Jeff Turner
• Marianne Treffers
• Brendan White
• Cathryn Wyers
• Jerry Garnett (yes, even Jerry)
• and all the remaining Student Systems folks, especially Rebecca Baulch, Orenda Zhang and Qiuyu Zhang

However, when the university disestablishes your position, and gives you every indication that you would not be considered for the new senior position, so that your career progression has effectively come to an end, it is time to move on. I am fortunate to be able to take advantage of the university's voluntary redundancy provisions and move to a Business Consultant position at TechnologyOne.

I will miss the fabulous folks at Flinders and I am forever grateful that Marianne rescued the name plate from my old office in the basement of the Student Centre before this space was gutted. It was my absolute honour and privilege to have been Manager, Student Systems, for the best part of the past 10 years.

Working at TechnologyOne has been a change in some ways, and in other ways, it is more of the same. It seems clear that universities might not be employing staff, but still have capital funds for project expenditure. This is good news for folks like me in the consulting business. I have had exposure to new functionality and projects at other institutions that are both interesting and exciting to work on. No regrets so far. 

After 20+ years in our current house, we have accrued a huge amount of stuff, and have been decluttering and downsizing progressively over a couple of years. Added to 20 years accumulation of stuff, two parental bereavements that came with an inheritance of stuff, and another parent who downsized in part by moving stuff from his house to ours, and you have a recipe for an episode of Hoarders.

We have learnt a few things along the way. Here's a few of the things we have leant.

There are three main options for downsizing: dumping, donating and divesting.

Dumping

Donating

• Vinnies on Semaphore Road for bed linen as they have large bins outside when their shop is open.
• The Animal Welfare League SA operates op-shops in Adelaide and has a sorting centre at Gillman. They accept a wide variety of goods.
• Second Chances SA is a charity that supports people in prison, their children and families. They operate an op-shop at Sturt that seems to always be busy when we have dropped off donations, and a second-hand furniture shop at Richmond that both sells furniture and provides furniture assistance packages to folks in need. They will collect furniture donations.

Divesting

Summary

Postscript

Workplace training last week has given me pause to think about the nature of the way work is currently organised at my workplace, and how it affects me as a disabled person. This post muses upon on some of these thoughts.

But first some disclaimers:

I am a disabled person, who works full-time and earns a good income. This gives me choices that other people with disabilities do not have. I am acutely consciously that employment makes me privileged. 

I am absolutely not an expert on Agile, but I have participated in multiple training sessions and worked in Agile teams for over a year.

... and some definitions:

Agile: "Agile software development is an approach to software development under which requirements and solutions evolve through the collaborative effort of self-organizing and cross-functional teams and their customer(s)/end user(s)." [From Wikipedia accessed on 10 March 2019.]

Ableism: "Ableism is the discrimination or prejudice against people who have disabilities. Ableism can take the form of ideas and assumptions, stereotypes, attitudes and practices, physical barriers in the environment, or larger scale oppression. It is oftentimes unintentional and most people are completely unaware of the impact of their words or actions." [From the Urban Dictionary accessed on 10 March 2019.]

My workplace has adopted Agile methodologies over the past couple of years.

The training was on respectful workplaces, in other words, an anti-discrimination, harassment and bullying workshop, with a focus on micro-aggressions and the way that these reinforce negative messages about gender, race, sexuality, disability and other statuses protected under human rights legislation. Whilst we discussed in abstract terms the slights we might be inadvertently inflicting on imaginary colleagues, a big, fat, grey elephant sat in the corner of the room and snorted derisively.

"You have stand-up meetings with a colleague who uses a wheelchair."

Stand-up meetings are not unique to Agile, but have a particular value in Agile in order for project team members to check in with one another on a regular basis to review progress and identify barriers or impediments before they become too big. Such meetings are also known as daily scrums, but at my workplace 'stand-up' is the predominate terminology.

Wheelchair users refer to themselves "going for a walk"; blind people say "see you later". In the same way that we understand that Captain Oates saying "I am just going outside and may be some time" in Antartica does not mean that he needed a lot of fresh air, 'walking' is not the point in "going for a walk"; it is a figurative expression that can describe a range of behaviours that may not include actual walking. 

However, standing up is the point in stand-up meetings. Standing up is intended to keep meetings short, to ensure participants become uncomfortable if they talk too long. Participants who are also wheelchair users are faced either with meetings looking at their fellow team members' crotches or enduring excruciating jokes about 'sit-down stand-up' meetings.

Agile also prioritises face-to-face conversation as the best form of communication (see Principles of Agile Manifesto). Kanban boards are used to visualise work in progress, and manage workflow for teams working with an Agile methodology. Physical Kanban boards often use sticky notes on whiteboards; digital boards use custom software to replicate the same process flow. There is considerable debate about whether physical or digital Kanban boards are better. See here, here and here for just three discussions on this point. 

