Maurice Gleeson OAM

Peter talks to this years' Blind Australian of the Year, Maurice Gleeson OAM

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Episode Transcript

S1 (00:18):
On Vision Australia Radio. This is Vision Xtra with Peter Greco.

S2 (00:25):
Well, I'm so, so pleased to welcome to the program,
this year's winner of the Blind Australian of the year,
sponsored by Link Visions and the Queensland Government as well
Maurice Gleeson OAM. Maurice, welcome and congratulations.

S3 (00:38):
Oh thank you very much Peter.

S2 (00:39):
I believe it was a very good night.

S3 (00:41):
It was a very good night. It was a good. Yeah.
It was a over 20 people attended and um yeah
it was well conducted and the, the emcee and the
other nominees and finalists and that was a great night.

S2 (00:56):
Well, I first spoke to you a lot about different
sports and the opportunities that you now make available for
people who are blind or low vision. But let's go back.
What kind of got you started on this mission of
advocacy and inclusion and wanting to get people involved with activity?

S3 (01:13):
Look, I think it goes back, Peter. Really? From my
young childhood. You know, being a young person and losing
my sight of 13 and working in a factory. And,
you know, I'm seeing a lot of things that I
think people who are disadvantaged in various ways. And, uh,
even before I lost my sight, um, you know, when

(01:35):
you're young, I either wanted to be a journalist or
a social worker, so I end up being a social
welfare worker. So that's my background, and I guess I'm
a great passion for anybody. Doesn't matter with or without
a disability, that we can have a quality of life
that we would like and achieving fairness and all that. So.

(01:57):
So I have a great passion to, um, whatever we
can do to make our community better. Um, yeah. So
that's why I have a passion for.

S2 (02:07):
That sense of social justice where that kind of come from.
Was there a person or a thing in particular that
happened that set you on that path.

S3 (02:15):
Are you? I think first of all, when I was
at school, I had a wonderful school, but they told
me that I couldn't further my education and they would
be better to work as a in a factory or
some process worker. Then, um, when I was working there,
I saw a lot of migrants there. You know, we
were working upstairs in the heat. And sometimes when you're, um,

(02:38):
particularly women, migrant women, you find with the heat and
you go downstairs and they give you a cup of
salt tablets, and you come back and continue working. And
yet management had air conditioning offices. I didn't, you know,
and I thought, this is not right, that people should
have these conditions. And then I was thinking, you know,

(03:00):
how education is so important, not necessarily formal education, but
to understand, you know, what's fair and right and entitlement
and to be able to advocate for yourself. And not
everybody can do that, but to reach out to something
that might do it on your behalf. And so that's

(03:20):
where I do a lot of that from. You know, again,
we're living in a community. I think today, Peter is
much better than 40 or 50 years ago, 40 or
50 years ago, people. It was, look what we're doing
for people with disability. Look what we're doing for them today.

(03:41):
It's what we're doing together. So what we're doing with.
So I think we're getting a lot better, but we've
still got a fair way to go. And I really
like the idea now that people with disability are co-designing
much more now. And we have much more input into,
you know, developing programs like accessibility or inclusiveness. And we're

(04:06):
getting better. Still got a way to go.

S2 (04:08):
That's a great point you make. That's a great word
that co-designed isn't it. We're all kind of all in
this together.

S3 (04:13):
Well, we are, and I think we should be treated,
you know. It's not a I don't like the word I.
I think for a long time, people with disability are
being seen as being all customers or consumers. I think
we're consulting those people who had lived experience, who have
knowledge and experience. It's not a client. You're a consultant

(04:38):
to the your input. Now, I don't mean, you know,
you've got to have some experience. Whatever. You're a co-design.
You don't I don't like tokenistic role. But you should
be seen as not as a consumer or as a consultant.

S2 (04:53):
That is the great point. That is a great word.
And you know, words can be important, can't they? I mean,
you know, people might say sticks and stones and all
that sort of stuff, but words can be really important.
Words can be really powerful, I think.

S3 (05:04):
So one of our social welfare worker, I never refer
people who I went to work with, the people that
are there to pay to support your work with. I
never call them client. I just call them people. The
people I work with. Yeah. You know, I always refer,
you know, it's all for, you know, for people today
or I don't come and say, oh, hi, I'm your

(05:26):
social welfare. Well, you're my client because I don't see
that you're you're a person that who who? Um, you know,
I used to take the approach when I worked with
someone that wasn't necessarily me who had to resolve the
problem or issue together. I think we should be working together.

(05:47):
How we can resolve whatever your challenges were.

S2 (05:50):
Boris, you're looked up to by a lot of people today.
Quite rightly so. When this award is kind of recognition
of that. What about for you, particularly growing up, was
there a role model for you or someone who you thought, oh,
you know, I'd like to be a bit like them?

S3 (06:05):
Well, I'd like to say with my mother, okay. My mother. Well,
for example, you know, losing her son at 13, I
learned mobility at the Guide Dog Center. You know, and
so I learned to use a white cane. I came
home and after training and after a week of being home,

(06:25):
my mother said, Marissa, you haven't gone out. You haven't
use your cane. Oh, yeah, I'll do it tomorrow. I'll
do it. What do you mean, you do it tomorrow? No,
you'll do it today. I want you to go up
the street because I didn't want to use a cane.
Those days, you know, it was different than today. In
those days, you were seen as a novelty. You know,

(06:48):
I think everybody will talk about and look at you
and comment. So she made me to go up the street.
You know, I was thinking, oh, up, up the street. Oh,
I don't think she really cares about me at all.
But anyway, I went up. She didn't tell me that
one of my other brothers followed me to make sure
I was okay. And that was the start of, you know,

(07:10):
believing in yourself and do things. And and my father
as well. Um, you know, they took us, you know,
and it was all new to them. They suddenly had, um,
a new there was no counselling for parents or family or.
But they were so young that you just happened and
you had to get on. But they were the, um, people.

