I have been searching for years for the reason behind Australia's failure to support its disabled citizens properly. While other more civil societies see their disabled as a test of their humanity, we see them as a burden and a drain on the economy. This article suggests a possible explanation. Perhaps our convict past and our violent beginnings have made us a less caring people. The philosophy of "she'll be right, mate" pervades, even when things are not right. However, moves are being made to address the problem. Two significant apologies in recent times and a proposal for a National Disability Insurance Scheme are first steps towards towards making us a more equitable and compassionate society.

But this is not a uniquely characteristic of Australia. It occurs in most, but not all, places all over the world.

Chris,
I agree with the thrust of your opinion piece, and have often seen voiced similar views voiced on the chat side of this web site. Not surprisingly, the individuals have branded as everything from a left wing winger to a pontificator.

I do have some questions the basis of your assumptions.
- are the rising crimes stats , in part, a function to more people;
- greater reporting,
- closer proximity of differing peoples/cultures.
- and plain ordinary fear of losing their psychological(safety net against change) identity.
- other psychological factors.

This could open up the 'possible' explanations, significantly.
I think, that in general it is accepted that up to 40% of our behaviour potential is genetic. Therefore, nurture takes the dominant influence in such antisocial insensitivities/down right nastiness. That doesn't mean that people aren't responsible, in most cases, for their actions. It does however, makes conclusions like in your article less compelling.

Notwithstanding, we all should try harder to resist our shortcoming, rather than wallow in them, as if they are somehow part of our culture and therefore "our?" identity.

Another one convinced that Australians have a monopoly on racism. She needs to travel more, and read more to find that most of the violence against Indians students was perpetrated by non-whites who are probably immigrants themselves.

All the woman is doing is hardening people’s attitudes and, if they are at all racist, they will become more so.

Then, she quickly switches to disabilities: like most do-gooders, and certainly psychotherapists, she has no sense of humour. The “little gem” she comes up with is funny, and it’s hard to see how it would constitute discrimination against patients in a mental institution: they would have far worse things to worry about, even if they hd ever heard the joke.

“Who has the right to judge?” James asks. Well, in this matter anyway, not her! People will think and do whatever they are comfortable with and ignore what makes her uncomfortable. Chris James is responsible for what she alone thinks. It is not her place to judge what is right or wrong for other people.

“One of the most common problems presented to researchers and therapists like myself, are the effects of societal violence and bigotry” James claims. How does she know this? Because her patients have told her. The very fact that people are mentally ill surely means what they say has to be taken with a grain of salt.

And, of course, we Australians are violent because our original settlers were violent and committed genocide. What rubbish! Convicts, bush-rangers, women transported to Australia; these things have something to do with racism and discrimination against the mentally ill. More rubbish!

James also tries to convince us that, because of things that happened over 200 years ago, “…we still objectify and abuse people who present as different.” That’s why people who are different are trying to get to Australia by hook or by crook, illegally or legally, apparently. As for the mentally ill, most of us have never known any of them and, if we do crack the odd joke about them, they never know about it.

As for the REPORTEDLY bullied blind child (the general public, and James, possibly, heard only one side of that) I felt immediately sorry for the kid, even without getting the full story, as most Australians would. But it was not a case that James should be using to illustrate and bolster her point of view without further details.

This tale of doom and gloom ends with school bullying. There has always been school bullying. We’ve all been bullied, and we’ve all bullied. It used to be handled by school teachers and headmasters and parents or the kids themselves before the Left-wing, wimpy bureaucrats took control of the education departments.

As for “our convict past”, as one poster had to drag up, only 3% of Australians have any convict ancestry at all, irrespective of how many people were transported here for trivial ‘offences’. And, in my part of the country (SA) there were no convicts here originally. We were all free-settlers. Perhaps Chris James might like to take up the issue of ignorant foreigners (and some ignorant Australians) making snide remarks about Australia’s ‘convict past’ if she is so thin-skinned about what people do and say.

One could argue that our convict history has contributed to Australia being a far more egalitarian society than many nations, including other developed Western democracies like the US and Britain.

It is because Australia does not have a history of extreme racism that skits like that on Hey Hey are not seen as racist by a large part of the population, in the same way that an Irish joke is not seen as a blot or an indictment on the Irish.

Racism does exist in all countries and in today's Australia a minority of racists do not make a racist country despite the recent media attention given to violence towards Indian students. Violence as it appears, to have been carried out by other minority ethnic groups for the main part.

There is certainly discrimination towards how the disabled are left to fend largely for themselves and discrimination towards some minorities, probably most noticeably towards Muslims.

But in general Australia compares very well to other countries, that does not mean of course we should not aspire to do better.

Dare I suggest that much of our attitudes today, particularly in regard to bullying in schools, stems from the decrease in the importance of manners and the fact that many kids are being dragged up or shoved away in child care institutions and then becoming latch key kids ever-after. (Partly due to our economic situation requiring, for many, the need for both partners to work to be able to afford entry into the housing market and a growing emphasis on consumerism.)

There are so many conritubting factors interwoven into the issues the author raises that cannot possibly be dealt with in isolation, while all the other elephants in the room are being ignored.