Disability Policy and the Whitlam Government

Abstract

The Whitlam Government has an enduring legacy. Yet scholarship on the Whitlam Government rarely exclusively or extensively focusses on its disability policies. This article applies disability studies to analyse key policies of the Whitlam Government, including increases to the Invalid Pension, Sheltered Employment Allowance and Sickness Benefits, the Australian Assistance Plan, the Handicapped Persons Assistance Act 1974, and the National Compensation Bill 1974 to understand how the Whitlam Government understood people with disability and the ongoing legacy of the policies. It hypothesises that, although from a contemporary viewpoint the policies and how they understand people with disability could be problematised, it postulates that, in the 1970s, they reflect a significant shift in how people with disability were understood and governed. Further, it conjects that the policies can inform current disability policy.