The past quarter century has seen the Australian community and its governments commit to a full and equal citizenship for disabled people. Has the promise been fulfilled? How effective have these changes been?

Mike Clear focuses on New South Wales to find answers and look at their meanings personally and socially. He brings together research, analysis, and the insights of disabled writers in a detailed and critical study structured around three parts:

• personal dialogues that provide sensitive insights into personal experiences and the nature of a disabling society;
• chapters describing and critically appraising the policy and legislative landscape; and
• four critical perspectives on key relevant social issues: access, telecommunications, cultural representation, and the politics of care.

He finds that there have been important gains, based largely on human rights initiatives and the efforts and skill of disabled people themselves. However, the inclusion of disabled people is carefully managed by governments. It is turned on and turned off as ideology and policy priorities dictate.

Do these gains reflect a promise kept? Not while people who have impairment and their associates (less directly) continue to be systematically alienated. And not, as this book reveals, whilst Australian economic, social, and cultural systems remain so fundamentally unchanged.

Table of Contents

PART I: DIALOGUES ON DISABILITY
CHAPTER 1: Life, learning and activism - Diana Qian and Mike Clear
CHAPTER 2: My battle with bullshit - Alice Green and Jenny Green
CHAPTER 3: Families in touch - Trevor Whiddon and Jenny Green
CHAPTER 4: Murphy's memories - Tony Murphy and Jenny Green
CHAPTER 5: Workable spaces - Sondra Wibberley and Mike Clear

PART II: PROMISES FORESTALLED
CHAPTER 6: The forms of promise: disability rights whose time has come - Mike Clear
CHAPTER 7: The forms of promise: policy and service developments - Mike Clear
CHAPTER 8: Changing and uncertain progress - Mike Clear
CHAPTER 9: The persistence of alienation - Mike Clear
CHAPTER 10: Personal lives in unaccommodating systems - Mike Clear

PART III: SOCIAL FORCES IN PERSONAL LIVES
CHAPTER 11: Exploring the social and political dimensions of access - Mark Sherry
CHAPTER 12: Representation and disability - Lynne Davis
CHAPTER 13: Twenty-five years of disabling technology: the case of telecommunication - Gerard Goggin and Christopher Newell
CHAPTER 14: Models of care and social perceptions of disability - Joe Harrison

APPENDIX 1: Information, Research and Rights-based Contacts
APPENDIX 2: ABS Accommodation Figures for People with Disability and Handicap in NSW and Australia
APPENDIX 3: Employment Statistics for NSW and Australia
APPENDIX 4: The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Figures Relating to the Disability Discrimination Act 1992
Contributors to the Telling Stories Project
Notes and References
Selected Bibliography
Index

"The strength of this book lies in the editor's reliance on the voices of disabled persons....
Promises Promises is an outstanding addition to the literature on human rights and disability."
-- Journal of Family Studies, Vol. 7(2), October 2001

"[Promises Promises] presents an openly social perspective on disability. This approach views the impaired person not as a tragic problem of the individual, but as a product of a disabling social environment and hostile social attitudes....
The book shows the importance of and connection between reflection on personal experience; understanding the political context of this experience; and the development of a movement for social change....
Promises Promises is an essential book for students, academics, policy makers politicians, people with disabilities and anyone wishing to truly understand what a social and an emancipatory approach to disability involves."
-- Disability Studies Quarterly, Vol. 21(4), Spring 2001