Sticky notes make a frequent appearance also in workshops, along with butchers paper, textas and pipe cleaners (also called chenille sticks).

I have limited use of my hands and have progressively lost hand functionality. I took all my lecture notes by hand in university, but I rarely write now, except to sign my name, and I find hand writing a cumbersome and difficult task. For that reason, I do not carry a pen with me nor a notebook. I can recall needing to argue a special case to be allowed to have a laptop instead of a desktop computer at work, but now laptops are the norm. For work purposes, I carry an iPad to meetings for taking notes. In my work environment, arriving at meetings with an iPad, Microsoft Surface or laptop is par for the course. Negotiating the world with the assistance of digital devices has largely become normalised. 

It concerns me that, just as interacting with the world via digital devices becomes the norm, and the way disabled people negotiate the world of work is no longer remarkable, workplace ideologies are propagated that privilege certain types of interactions over others, less inclusive interactions over more inclusive ones, e.g. standing up versus sitting down. In particular, Agile appears to privilege physical interactions over digital or virtual interactions, e.g. writing on sticky notes rather than creating tickets in Jira or Trello, hand writing rather than typing into an iPad.

For someone whose level of disability is fair-to-middling, the proliferation of workplace sticky notes and other aspects of Agile is a reasonably minor annoyance, a micro-aggression, if you will. I get annoyed, but it does not generally affect my ability to participate in workplace activities. But what if I was the late Professor Stephen Hawking? To be clear, I am not comparing myself to Stephen Hawking - we are both wheelchair users, both with undergraduate degrees in mathematics and both sometime coxswains. But there the similarities end.

I substitute Stephen Hawking in this scenario, not because he transcended disability - quite the opposite, he embodied his disability - but because his status and privileges make it easier to identify when micro-aggressions occur as a result of his disability. Stephen Hawking was a white, heterosexual male who acquired a disability later in life. He was well educated and obviously, exceedingly intelligent. We do not have to imagine his pre-disability self - films have been made about him starring attractive, non-disabled actors, allowing folks without disabilities to imagine themselves as Prof Hawking. In addition, Prof Hawking's prodigious presence in popular media paradoxically both humanised him and promoted his cyborg identity.

In contrast, people with disabilities are frequently dehumanised and degraded in Australian society. Discrimination, harassment and generally crappy treatment as a result of disability are so commonplace that they often go unnoticed: a man with a disability refused boarding to a cruise booked and paid for months in advance; a blind woman refused an Uber ride due to her guide dog; women sexually harassed and assaulted in sheltered workshops, where despite looking like a workplace, normal pay and industrial protections do not apply; a woman with Downs syndrome refused tourist visa to visit her father in Australia; some of Sydney's busiest rail stations are still not accessible.

If it was not me, but Stephen Hawking in your Agile team, would stand-ups and writing on sticky notes still seem like reasonable activities for your team? I call this the 'Stephen Hawking test'.

The Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority (IPEA) publishes quarterly claims by parliamentarians for expenses for travel, office expenses, telecommunications and employee expenses here.

The IPEA was established in 2017 and provides a window into parliamentarians' expenditure, and consequentially public scrutiny. It is doubtless also (indirectly) the reason why the Hon Stuart Robert MP decided to repay unusually high internet charges. 

I am especially interested in what parliamentarians are reading as it provides an insight into who they are and what they are thinking. It is an expenditure that I do not begrudge parliamentarians - indeed, the more books they buy and read, the better for everyone. 

I reviewed all expenses claims for publications under the heading Office Administration Costs for July-September 2018 to identify claims for books, excluding copies of Hansard. This is unlikely to be 100% accurate, as I am not sure that I could identify books reliably. There appears to be coding applied to the claims, but the coding might not be applied consistently. The code that appeared to be applied most frequently to books was also applied occasionally to newspapers, for example.

Amongst claims for publications, The Australian, The Age, Australian Financial Review, The Monthly and a wide selection of regional newspapers (Tenterfield Star, The Scone Advocate, Cowra Guardian, Kalgoorlie Miner, Beaudesert Times, Townsville Bulletin, Port Douglas and Mossman Gazette, Cassowary Coast Times, Herbert River Express, Balonne Beacon, Chinchilla News, The Western Star, Fraser Coast Chronicle, The Murray Valley Standard, Coastal Leader, The Murray Pioneer, Derwent Valley Gazette, The Huon News, The Northern Argus, West Coast Sentinel, Sunraysia Daily, Bairnsdale Advertiser, Riverine Herald, The Cobram Courier, The Warrnambool Standard to name but a few) appear most frequently. But it is books that I'm interested in.

Unfortunately, the pickings are reasonably slim. Parliamentarians are possibly self-censoring their claims, but the most recent expenses claims provide for interesting reading nevertheless. 

