Autistic disability rights advocate Michelle Swan was frustrated when she heard Scott Morrison say he was "blessed" that his children hadn't had to deal with a disability in Wednesday's leaders' debate. But her six kids — all of whom are neurodiverse — had an even stronger reaction.
"They were more angry than I was. They could see that by implication if he was blessed not to have children like them, then I must not be blessed to have had them," Ms Swan says.
"I thought he was trying to appear to empathise with a parent, but what he did was essentially say 'I'm glad I'm not living your life'. I felt that deeply. There's nothing wrong with my life. I love my children … they are amazing and a consistent source of joy and pride for me. They are the kind of people I wish the world had more of."
Mr Morrison has received widespread criticism for his response to a question put forward by an undecided voter and mother of an autistic son on the future of the NDIS.
The Prime Minister has since said he is "deeply sorry", and that he had intended to "respect the challenges [families] face, not the opposite".
"I accept that it has caused offence to people," he said a day after the debate.
"I think people would also appreciate that I would have had no such intention of suggesting anything other than [that] every child is a blessing.
"But I can appreciate particularly that some of the ways it was communicated, and the way it was sought to be represented by our political opponents in the middle of an election, that it could have been taken in different context and I'm deeply sorry about that."
For many people who live with disability, however, the use of this type of language is far from an isolated incident taken out of context; it goes to the very heart of a disability rights movement that has turned away from viewing people with disability as only inspirational or deserving of pity.
"Exclusionary language frames people with disability as a burden, a blight and a punishment from 'up high', regarding us as either pitiful objects of welfare and charity, or as brave and inspirational," Samantha Connor, president of People With Disability Australia, said in a statement on Thursday.
"Therein lies the issue: people with disability deserve dignity and respect, not misplaced pity."
'That is privilege'
Frustrated by what she had heard on Wednesday, Ms Swan took to Facebook to explain the profound impact of exclusionary language on people with disability and their families.
"When disabled children grow up only hearing disability spoken of negatively the result is that they internalise that information," she wrote.
"They struggle to self-advocate for their needs because they think they are an inconvenience. They don't develop a healthy sense of their own worth. It is a form of trauma that has long-lasting consequences on their lives."
The mother-of-six told the ABC that Mr Morrison isn't "blessed", but instead privileged.
"Scott has access to resources, information, advisors, and communities that could help him to understand better and to do better," she says.
"He is not disabled and doesn't have disabled children. He doesn't understand our lives or our needs.
"He doesn't have to tell the most vulnerable and intimate details of his life repeatedly to complete strangers and then rely on them to accurately convey their needs to another set of complete strangers, waiting months sometimes for an answer, in order to access the basic equipment and support he needs to be able to leave his home in the morning. That is privilege."
Viewing disability through different lenses
Curtin University Professor Katie Ellis, who researches disability representation in the media, says Mr Morrison's comment is a clear example of the "tragedy model" of disability.
She explains that this means viewing disability through the lens of a "personal problem, or a medical problem, that occurs within an individual's damaged body" and is their own responsibility to manage.
"The only way we've been taught to view disability is that it's a tragedy, and particularly, that it's a tragedy for families to solve," she says.
Instead, Professor Ellis says, leaders should be discussing disability through the "social model" lens. This way of viewing disability arose in response to the medical and tragedy models and puts the responsibility back on society to be accessible to all people.
"In the social model of disability, we separate the body from society, so while there may be an impairment in the body, it is the way society reacts to that body and the impairment that can either be disabling or enabling," she says. This may include building accessible spaces or providing adequate funding and support so people can live comfortably with impairments.
"Instead of talking about tragedies of disability, or Scott and Jenny being blessed to have kids without disabilities, what we need to talk about is the way we can change society to make it a more enabling place for people with disabilities," Professor Ellis says.
She points to the question that prompted Morrison's comment as an example of this issue. During the debate, Catherine, the mother of a four-year-old son with autism, asked Morrison what the future of the NDIS would look like under a Coalition government, noting that her son's funding had recently been cut by 30 per cent.
"What he should have done is thought about how society disables people that have impairments, and one of the ways that society does disable people with disabilities is through these attitudes; that disability is only ever a tragedy," Professor Ellis says.
"We need to have a broader conversation about speaking about disability, so people like Scott Morrison don't just fall into those sort of easy discourses because they're familiar."
Politicians draw on personal experience
Following the debate, politicians from both sides quickly weighed in. Speaking to ABC News Breakfast on Thursday, Liberal senator Hollie Hughes reflected on parenting her autistic son, Fred.
"I know there were days very early on, when my son was younger, that were really, really hard. I didn't feel particularly blessed. I now have a teenage daughter. There are days I don't feel particularly blessed either," she said.
"To focus on one word is missing the point … Anyone who has children with a disability or without a disability will say there are days that are challenging."
The NSW senator also defended her leader against the backlash.
"If you want to talk about the word blessed as the biggest problem we've got facing us as parents and carers of those with a disability, this is why the disability community struggles to make constructive gains, because ... it a significant, almost permanent rage machine, and when the NDIS came in and a lot of people got funding for the first time, they had to find somewhere else to direct their rage," she said.
Meanwhile, Labor senator Katy Gallagher — who is also the parent of a daughter with autism — told Channel Seven she had been upset by the comment.
"There are millions of us who live with children with a range of different needs and I think to have a Prime Minister who says he was 'blessed' not to have one of those is deeply offending and deeply upsetting," she said.
A word with different meanings
Alexandra Helens, who is autistic, also said she was "hurt and saddened" by the comment, even if that had not been Morrison's intent.
"It's the ignorance and thoughtlessness with which he said that, and that harms us all," she says.
As a Christian, Ms Helens is well aware the word "blessed" is loaded with meaning. While each religion or denomination may have their own specific definition, it's also a term used often by religious and non-religious folk alike when they mean privileged, lucky or grateful.
"Whether he meant it was a blessing from god or a blessing [as in he is grateful] to be relieved of the burden of a disabled child, I don't think it matters," Ms Helens says.
"That is not the church that I was raised in, and that's not the teachings of Jesus that I was taught.
"It does not match the experiences of people that I know in the disabled community. And if my mum were here right now, I know that she'd say that she is blessed to have me, as I am blessed to have her."
A silver lining to the backlash
Nicole Rogerson says she feels blessed to have both of her children in her life. Her youngest, Tom, 21, is studying film at university, while her eldest Jack, 26, studied as an apprentice chef. Jack also has autism.
"I have two 'blessings' … don't tell me one of my children is more of a blessing than the other because of their disability," she says.
"I think he misspoke … but it is really hurtful. It's hurtful for parents of children with a disability and people with a disability themselves to hear that. All children are blessings."
But Ms Rogerson, who is the chief executive of Autism Awareness Australia, sees a silver lining to the backlash.
"Every time we get an opportunity to take centre stage, [it] just reminds … the other 25 million Australians who don't understand disability, it just gives them a little bit of insight into our life," she says.
"I hope that the conversation … has taught some lay people about why that was offensive, and I think it would be great if what came out of it is: don't talk like that when you're talking about people with disabilities."
Ms Rogerson says it's more important to focus on what happens next.
"It's really important that Australians listen to both parties really closely as to what their plans are for the NDIS,” she says.
