09/12/2025
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” -attributed to Albert Einstein.
Square Peg Round Whole Public PAGE Accountability for Children in Education Western Australia - ACE WA
So today I stumbled across the jobs for the much flaunted first action of the response to the Education Act Review Report- you know, the one our government completely ignored and desperately wanted to keep behind closed doors and hide from the public that paid for it…
No teachers.
No experts on inclusive education.
No human rights lawyers.
And devastatingly - no lived experience voices.
See for yourself - search WA jobs board.
These much flaunted “Disability Reform Unit” roles make one thing impossible to ignore –the people living the consequences – disabled kids, their families, their caregivers and the educators holding them together – have been pushed out again.
Actual experience is irrelevant - they’re hiring bureaucrats and government loyalists, not people with the courage and insight to make hard decisions and face the shameful reality to start fixing the rot that got us here in this crisis.
This reliance on the same old jobs and public sector career bureaucracy is not going to change anything. It is same old story and it’s destroying people.
Disabled young people are being harmed in ways they never should’ve faced.
Families are breaking under pressure they didn’t create.
Educators are being crushed by a system that keeps demanding the impossible.
Communities are carrying grief that should never have existed.
Let’s stop pretending –
these decisions are destroying lives.
they are harming children.
they are burning out educators.
they are ripping families apart.
they are gutting whole communities.
This is not a misunderstanding –
this is not a slip-up –
we have blown past that.
This is systemic harm, systemic neglect and systemic negligence – built and reinforced by decisions that erase disabled voices, shut out lived experience and ignore the professionals who are living through the fallout every single day.
And the damage won’t fade just because you move on. Three ministers later, we have seen one step forward two steps back and meanwhile the cracks have become chasms.
Our society will pay for this – emotionally, socially and economically – because so many young people in your schools aren’t being educated. They’re surviving trauma. Their families are exhausted. Their teachers are hanging on by a thread. These wounds last across generations.
There will come a day when those in charge look back at this exact moment –
and see they chose the easy path over the right one –
valued process over people –
and helped keep a harmful system alive.
You stood at those tags –
you read the kids’ words –
you saw the blue tree and what it means –
you heard about the young people, parents and professionals who aren’t here anymore because the system didn’t change.
You cannot say you didn’t know.
We’re done asking –
we’re done waiting –
we’re done pretending this harm is accidental.
We will not let this keep happening to disabled children, their families or the educators fighting for them.
We have been patient –
we have been respectful –
we followed every rule you set –
we laid bare trauma no community should have to give you.
Now we’ll scrutinise everything –
we’ll call out every single act of omission and every band aid measure hiding the festering wounds underneath shiny words and nicely displayed but ultimately empty actions.
To be clear (because that is what we do even when you don’t)- we won’t soften anything to make this more comfortable for you.
In the words of my own disabled young person-
“Human rights, motherf*ckers. Mic drop, boom”
💜💜💜💜
Symone and the SPRW team
Ps - Dear premier cook and cabinet- on a personal note, as a disabled parent of disabled children, who are in schools where the blood sweat and tears of their teachers mean they’re buffered from the damage your system is causing their community - I want my vote back (and I am far from being the only one.