Here's the raw results by state:

NSW

Senator the Hon Concetta Fierravanti-Wells

Silent Invasion: China's Influence In Australia
The Spy Catchers: The Official History of ASIO 1949-1963. Volume 1
The Protest Years: The Official History of ASIO 1963-1975. Volume 2
The Secret Cold War: The Official History of ASIO 1975-1989. Volume 3
A Shorter History of Australia
Charles Bean's Gallipoli: Illustrated
First Among Equals: Australia's Prime Ministers from Barton to Turnbull
Howard: The Art of Persuasion
Menzies: The Shaping of Modern Australia
The Forgotten People 75th Anniversary Edition
The Forgotten People: Updated 

Ms Emma Husar MP

Outliers: The Story of Success
I'm Australian Too
The Hidden Lives of Learners

Ms Emma McBride MP

Role Play the Parliament
Message in a Sock
Alfred's War
In the Lamplight
Lest We Forget 

The Hon Michael McCormack MP

The Australian Game of Football 

NT

QLD

True story from breakfast yesterday ...

What do I purchase from the US? 

Shoes: Due to my disability, I have teeny-weeny feet.  They are roughly a little kids’ size 13, but somewhat oddly shaped.  It is really hard to find good quality shoes in Australia that both fit AND look like adult shoes.  After all, I need reasonably professional looking shoes for work - UGG Boots won’t cut the mustard.  Online retailers in the US like Zappos have a huge range of shoes in kids’ sizes, in well-known and less-known brands.  In some cases, brands that sell in Australia like Columbia, do not sell kids’ sizes in Australia.  Buying shoes online is obviously risky because you cannot try them on, but so far, I have been lucky.  Pictures of shoes from multiple angles help a lot to determine whether the shoes will fit.

Adaptive clothing: Before they closed, Canadian designer Izzy Camilleri sold lovely clothing for a seated frame through her IZ Collection line.  My pair of IZ jeans are one of my favourite things in my wardrobe.  Strictly speaking, these were Canadian purchases, but she offered free / cheap postage within North America, that made ShopMate a good choice to bring these purchases the rest of the way to Australia.

Disability equipment / wheelchair accessories: Here's a few examples of US purchases:

Transfer boards - ADI makes lightweight, durable anti-slip transfer boards that do not look like something that belongs in a nursing home. Also, their pricing is really good at $US46 for a 29 inch transfer board.  A similar product in Australia costs $139 plus $15 for shipping.  

Wheelchair bag - I bought the Bodypoint Mobility Bag through 1800Wheelchair.com.  It is not revolutionary, but is a neat-and-tidy bag that sits unobtrusively under your wheelchair seat.  Permobil distribute this product in Australia, but do not advertise any prices online and do not appear to have any online purchase channels.

Freewheel - The Freewheel is an attachable front wheel for manual wheelchairs that allows you to travel more easily over rough or uneven ground.  I had been considering one of these for a long time, especially for travel to Europe again (one day) to make cobbled footpaths easier to manage, but it was actually a forthcoming trip to Tasmania and Port Arthur that got me over the line to purchase.  

This product comes standard with a pneumatic tyre, but a solid tyre is an option available at extra cost.  I have not had pneumatic tyres on my wheelchair for many years.  Solid tyres, in my opinion, are one of the greatest things to happen to wheelchairs.  For my use, a solid tyre on the Freewheel was essential.  

Again Permobil distribute this product in Australia, but do not advertise any prices online.  I inquired with the local Permobil distributor, and their quoted price was good, but they could not supply a Freewheel with a solid tyre before my trip (they had none in the country), and prices would rise before they could supply the Freewheel with a solid tyre.

So I purchased the Freewheel through Living Spinal. FYI their customer service was excellent - they bent over backwards to facilitate an offshore purchase with a 'foreign' credit card.  I suspect their system was actually set up to prevent the Freewheel being sold outside the US, consistent with an exclusive distribution agreement. But hey ... whatever.

P.S. I negotiated with the local Permobil distributor for them to setup the Freewheel.  It cost $72.

Why do I purchase from the US? 

It is undeniable that prices from US retailers, particularly for anything associated with disability, are often cheaper (and significantly so), even taking exchange rates and shipping into account.  But this is not a determining factor.  I prefer to buy from local distributors when I can.

Availability and ease of purchase are more important factors. There are multiple US online retailers selling disability equipment, with (generally) clear and simple websites, and decent customer service. They treat buying a Freewheel no differently from buying shoes - it’s a transaction between customer and retailer. The retailer has a vested interest in it going well, as this encourages the customer to come back. If it’s too hard to make a purchase, the customer will go elsewhere.

