[Applause]
when you look at these shoes what words
come to mind and I’ll describe these
shoes for people who might be listening
to this talk rather than watching it so
there is a size 5 pair of pink light
pink converse high-tops slightly scuffed
to slightly worn and a little bit faded
so what words come to mind is it cute is
it small is it you’re thinking about a
girl what would you think now that I
tell you these other shoes of my
six-year-old daughter and she has
Rubinstein tabby syndrome and brittle
bones does it change the words that you
think of these are the shoes of a leader
I’d like you to take a moment and look
down at your own shoes those are the
shoes of a leader as well and my
daughter Eliza and I need you to be
leaders so I will tell you a little bit
more about the shoes later but for the
moment I want to tell you about a very
deliberate strategy that is related to
these shoes so my husband despairs at
times and lovers at time the fact that I
am a planner so part of our planning for
our life as a family has been a very
deliberate strategy of inclusion and I
will talk about that more later and
these shoes are the leadership in
inclusion in our very deliberate
strategy now jordan hasn’t sung for us
today and i promise not to sing as well
but cindy lauper has helped with some
messages from my talk today so cindy
lauper said don’t be discouraged or i
realize it’s hard to take courage in a
world full of people you can lose sight
of it all and the darkness inside you
can make you feel so small but I see
your true colors shining through I see
your true colors so Eliza you and I need
leaders so I want to talk a little bit
more about that today
so some of the words that you can see up
here are the words that I need leaders
to understand I need them to understand
and embrace diversity I need them to
know what ableism is and to be aware of
when they are being a ballista I need
them to embrace inclusion to look at
leadership as leading the way in
advocacy and also approaching disability
from a inclusion standpoint not from an
exclusion or a segregation there are
many places that you can go to to find
out what Australians value about
inclusion and diversity so some of these
people up here or these people up here
are people that are leaders for me I’ve
only met one of them personally but
there’s people that I follow and people
that I read avidly and who are in a
space of their own in that they are
leaders as well something very important
to take into account is the quote up
here which says I am NOT your teachable
moment so where there is difference in
your life I’m asking you to be the one
that explores the one that seeks to
understand not waiting to be taught as
to how you’re meant to react but there
is always a fine line between curiosity
and intrusion so I want you to think
about that as I go through some of the
things we’re talking about today not
every disability that we have in our
modern-day society is visible and that’s
something to take into account when
you’re trying to discover the difference
and to embrace diversity is knowing that
sometimes it’s not always what you can
see it and it’s also how people
experience things so just briefly I want
to talk about me for a moment so this is
me a number of years ago and my story is
relevant because of the role that I play
as a mother so I went through a typical
middle-class Brisbane upbringing and
education in the 1980s and I was one of
those people that was taught
to value education embrace family
probably buy a home travel the world and
have lots of experiences and if you
worked really hard I was told then you
could have it all so I’ve been very
fortunate where I’ve swum in the blue
pools of Iceland I think in the best
empanadas in Chile I’ve traveled in a
tuk tuk I’ve traveled on the tube I’ve
visited synagogues and shrines and
churches and mosques but the reality is
I knew nothing I knew nothing of
discrimination I knew nothing of
violence I knew nothing of addiction and
I knew nothing of poverty so while I’d
had this wide-ranging experiences that I
did know that I knew nothing this is the
photo of our family this is my family my
husband Jeremy our oldest child Edvard
and our daughter Eliza
so they’re both underage quite close
together and while I knew nothing about
these things about diversity disability
etc I did know that we were a family and
that we were a family that wants to be
included in our local community to be
included at every level for both our
children to be valued and included so
this was this has been our guiding force
as we have been navigating all the highs
and the lows something that’s really
important and this is what the four
people on the slide earlier have taught
me this is actually not about me this is
about Eliza I am not the one with the
disability Eliza is the one with the
disability and she will write her own
story if you look at Eliza and you look
at a piece of paper with the lengthy
list of conditions or symptoms etc that
actually tells you nothing about her it
doesn’t tell you about her giggle and
how if there’s slapstick involved the
giggle turns into a snort it tells you
nothing about her resilience her
stubbornness her stamina her
of water her love of swings and her love
of her brother so the role model or the
role that I play is as Eliza’s mother as
her advocate and as the leader of our
family in the day-to-day activity to
make sure that we’re included and that
Eliezer is included and valued so that
role model I need to think about how I
speak the language I use how I react to
difficult circumstances and how that
plays out for other people and therefore
how they respond to myself and to my
children and my family so I am NOT a
keyboard warrior I am not a martyr mummy
so we don’t expect anything more for us
