ABSTRACT

An official Australian government report pertaining specifically to disabled people and their ability to engage in small business within the business sector of the community, was released in December 1994. The report, in describing the profile of disability in the Australian population, quotes findings by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. According to these figures, it is estimated that 18% of the population of Australia has a disability. Policy at the national and state level that pertains to people with disabilities emphasizes the philosophy of integration of people with disabilities into the community. To this end, policies of deinstitutionalization are currently being implemented, especially in the area of intellectual disability. There are mixed results emerging as this policy is implemented. There are also centerperiphery tensions between the federal and state governments regarding legislation in the area of intellectual disability. Part of the concern that is expressed by professionals working in the area of intellectual disability is that the motivation for the policy of deinstitutionalization appears to be more about political and economic gain than about human welfare issues. There have been examples of institutions being closed and clients being moved to a variety of settings, sometimes in the community and sometimes in other institutions. In many instances, these closures coincide with a state election and thus, to an uninformed public, the government is deinstitutionalizing these clients and allowing them to become part of the community. Some of the experiences of such closures will be discussed in more detail later in this chapter. There is, then, in some quarters of the community, especially among professionals and paraprofessionals in areas of health, welfare, and education, a degree of cynicism about policies that purport to be about facilitating the integration of disabled people into the community.