By contrast, some of the items purchased above were simply not available from Australian retailers, were not available when I needed them or with the options I needed, it was hard to discover how much the item would be, or just simply too hard to arrange the purchase in the absence of online channels.  For example, Permobil does not appear to publish prices on its website (even for the Bodypoint bag), and has no option for online purchasing.  However, if I want to purchase a Bodypoint bag or a Freewheel from an Australian distributor, Permobil is the only option. 

What does this mean for the NDIS? 

Thin markets are defined as markets with a low number of buyers and sellers.  Thin markets are of particular concern in areas of high-needs disability support where state governments have withdrawn from the ‘market’ as a service provider of last resort.  But even in areas of more mundane disability equipment, thin markets are still evident.  It is clear that the number of sellers for some disability products is small (e.g. Permobil is the sole retailer in Australia for some brands), and the number of buyers is also relatively small. 

Frustration with the absence of published prices, the inability to buy online (or even easily in person without taking a day off work) and the lack of a customer service culture in local disability retailers encourages me to buy smaller items offshore. But purchasing offshore provides no incentive for Australian sellers to expand or improve their services (e.g. open up new purchase channels such as online storefronts), and does little to support the expansion of Australian disability retailers. The significant combined purchasing power of NDIS participants, however, has the potential to radically change disability service markets in Australia, if NDIS participants decide to exercise that power and demand competitive and transparent pricing as well as decent customer service from the local market.

The NDIA has a very specific "role in encouraging a healthy and diverse market place for disability services and supports (market stewardship)." See NDIA market approach. With the federal government imposing constraints on offshore purchases via the extension of GST to low-value purchases, people with disabilities have a renewed interest in a strong and competitive local disability market. Disability retailers have a great opportunity to expand their businesses. Surely these interests can converge in a way that benefits everyone. In the meantime, I will be paying GST via ShopMate and/or re-opening my MyUS.com account.

I have written previously on the NDIS and technology in relation to what supports are funded and who gets funded (see here). But what about how the NDIS is deploying technology to support administration of the scheme? 

My day job is managing a team who support an enterprise-wide student information system in a university, so I have some knowledge of how intelligently applied technology can benefit organisations with processing high volumes of enquiries and/or transactions. Indeed, sometimes small changes can reap the big benefits, e.g. adding a column to a report, reducing the number of 'clicks' to enter data into or extract data from systems.

Discussions at the Senate Estimates hearing of the Community Affairs Legislation Committee on 25 October 2017 highlight two uses of technology in administration of the NDIS:

1. Nadia

Nadia, the NDIS's proposed virtual assistant, to be voiced by Cate Blanchett has been heralded with much fanfare as providing a significant cost-saving to the NDIS, presumably by automating level 1 queries from participants through an AI-enabled chatbot.  

Press reports (e.g. ABC News here) cite spending of of $3.5 million for Nadia to September 2017. However, National Disability Insurance Agency CEO, Robert De Luca told the Senate Estimates hearing of the Community Affairs Legislation Committee on 25 October 2017 that:

Nadia, from our perspective, has been in a holding pattern until we complete our pathway work to ensure we know exactly how to best utilise the Nadia technology as we move forward. (2017a, p48)

This might be a tactical decision to delay implementation of ambitious technology in a highly politically sensitive program, when recent government IT failures (particularly Centrelink's robot-debt debacle) are so fresh in the media's minds. (See articles here and here linking Nadia with 2016 #CensusFail and Centrelink robot-debt.)

Or it may be that the National Disability Insurance Agency is genuinely unsure how to use this bright, shiny new technology. 

Either way, the National Disability Insurance Agency confirmed in December 2017 by way of responses to questions on notice that:

The National Disability Insurance Agency’s spend on Nadia from August 2015 has been $4.5 million and includes: human resources, academia, vendor and technology partner services. (2017b, emphasis added)

2. Draft plans

Meanwhile, participants cannot see a draft of their NDIS plan before it is finalised, as a technical change is required to systems to permit this, prompting this almost unbelievable exchange at the Senate estimates hearing:

Senator SIEWERT: What they want to see is the draft. Will they see the draft?

Ms Gunn: It needs technical change to the system to enable us to do that. They will see the way the plan is constructed in the planning conversation, which they currently are not doing.

Mr De Luca: Yes, they will see a draft of the plan.

Senator SIEWERT: From now? Not just in the pilots, but across the board?

Mr De Luca: There are two elements to it. One is that in the conversation with the participant they can visually see that with a laptop or a computer before it's finalised. That's the first thing. The second is that the system works so they can review it at their own leisure. The second part does require some systems work. 

CHAIR: What is the timing of that second part?

Mr De Luca: I can't comment on that.

Senator SIEWERT: Why can't you put it in a PDF and email it to them?

Ms Campbell: We're talking about some of those logistical challenges—if there were someone visiting, without a printer, something like that.