as a family than anybody else does and
we’re not victims in this circumstance
we are in charge of our own destiny and
that has been our guiding force as a
family that doesn’t mean that I am a
saint by any means I still need to pick
myself up at times and think about what
I’m trying to achieve from my family and
what’s the most important thing so I
want to ask you now something of you I
want to ask you to be leaders and I’ll
give you a couple of examples to start
with the next time that you get off a
train or a bus and you go to go up the
stairs pass someone who’s a little bit
slower than you I want you to stop I
want you to think that maybe that person
hasn’t eaten today and the exhaustion of
getting up those stairs is the thing
that’s really pushing them in the
morning I want you to think about maybe
that person is going off to their last
day at work and they have no idea what’s
next I want you to think about whether
have they ever been to that station
before maybe they have no idea where
they’re going so the next time also that
you go to charge into a lift I want you
to stop and think think about the person
that might be coming out of the lift the
dad with the pram the man with the bum
knee the kid that has no idea how
they’re going to get home
they don’t have any money left on their
go-kart I want you to think also about
the woman coming out of the lift who is
too scared to go home the other thing
I’d like you to think about is the next
time you’re somewhere and you hear a
noise or a voice or some words that are
unfamiliar to you I want you to stop
pause listen and imagine not to flinch
not to judge but to think that’s
somebody that’s different to me I’m
fascinated to know but it’s actually
okay that something is different in this
circumstance one of the things that we
are faced with challenges in this
modern-day society in finding leaders
around diversity inclusion is that a lot
of our messages a lot of our information
is tailored to our likes it’s tailored
to our feed it’s tailored to however we
get our news and quite often we are
conversing with like-minded people
we’re actually posting or doing battle
with hundred and forty characters gifs
and memes and posts with people who are
actually on the same page as us and
that’s not how we get diversity that’s
not how what we want from our leaders we
want people to value difference to try
and understand what is different about
other people so what I ask you to think
about where you get your information
from it doesn’t always have to be from
people that you agree with a red headed
person spoke recently in the Australian
Parliament and while I didn’t agree with
what that person said I made sure that I
read every single word that she had said
in that context to understand understand
where she was coming from what had
driven that statement that she made so
it would have been very easy for me to
file off fire off a post that just
attacked the one piece that was being
reported but it was very important to me
to try and understand where the whole
thing was coming from so
I need you to be leaders I need you with
all your difference or your curiosity
you in all your glory to be leaders as
well now what I don’t need you to do is
to become a politician please don’t I
don’t need you to become millionaires or
billionaires and in a certain point in
the height of your wealth you decide to
donate a large amount of money to a
philanthropic cause I don’t need that I
don’t need you to become a faith-based
leader and preach about giving to others
and considering others I don’t need you
to become an elite sportsmen or women
and wear a jersey that signifies to me
that you’ve been briefed on a particular
issue before you run out on the field or
compete in a sport I don’t need that I
don’t need you to become a clinician or
a scientist and find a cure or find a
fix for my child I need you to be you
and I need you to embrace other people
in their differences the next big
adventure for Eliza which is where all
our strategizing and planning has been
heading is school and it will be an
adventure for her and it will be an
adventure for us as a family
school is where most of us spend at
least 11 years and it’s where we learn
about the outside world beyond our
family beyond our small home and the
comforts of home and we all want to be
included and Eliza is included at her
local kindy we all want to be loved and
valued so while I need you to be a
leader you need leaders as well and I
ask you to be part of that so back to
these shoes and I’d like to tell you the
story of these shoes so these are
Eliza’s kindy shoes she attended her
local kindy the same as her older
brother and these shoes are
they’ve done their service she’s grown
and she’s gone up a size now the other
thing that you see on the side of these
shoes is the scuffs and that’s because
Eliza has been allowed the freedom to
bottoms shuffle and to crawl and to
furniture crawl over to what she wanted
to play with at the kindy she’s
discovered and she’s explored these
shoes are slightly faded because they’ve
been through the wash several times
they’ve been covered in glitter in
play-doh
in paint and in some blue goo of some
description the other thing about these
shoes is that they’ve had Eliza’s name
written inside them and that’s because
she wanted to take them off like every
other kid and she needed to have her
shoes named like every other kid so
these shoes for me represent diversity
difference and a very strategic approach
to inclusion for our family but for me
for my family and for others I need you
to be you I need you to be you in all
your glory all your difference and all
your curiosity and I need you to embrace
others and their differences as well so
I need you to be a leader please
you
