Sapere aude

I am getting increasingly uncomfortable with the buildings being lit up, the gushing praise and the almost saintly status being bestowed upon Helen Haines. Because none of that is going to help Helen. And frankly, it feeds straight back into this angels & demons narrative that has taken over everything. Helen is a remarkable woman. But I reckon she’d be the first to tell you she’s also an ordinary woman, an Australian citizen who went to work on Monday and had her life torn apart. She voted against the government’s NDIS changes. She’s been a strong ally to disabled people & now she faces a long recovery in which she may need many of the very supports she has fought to protect. And what I want to know is whether she’s getting the best possible care in hospital. Whether there are enough nurses to nurse, without having to double as disability support workers. Whether ambulances are still ramped up the wazoo and emergency departments are bursting at the seams. What I want to know is whether Helen will get the prosthetics, orthotics, wheelchair, home modifications & personal support she may need to rebuild her life. And here’s a particularly cruel irony. Helen is 65. Unless she was already an NDIS participant before her 65th birthday, she cannot access the NDIS now. So who is going to fund and provide those supports? How many systems will she have to navigate? How many bureaucrats will get a say in what she needs? I want Helen to have every possible opportunity to recover, to go home, and, all the Gods willing, to return to the life and work she loves. Without having to fight for every bloody thing along the way. And I want to know why we are still so hopeless at preventing violence against women. The man accused of attacking Helen reportedly had significant mental health concerns. His lawyer told the court today that he has a rare neurological condition. There have also been reports of chronic pain and difficulties accessing the NDIS. We don’t yet know his motive or the full circumstances of his medical care. None of that excuses what happened to Helen. Not one bit. But nor should we ignore what happens when people with serious illnesses, disability, homelessness or drug dependency fall through the cracks of systems that are supposed to help them. Mental illness doesn’t make someone a violent criminal. And women should not have to pay the price when someone becomes violent, whatever the reason. I want women to be safe walking down the street. I want people who need treatment to receive it. And I want governments to stop waiting until somebody is dead or catastrophically injured before they take any of this seriously. We are well past the tipping point. And I’m sure the government will shortly announce another grand plan to fix the NDIS market, as though concentrating services in the hands of increasingly large corporate providers & private equity interests, while destroying jobs and choice, is somehow going to improve our lives. It won’t help Helen. And it won’t help the thousands of other Australians already fighting to get the care they need. The bitter irony is that Helen Haines & Jordon Steele-John, himself a survivor of violence, are precisely the kinds of politicians who understand what’s wrong with these systems and have been trying to fix them. We need politicians from every side of politics working together to make things better. Not more theatre, not more political point-scoring, and certainly not more bloody platitudes. I don’t object to people expressing their love & admiration for Helen. I share it. But if we really want to honour her, perhaps we could start by making sure the systems she fought to improve actually work for her, and for everybody else. Prevention is always better than remedial treatment. And both are a hell of a lot better than thoughts & prayers. You can light up every building in Australia. But you can’t illuminate your way out of a broken health, disability & care system.