Mr De Luca: If you think about a situation where a planner and local area coordinator has gone to someone's house in a regional or remote area, or wherever they may live, the process would be to walk through the plan with them, make sure they understand it, see it on a system. There may be difficulties in printing it at that point in time. They may not have a printer at their house, or there may be technology challenges in being wi-fi enabled. There are lots of different challenges that mean we can't say 100 per cent that we'll see it at a point in time and be able to print it. The process being put in place, though, is the expectation that when a planner leaves the room or person's house or a meeting room, the participant understands what's in their plan. Then they will have visibility of that online in the portal. (2017a, pp61-62, emphasis added)

Let's be clear that this should not be a significant technological challenge in 2018, with or without wi-fi. If nothing else, there are portable printers on the market that could be used to print draft plans, e.g. Canon's iP110. Indeed, I had a salesman visit me last week, and after a discussion, he prepared and printed a quote for me using a similar printer. 

The challenge for the NDIS is to amend their systems and business processes to handle the requirement to provide draft plans to participants for meaningful feedback and review, whilst at the same time managing the workload of thousands of plans at different stages in a complex workflow. 

But again, this is not a new problem, nor one that has not been solved by other organisations in the past.

The National Disability Insurance Agency confirmed in December 2017 by way of responses to questions on notice that:

The initial pilot of the revised pathway will see a new style of planning meeting being tested between a participant, Local Area Coordinator (LAC) and National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) planner. The pilot will include enabling participants to see a working draft version of their plan as it is being developed and have the opportunity to ask questions and provide feedback during the planning meeting. This is to allow for any queries to be discussed and addressed before the plan is finalised. The initial pilot will commence in mid-December 2017, with early communications and training for LACs and NDIA planners, followed by the new face-to-face planning approach commencing in late January 2018. (2017c, emphasis added)

References

I turned 50 years old in December 2017- my partner says this makes me a 'crip elder' - and I decided to treat myself to two birthday presents that will hopefully make some everyday activities a little easier.  One is an Apple Watch; the other is a FreeWheel, a large wheel that attaches to the front of my wheelchair, allowing the chair to be pushed over rough and uneven terrain. 

Here's my first of two posts giving my initial thoughts on one of these purchases - the Apple Watch.

What did I buy?

I bought the Apple Watch Series 3 Space Grey Aluminium Case with Grey Sport Band, 38mm without cellular connectivity. This is effectively the series 3 base model, which requires an iPhone for internet and network connectivity. 

I opted for the model without stand-alone cellular connectivity, given that Telstra was not yet supporting eSIMs in Apple Watch for iPhones on business accounts (my employer supplies my phone). 

What did I hope to achieve?

I had two hopes with the Apple Watch: 

1. Be able to make and answer phone calls and send text messages more easily; 
2. Be able to make over-the-counter electronic payments more easily. 

And the results so far are pretty good.

Making phone calls / sending text messages

Making over-the-counter electronic payments

A lack of manual dexterity means I face a lot of difficulties handling cash (my wallet is hard to get out like my phone, coins and notes are fiddly), and putting a PIN into EFTPOS machines, so I changed by debit card to one which can be used for contactless payments recently with the aim of going cashless.

However, getting a debit card out of my wallet is still a challenge for the same reasons, so the ability to pay for small purchases (e.g. coffees) with a device on my wrist would be a huge step forward.

However, only one of the four major Australian banks currently supports ApplePay and it's not my reguar bank. So my first step was to open an ANZ bank account and arrange for a small regular deposit of 'spending money' to go into it. 

Once the account was set up and linked to my iPhone / Apple watch, paying by Apple Watch is reasonably straightforward - it requires double-clicking on the side button at the same time as holding the watch close to the EFTPOS terminal. It took a few practices though and I endured a few exasperated looks from shop owners. But it is still easier than getting an actual card out of my wallet.

Payments are processed like credit card payment using PayPass or PayWave though, which means that some retailers add a credit card surcharge for the privilege of paying with Apple Watch. On these occasions, getting out a card and putting in your PIN might be the better option on these occasions.

Verdict?

The Apple Watch has been successful for both making phone calls and sending text messages plus making over-the-counter electronic payments more easily, and with greater use and practice, I expect use to get easier. In addition, the Apple Watch has other apps that come in handy - weather, fitness tracker etc. 

However, the price will be considerable entry barrier for many disabled people, if not most, given that an iPhone is also required. Apple is still selling the Apple Watch 1 at a lower price, but without Siri, so without the ability to use voice commands.

• "Don’t ignore the mobility scooter. It may just be the future of transport", accessed on 22 October 2017. Also "Meet the Mavericks", accessed the same day.
• "Toyota Concept-i Ride makes mobility easier for disabled drivers", accessed on 22 October 2017.

The first article suggests the future of transport might be small-footprint, personal and electric devices, like mobility scooters, but that infrastructure, legislation and planning are already starting behind the 'eight-ball', and would need to work quickly catch up, but there is no sign that this is occurring.  

The second article highlights a small, electric concept vehicle developed by Toyota to be displayed at the Tokyo Motor Show in 2017, reinforcing the first article's point. Vehicle manufacturers are thinking about and starting to develop small, electric vehicles, and in this case, a vehicle designed for wheelchair users.

Battery and electric motor technology certainly seem to be advancing at a pace to offer some good opportunities.  Just look at the proliferation of power-assisted bicycles, unicycles, skateboards and hoverboards.  But in most cases, legislation is slow to catch up and the legal status of these devices is unclear at best, and unlawful at worst.

So what is already on the market for people with disabilities, particularly people using manual wheelchairs needing an electric boost from time-to-time?  There are a number of products that fall into two broad categories:

• Devices that transform a manual wheelchair 

• Alber e-motion and twion power wheels. Cheesy, but informative, video can be seen here. WARNING - it contains wheelchair dancing!
• Max Mobility SmartDrive MX2+. Slickly produced video can be seen here.
• Spinergy Inc. ZX-1 Power Add-On. Video can be seen here.

• Attachable handbikes

• Batec
• DaVinci Mobility
• Pro-Activ
• Quickie
• Rio Mobility
• Speedy
• Stricker
• Team Hybrid
• Triride

It’s true that the price of our products can vary depending on the market. There are many reasons for this and they differ in each case but are normally associated with the cost of transporting and importing the products to the country in question and with the structure of the local technical-aids sector. So, for example, in Spain orthoshops are authorised to sell technical aids, while in other countries these products are provided to users by the state directly. Likewise, in some countries there aren’t any government subsidies to help cover the cost of purchasing these products, like Spain, while others like Australia do offer this type of aid. [emphasis added]

I am a person with a disability - a wheelchair user with limited use of my hands.  I'm also ageing - I turn 50 years old this year.  I work full-time, so I have the incredible fortune of having a degree of financial independence.  I'm looking forward to the rollout of the NDIS in South Australia as my disability support needs, whilst not high, are increasing with age and there is limited scope for increased disability support under the current state government funding arrangements.

The Commonwealth parliament' Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme has recently held hearings into: 

• Implementation and performance of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Written submissions to this inquiry can be found here.  
• Provision of services under the NDIS Early Childhood Early Intervention Approach.  Written submissions to this inquiry can be found here.
• Transitional arrangements for the NDIS.  Written submissions to this inquiry can be found here.  

Unfortunately, as the hearings were not held in Canberra, audio/video is no longer available from these hearings, but I listened sporadically to live broadcasts whilst working (it helps to distract from the noise of an open office area), and hansard provides text of these hearings. Amongst the many points made by organisations and individuals in written and verbal submissions, I took away two quite disturbing points:

1. The NDIS is not funding off-the-shelf devices as assistive technology even when they are a better fit and cheaper

Around assistive technology, another issue is the lack of funding available for iPads for people who require iPads for communication. Just this week, we had a child where the therapist had recommended an iPad with a specific app for communication. The child's already familiar with the app from school, so it would provide a cost-effective alternative and augmentative communication method for this child. We were informed not to put in an AT request for the iPad , because it wouldn't be funded, because it's not a disability specific support. Then, when we identified that the child actually had a low-risk funding budget allocated in their core supports, we asked NDIS whether that could be used to purchase the iPad. They said no, because it's not low-risk enough; it's too specifically tailored to the child's disability and needs as a communication device. Therefore, you can't get it under level 1, because it's too specialist, and you can't get it under level two, three or four, because it's not a disability specific support. Meanwhile, this child has funding in their plan that they can't use and they have a support need that they can't access. That's a key concern for speech pathologists. Professionally, I've had lots of contact with other speech pathologists nationally. It's a concern across a number of sites, even to the point where assistive technology that is more expensive is being recommended purely because they know that an iPad won't get through. It's not because that assistive technology is necessarily the most appropriate for that client; it's based around what they know they'll be able to get. A less ideal assistive technology that they can access is going to be far preferable to the ideal that isn't going to get funded. [emphasis added]

A lot of our new technology now is coming through smart devices such as iPhones and Samsungs and things like that. People who are blind rely on audio as their input. And the Apple product called VoiceOver is the first piece of adaptive equipment we have had out of the box in the last 10 years. For the previous 50 years, for any technology, it was always adapted and modified, whereas the Apple iPhone came out of the box and it would talk to us straight away. It was accessible; however, in the eyes of the NDIA, if you mention the word 'Apple' or 'iPhone' or 'iPad' , it is immediately discounted as a luxury, when the actual accessibility of that item is also very important and not a luxury. It is just purely a device that will actually communicate to you what is available. Just to give you an example, a person was assessed for the five functions they wanted to do. One was to communicate through emails and so forth. Another was to choose the colour of their clothes in the morning. Another was to navigate their built environment. Fourth, I was to access some memos and voice memos so that they could do shopping lists and things like that.