when you look at these shoes what words
come to mind and I’ll describe these
shoes for people who might be listening
to this talk rather than watching it so
there is a size 5 pair of pink light
pink converse high-tops slightly scuffed
to slightly worn and a little bit faded
so what words come to mind is it cute is
it small is it you’re thinking about a
girl what would you think now that I
tell you these other shoes of my
six-year-old daughter and she has
Rubinstein tabby syndrome and brittle
bones does it change the words that you
think of these are the shoes of a leader
I’d like you to take a moment and look
down at your own shoes those are the
shoes of a leader as well and my
daughter Eliza and I need you to be
leaders so I will tell you a little bit
more about the shoes later but for the
moment I want to tell you about a very
deliberate strategy that is related to
these shoes so my husband despairs at
times and lovers at time the fact that I
am a planner so part of our planning for
our life as a family has been a very
deliberate strategy of inclusion and I
will talk about that more later and
these shoes are the leadership in
inclusion in our very deliberate
strategy now jordan hasn’t sung for us
today and i promise not to sing as well
but cindy lauper has helped with some
messages from my talk today so cindy
lauper said don’t be discouraged or i
realize it’s hard to take courage in a
world full of people you can lose sight
of it all and the darkness inside you
can make you feel so small but I see
your true colors shining through I see
your true colors so Eliza you and I need
leaders so I want to talk a little bit
more about that today
so some of the words that you can see up
here are the words that I need leaders
to understand I need them to understand
and embrace diversity I need them to
know what ableism is and to be aware of
when they are being a ballista I need
them to embrace inclusion to look at
leadership as leading the way in
advocacy and also approaching disability
from a inclusion standpoint not from an
exclusion or a segregation there are
many places that you can go to to find
out what Australians value about
inclusion and diversity so some of these
people up here or these people up here
are people that are leaders for me I’ve
only met one of them personally but
there’s people that I follow and people
that I read avidly and who are in a
space of their own in that they are
leaders as well something very important
to take into account is the quote up
here which says I am NOT your teachable
moment so where there is difference in
your life I’m asking you to be the one
that explores the one that seeks to
understand not waiting to be taught as
to how you’re meant to react but there
is always a fine line between curiosity
and intrusion so I want you to think
about that as I go through some of the
things we’re talking about today not
every disability that we have in our
modern-day society is visible and that’s
something to take into account when
you’re trying to discover the difference
and to embrace diversity is knowing that
sometimes it’s not always what you can
see it and it’s also how people
experience things so just briefly I want
to talk about me for a moment so this is
me a number of years ago and my story is
relevant because of the role that I play
as a mother so I went through a typical
middle-class Brisbane upbringing and
education in the 1980s and I was one of
those people that was taught
to value education embrace family
probably buy a home travel the world and
have lots of experiences and if you
worked really hard I was told then you
could have it all so I’ve been very
fortunate where I’ve swum in the blue
pools of Iceland I think in the best
empanadas in Chile I’ve traveled in a
tuk tuk I’ve traveled on the tube I’ve
visited synagogues and shrines and
churches and mosques but the reality is
I knew nothing I knew nothing of
discrimination I knew nothing of
violence I knew nothing of addiction and
I knew nothing of poverty so while I’d
had this wide-ranging experiences that I
did know that I knew nothing this is the
photo of our family this is my family my
husband Jeremy our oldest child Edvard
and our daughter Eliza
so they’re both underage quite close
together and while I knew nothing about
these things about diversity disability
etc I did know that we were a family and
that we were a family that wants to be
included in our local community to be
included at every level for both our
children to be valued and included so
this was this has been our guiding force
as we have been navigating all the highs
and the lows something that’s really
important and this is what the four
people on the slide earlier have taught
me this is actually not about me this is
about Eliza I am not the one with the
disability Eliza is the one with the
disability and she will write her own
story if you look at Eliza and you look
at a piece of paper with the lengthy
list of conditions or symptoms etc that
actually tells you nothing about her it
doesn’t tell you about her giggle and
how if there’s slapstick involved the
giggle turns into a snort it tells you
nothing about her resilience her
stubbornness her stamina her
of water her love of swings and her love
of her brother so the role model or the
role that I play is as Eliza’s mother as
her advocate and as the leader of our
family in the day-to-day activity to
make sure that we’re included and that
Eliezer is included and valued so that
role model I need to think about how I
speak the language I use how I react to
difficult circumstances and how that
plays out for other people and therefore
how they respond to myself and to my
children and my family so I am NOT a
keyboard warrior I am not a martyr mummy
so we don’t expect anything more for us
