Scott Morrison has “deeply apologised” for offence caused by saying he was “blessed” to have two daughters without disability, despite claiming his opponents had “twisted” his words.
The comment in Wednesday’s leaders’ town hall to a woman with an autistic son whose NDIS care package had been cut was a low point for the prime minister in a debate narrowly won by Anthony Albanese.
It drew condemnation from disability advocates, Labor and the current and former Australians of the year Dylan Alcott and Grace Tame.
In the Sky News town hall Catherine asked both leaders about the future of the national disability insurance scheme, citing concerns that her four-year-old son Ethan’s care package had been slashed by 30% after a review.
Morrison replied: “I’ve been blessed, we’ve got two children that don’t … haven’t had to go through that. And so for parents, with children who are disabled, I can only try and understand your aspirations for those children.”
Autism Awareness Australia said the comments were “disgraceful”:
Disgraceful comments by Prime Minister @ScottMorrisonMP during last night's debate. ALL children are #Blessings. Your words speak volumes about how you perceive people with a #disability.
— Autism Awareness Aus (@AutismAwareAus) April 20, 2022
“Perhaps you should spend more time fixing and fully funding our NDIS, and less time counting your ‘blessings’,” the not-for-profit said.
A disability advocate, Carly Findlay, said the remarks were “ableist” and indicated a belief by some parents “that they are lucky they/their children aren’t disabled”.
“When the leader of the country says he’s blessed not to have disabled children, he saying disabled people are burdens, that our parents are unlucky,” she said.
On Thursday Albanese told reporters in Bomaderry that “every child is a blessing” but passed up an opportunity to criticise Morrison directly.
Earlier Labor’s manager of opposition business in the Senate, Katy Gallagher, who has an autistic child, said she found the comments “really offending and quite shocking”.
“It is something that people who have a disability, children with autism, it is a kind of response they get all the time,” she told told Channel Seven.
Alcott said he felt “blessed” to be disabled: “Feeling sorry for us and our families doesn’t help. Treating us equally, and giving us the choice and control over our own lives does.”
Woke up this morning feeling very blessed to be disabled - I reckon my parents are pretty happy about it too.
— Dylan Alcott (@DylanAlcott) April 20, 2022
Feeling sorry for us and our families doesn’t help. Treating us equally, and giving us the choice and control over our own lives does
Shorten, the former Labor leader and architect of the NDIS established by the Gillard government, called on Morrison to apologise:
My suggestion to Scott Morrison is he apologises to people with disability and their families for his remarks tonight which were insensitive. https://t.co/Ok1B2g3KYh
— Bill Shorten (@billshortenmp) April 20, 2022
On Thursday morning, Morrison told 2GB Radio that Catherine “didn’t take it that way”. “I was just simply saying it’s tough and I’m grateful that there are these hardships I and Jenny haven’t had to deal with …
“The fact Bill Shorten and others leap on that and twist the words and turn it into something political, shows really bad faith and takes something meant in a good spirit and uses it for political purposes in the middle of a campaign.”
Morrison said others who had “jumped on” probably hadn’t “heard exactly what I said”.
At a press conference in Brisbane, Morrison revealed that he had contacted Alcott and “apologised directly” to him.
He accepted his comment “could have been taken in a different context and I’m deeply sorry about that” but sought to blame “some of the ways it was communicated … and [represented] by our political opponents”.
Morrison explained he “often refers” to his own children as a “blessing”, noting that he and his wife tried for a baby for 14 years before their first daughter was born.
“I wasn’t trying to imply that I could first-hand understand the challenges people face in those situations.
“I was seeking to respect the challenges they face … I would hope that people would accept that at face value and deeply apologise for any offence that it caused.”
Earlier Tame used the gaffe to recall her famous excoriation of Morrison through artful side-eye, tweeting that “autism blesses those of us who have it with the ability to spot fakes from a mile off”.
Autism blesses those of us who have it with the ability to spot fakes from a mile off pic.twitter.com/Ck41YcqAAq
— Grace Tame (@TamePunk) April 20, 2022
The Coalition campaign spokesperson, Simon Birmingham, said: “The PM actually in that context was talking about the not having to deal with the many challenges of systems that you have to work through to get the support.
“Whilst we have grown the NDIS from being just a few thousand recipients to now supporting 500,000 Australian families, we know there’s still many challenges for individuals,” he told ABC News Breakfast.
Birmingham said “all Australians” could understand the circumstances for family members and others helping people living with disability “are not always easy circumstances”.
The Liberal senator Hollie Hughes, a mother of three including one autistic son, said she did “did not think anything of [the comments] at all”.
“I certainly didn’t take anything negative away from it,” she told ABC News Breakfast, adding: “I know there were days, very early on, when my son was younger, that were really, really hard. I didn’t feel particularly blessed.”
Hughes suggested the outrage was “symptomatic of those who don’t like Scott and want to find something to cling to”.
The former Greens leader Christine Milne said the comments were “beyond insensitive, downright offensive”, implying “God blessed him but not others”.