They were the four goals that they had, and the assessment was put in that that would be the best solution for them. However, the planner turned around and said, no, that's a smart device. That's an iPhone, and we don't do iPhones or iPads. That would have cost $1,100 and, I think, about $300 in special apps, so about $1,400 or $1,500. However, they did approve $4,300 for a colour tester; a Trekker Breeze, which is the navigation system that talks to you; and a package to read the emails [emphasis added]. It was a real overkill where they just did not accept innovation. As Heidi said, they think that we're just doing the shopping list for people. We're not doing shopping lists for people. We've been providing assessments for well over 50 or 60 years in the area of technology and we don't recommend the wrong item for the wrong person.

• Smart locks / digital door locks. Locks that use a keypad or proximity key fob or your smart phone to lock and unlock instead of a key. Allows you to unlock a door remotely for visitors, e.g. carers or support workers.  See review of smart locks last year in Gizmodo.
• Apple Watch 3. Answer and make calls from your wrist. Send texts using your watch. Pay for stuff using your watch. Sure sign me up! I changed my daily debt card to a PayWave card recently in an attempt to go cash-free. I have nothing against cash, but notes and coins are fiddly to handle, and putting in my PIN number can be difficult sometimes too. A PayWave card is better, but I still need to dig around in my bag and wallet for it. Having the ability to pay from my watch would be great - when my bank decides to support Apple Pay of course.
• Smart home assistants e.g. Amazon Echo, Google Home, and coming later this year, Apple HomePod. These are marketed as smart speakers than can be voice commands, but the most interesting aspect of these devices for me is their ability to control lights and appliances, as well as make phone calls. Unfortunately, the ability to make phone calls is currently restricted to the Google Home in the US, but is expected to come to Australia later.

2. The risks of rent-seeking are real and ever present

Rent-seeking "is an attempt to obtain economic rent (i.e., the portion of income paid to a factor of production in excess of what is needed to keep it employed in its current use) by manipulating the social or political environment in which economic activities occur, rather than by creating new wealth." (See Wikipedia.)

In terms of submission No. 27, from RDI Consultants Australia, I would like the joint committee to note a statement they made:

Also, behavioural programs are no longer seen as best practice in ASD and these techniques are widely used by the less informed services.

This statement is inaccurate and is not supported by evidence. I ask that the committee dismiss it. ABAA is the only established intervention for children with ASD. RDI is an emerging evidence. I hope that you do not take that comment to heart, because it is not backed by evidence.

I am one of only seven ward-certified behaviour analysts in Queensland. I am also a member of the Association of Behaviour Analysis Australia. I cannot be a registered service provider for the NDIA. That means that I can't be registered and that I can't provide early intervention services to children with autism. However, a music therapist is allowed to do that. My statement is: why learn to play the guitar? I could work with these children. However, with my two-year masters in applied behaviour analysis, which was shown to be the only established intervention for children with autism, I cannot provide that service. I have done a two-year masters—as I said—and I sat an international exam and I have been certified. Other health professionals in Australia with no training in the principles of behaviour are able to give advice on challenging behaviour, which I find quite concerning. I'm currently in New South Wales at the moment. There's an inquiry into restrictive practices, abuse practices, where individuals have suffered at the hands of professionals who have not had adequate training in how to deal with children who engage in challenging behaviour.

I'm quite concerned because the committee needs to understand that there is a science. We would not allow someone to build a skyscraper without having an engineer who understands the laws of physics to oversee that project. Why are we allowing individuals who have no training in the principles of behaviour to develop very complex behaviour support plans for children? They need to have an understanding of the laws of behaviour and the principles of behaviour. It's imperative that they have this, otherwise you're going to have behaviour support plans that are not adequate; you're not teaching these kids appropriate replacement behaviours. What comes up time and time again is that many children find it difficult to tolerate being told no, being told to wait and someone saying: 'You're finished with that item. We need to put it away.' They don't have the skills to ask for something, to gain someone's attention appropriately and, oftentimes, they don't have adequate leisure skills or know how to occupy their time. If you don't have a health professional who's trained and understands how to teach these skills, the consequences for that child and their quality of life—it's just not adequate. Australia needs to do better. I came to Australia because Australia's was the first government to say that ABA is an established intervention and to recognise that. When I came to this land, I was very disappointed because that piece of paper meant nothing. It was a piece of paper, but it was not backed up by funding for services that are needed for children with autism.