as a family than anybody else does and
we’re not victims in this circumstance
we are in charge of our own destiny and
that has been our guiding force as a
family that doesn’t mean that I am a
saint by any means I still need to pick
myself up at times and think about what
I’m trying to achieve from my family and
what’s the most important thing so I
want to ask you now something of you I
want to ask you to be leaders and I’ll
give you a couple of examples to start
with the next time that you get off a
train or a bus and you go to go up the
stairs pass someone who’s a little bit
slower than you I want you to stop I
want you to think that maybe that person
hasn’t eaten today and the exhaustion of
getting up those stairs is the thing
that’s really pushing them in the
morning I want you to think about maybe
that person is going off to their last
day at work and they have no idea what’s
next I want you to think about whether
have they ever been to that station
before maybe they have no idea where
they’re going so the next time also that
you go to charge into a lift I want you
to stop and think think about the person
that might be coming out of the lift the
dad with the pram the man with the bum
knee the kid that has no idea how
they’re going to get home
they don’t have any money left on their
go-kart I want you to think also about
the woman coming out of the lift who is
too scared to go home the other thing
I’d like you to think about is the next
time you’re somewhere and you hear a
noise or a voice or some words that are
unfamiliar to you I want you to stop
pause listen and imagine not to flinch
not to judge but to think that’s
somebody that’s different to me I’m
fascinated to know but it’s actually
okay that something is different in this
circumstance one of the things that we
are faced with challenges in this
modern-day society in finding leaders
around diversity inclusion is that a lot
of our messages a lot of our information
is tailored to our likes it’s tailored
to our feed it’s tailored to however we
get our news and quite often we are
conversing with like-minded people
we’re actually posting or doing battle
with hundred and forty characters gifs
and memes and posts with people who are
actually on the same page as us and
that’s not how we get diversity that’s
not how what we want from our leaders we
want people to value difference to try
and understand what is different about
other people so what I ask you to think
about where you get your information
from it doesn’t always have to be from
people that you agree with a red headed
person spoke recently in the Australian
Parliament and while I didn’t agree with
what that person said I made sure that I
read every single word that she had said
in that context to understand understand
where she was coming from what had
driven that statement that she made so
it would have been very easy for me to
file off fire off a post that just
attacked the one piece that was being
reported but it was very important to me
to try and understand where the whole
thing was coming from so
I need you to be leaders I need you with
all your difference or your curiosity
you in all your glory to be leaders as
well now what I don’t need you to do is
to become a politician please don’t I
don’t need you to become millionaires or
billionaires and in a certain point in
the height of your wealth you decide to
donate a large amount of money to a
philanthropic cause I don’t need that I
don’t need you to become a faith-based
leader and preach about giving to others
and considering others I don’t need you
to become an elite sportsmen or women
and wear a jersey that signifies to me
that you’ve been briefed on a particular
issue before you run out on the field or
compete in a sport I don’t need that I
don’t need you to become a clinician or
a scientist and find a cure or find a
fix for my child I need you to be you
and I need you to embrace other people
in their differences the next big
adventure for Eliza which is where all
our strategizing and planning has been
heading is school and it will be an
adventure for her and it will be an
adventure for us as a family
school is where most of us spend at
least 11 years and it’s where we learn
about the outside world beyond our
family beyond our small home and the
comforts of home and we all want to be
included and Eliza is included at her
local kindy we all want to be loved and
valued so while I need you to be a
leader you need leaders as well and I
ask you to be part of that so back to
these shoes and I’d like to tell you the
story of these shoes so these are
Eliza’s kindy shoes she attended her
local kindy the same as her older
brother and these shoes are
they’ve done their service she’s grown
and she’s gone up a size now the other
thing that you see on the side of these
shoes is the scuffs and that’s because
Eliza has been allowed the freedom to
bottoms shuffle and to crawl and to
furniture crawl over to what she wanted
to play with at the kindy she’s
discovered and she’s explored these
shoes are slightly faded because they’ve
been through the wash several times
they’ve been covered in glitter in
play-doh
in paint and in some blue goo of some
description the other thing about these
shoes is that they’ve had Eliza’s name
written inside them and that’s because
she wanted to take them off like every
other kid and she needed to have her
shoes named like every other kid so
these shoes for me represent diversity
difference and a very strategic approach
to inclusion for our family but for me
for my family and for others I need you
to be you I need you to be you in all
your glory all your difference and all
your curiosity and I need you to embrace
others and their differences as well so
I need you to be a leader please
you
Please follow and like us: