Disability Services

Isabella McLean was born in 1833, as were her two beloved sisters, in the Victorian colony, in the land that would one day come to be known as Australia. Isabella was my great, great, great, great grandmother. My family have called Australia home for some 200 years but my birth in Canada and the birth of my son in the Philippines, despite his life being almost entirely lived in Australia, have seen our ties to country destroyed by little known and severely nuanced government policy. Today, as I write these words, not less than four generations of greater Australian citizen family exist on this continent, including Australian parents, siblings, cousins, and nephews. We are a proud multicultural, multiracial, multilingual family who should be the very personification of modern Australia. We are instead ostracised in a surreal form of apartheid within the Australian nation. Our ancestors rightful place in Australia, our right of abode, our place in the community, our exemplary lives and authentic home in Australia mean nothing for our permanent legal rights in Australia. When I brought my Philippine born wife and children to Australia our children were aged 1 and 2. We had hope and we had a large Australian family to make settlement better. Then our son Dylan was diagnosed with autism. Such diagnosis would challenge any family but his illness has catastrophized our life as it strengthened our resolve and love against an Australian government that has been nothing less than punitive in the face of his illness.  Our disabled son, Dylan, has been refused entry to the national diability scheme, he has been refused permanent residency and our family have had to shoulder costings that would destroy family's far more supported.  Where Government continues this segregation we have no future, even as we have no other home but Australia to call home. We must bear costings unimaginable.  We are a case study in the unintended consequences of legislation. This is our heartbreak. We hope this page can help bring a small funding replacement to the significant funding segregation Dylan would receive if he was recognised as part of the Australian nation.  Please visit our site for more information: www.methinketh.com