The committee asked earlier about ASD and established interventions. The Wong et al study outlines 27 evidence-based practices that should be used with children with autism. Out of the 27, 24 are based on the principles of applied behaviour analysis, so there are professionals who have training in these evidence-based practices. I would ask that the committee understand that a BCBA, board certified behaviour analyst, is an important health professional to be incorporated within any transdisciplinary or multidisciplinary team. Again, look at the research in terms of toilet training—who's published on that? ABA. Food selectivity? ABA. It's not just challenging behaviour; there's more that they can commit to that.

In terms of your discussion on RDI, I would like the committee to note that skills such as joint attention are not only taught by RDI consultants. There is research on ABA which is looking at teaching them skills like social attending, and joint attention too. Thank you.

References

Commonwealth of Australia. Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme. (2017b). Transitional arrangements for the National Disability Insurance Scheme: Wednesday, 27 September 2017: Adelaide (Proof Hansard). Retrieved from http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/committees/commjnt/0087de2c-e6b1-48df-9296-7cd89e470ec2/toc_pdf/Joint%20Standing%20Committee%20on%20the%20National%20Disability%20Insurance%20Scheme_2017_09_27_5575.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf

Commonwealth of Australia. Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme. (2017c). Provision of services under the National Disability Insurance Scheme Early Childhood Early Intervention approach: Wednesday, 27 September 2017: Adelaide (Proof Hansard). Retrieved from http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/committees/commjnt/3e03052b-243b-48af-83bd-b82b1bb1cd4d/toc_pdf/Joint%20Standing%20Committee%20on%20the%20National%20Disability%20Insurance%20Scheme_2017_09_27_5574.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf

Stop motion clip created from photos taken at 2016 Royal Show, Adelaide, using iMovie.

Sea Shepherd's M/Y Steve Irwin is in Port Adelaide this weekend. Crowds of people were queuing for a ship tour around 3pm when we visited.  We took avocados as a donation for the ship's galley - the crew member who took the avocados seemed more grateful than any person should be for a few avocados.

I noticed this poster at work last week, and it struck me as odd verging on offensive. It seems to be one in a series of work, health and safety (WHS) encouragement posters that appear from time to time in the building where the WHS unit is located. 

Just to be clear, I have nothing against WHS per se - it is a noble, worthy and legislatively necessary cause. I should know too - in 22 years of employment with my current employer, I have been hit by cars at work, not once, but twice.  I guess that's only once every ten or so years, but still I have managed not to get hit by cars in any other life domain.  Fortunately on both occasions, the cars were travelling slowly and my wheelchair took the brunt of the impact.

But I digress ... 

Let's unpack this poster's message.  The benefits of staying injury free are not entirely obvious from this poster, despite its stated message.  Is it trying to say that people with an injury or disability will not get the benefits of:

1. A partner/spouse/husband/wife (and an opposite-sex one at that);
2. Kids;
3. Walking barefoot along the beach.

Whilst TV programs like Channel 4's "The Undateables" certainly show that's it's harder for disabled people* to find love and relationships (and there are many valid criticisms of the show itself), it is definitely not the case that these are out of the question for disabled people. And new plastic beach mats plus beach wheelchairs are making strolling along the beach (whether barefoot or not) in reach of more folks than ever before.

So by all means, encourage safety in the workplace, but don't reinforce ableist assumptions about disabled people in the process or use outdated and unfounded fears of disability to make your point. After all, some of us work in your workplaces too.

* Note: I liked this article by Jax Jacki Brown "#SayTheWord: Why I'm reclaiming the word 'disabled'" so much, I'm reclaiming 'disabled' too.

Photographs of street art taken in and around Johnston Street, Fitzroy, Melbourne in January 2016.

The background music was not added by me - they actually played this on the day.

We were up early this morning at 5:45am to be first in the queue at 7:25am to see our GP.  She doesn't take appointments and it's first-come, first-served when the GP clinic opens at 8am on Saturdays.  Plus she is very popular, so when the doors open at 8am, there is a mad, unseemly scramble up the stairs to get to the reception desk.  

But it makes you get the most out of every visit.  Repeat prescriptions - check; flu vaccine - check; forms for blood tests - check; weight measured - check; blood pressure checked - check.  

Our earlier than usual start meant we were in the city to borrow books at the University of Adelaide before 10am, and caught the march of Afghanistan veterans as it progressed through the university.

My partner and I went to Mardi Gras 1999 - marched in the parade on a float organised by my ex as a tribute to suburban queers and their pets.  We were so cute back then and skinny!

You can tell it's festival time in Adelaide by the queues of people in Rundle Mall with carts of musical instruments and other accessories, waiting for their designated busking slot.  Every second person seems to be a performer of some description.  Plus dudes in much-too-revealing orange onesies.  Eww.  These guys were good though - as evidenced by the young woman getting her groove on.