(07:32):
And I think what we all need, Peter, doesn't matter
who we are, uh, in life, we need people to
come along and give who believe in us, to give
us the encouragement to, you know, come out of our
comfort zone or or go and do things that we
didn't think that we were capable of doing. And that's
what happened to me, that people along my journey, different

(07:54):
people encouraged me when I was working in that factory,
you know, the people were great, but the job safely
boxes and that. And I was thinking, and then I
must be better. I have to do something better. And then,
you know, different people. Do you have the ability to
study a tertiary level? You must continue to believe in yourself,

(08:18):
which I, you know, years later to do.

S2 (08:21):
Fantastic. Well, I guess a lot of people know you
for the wonderful work you do, promoting and enabling people
to get involved with sport. How did that start?

S3 (08:29):
Well, I have been a president of Blind Sports and Recreation, uh,
for many years. And we've had that, you know, we
change our name. But in 2009, I had been working
with Australian, um, then now knowing this vision, uh, in
public advocacy and social work, etc. but then after nearly

(08:51):
20 odd years, I thought it was time for a change.
And then, so I resigning. I wasn't quite sure what
I'd be doing. But we're fortunate now applying for to
get a major grant from Vic Health, and out of
that was enough to create a CEO role within Lifepoint
Recreation Victoria. And what I felt traditionally we've had the sports,

(09:16):
which have been around for many, many years and which
I fully support today as well. I think they're fantastic.
But I also felt we need to diversify. We need
to change and have much more. There's no reason why
people with a severe vision loss should not be able
to participate in a whole range of sporting and recreational activity,

(09:39):
which shouldn't be limited. And that's how you know the
AFL are going fucking the Tigers and other new program because,
you know, people would come to me and say, you know,
would you be interested in have you ever heard of
this or have you done that? And I said, no,
but why don't we look into it and see if

(10:00):
we can make it happen? And that's what I'm about.
I want people to have choices, you know, that doesn't
come by an individual. I know a lot of people
who have input and support, but. And that's what angers together,
you know, that's why you yourself, you know, your program

(10:20):
is being so positive. Because to be able to give
us opportunity to to a community, what can happen.

S2 (10:29):
One of the great things that's happened over the last
few years, in particular as organizations like Tennis Australia, AFL
and Cricket Australia particularly has got involved in more recent
years as well, the sort of umbrella organizations being much
more inclusive and saying we're all playing the same sport,
it might be just a little bit different. But, you know,
as I said earlier, we're all in this together.

S3 (10:49):
Absolutely. And that's what it's about. It's about to togetherness
to realise that we complement each other because it's very important.
A lot of people, everybody's going to say they're inclusive.
People are not going to say we're not, but we
want to make sure that we have meaningful inclusiveness, not minimal.

(11:10):
And that's where our lived experience working together. And this
is where the government, the three levels of government local,
state and federal, they also need to support organization and
into you know, the NDIS has been fantastic. They've given
a lot more opportunity. But where there is a gap is, um,

(11:34):
it's good to have NDIS, but you have to have
a program to go to, you know. So we need,
you know, ensure that the program has supported and the
reason why I'm so passionate about sport and recreation and
arts and all those activity because mental health is so
important and we talk about mental health. Well, people who

(11:56):
are blind or visually impaired, they have to deal with
mental health issues as well, or isolation or obesity or
domestic violence Filing and all that. So we all have
to have a purpose. And that's why our programs are
so important. So we can give people a purpose. Uh,
you know, to be able to, uh, participate in activity

(12:19):
and learn new skills or regain, uh, skills that they
lost because of their physical deterioration. And you touched on before,
a activity like targeting all these various sporting other sports,
we modify it to meet the needs of the person
with vision loss. And that's why I like about people

(12:40):
to adjust the program to design about our needs and
then allow or where possible, for people, everybody to join
in the program where possible.

S2 (12:51):
And you can play at your own level. Tomorrow's went
fantastic when you represent Australia at Paralympic Games and you're
winning gold medals. But if you're just playing for fun,
just to keep fit, as you say, a bit of
social interaction, uh, yeah, that's equally important.

S3 (13:05):
Absolutely. I'm quite believing that when we measure success, when
we measure achievement, we don't measure it by necessarily just
high performers, or because you become very wealthy or whatever
in whatever the individual achievement to their capacity to their

(13:25):
change in their circumstances, that is equally as important. So
I just stress that everybody is important. Everybody has a
right to be able to have access to doing activity
and supporting in a meaningful way. And that's why I
think about sport is there's no pressure. You don't have

(13:49):
to unnecessarily compete at a higher level if if that's
what you want in competitive that we support that. I
admire those top athletes, but equally I admire some of
you who came down and didn't think they could do origami.
For example, I had no idea what it's about. I

(14:09):
didn't think they could do it. And then after a
while with our training, they achieved it. Well, that's a success.

S2 (14:15):
Maurice, you're a tremendous role model. You've been a great
supporter of this program and this radio station for many,
many years. I could chat to you for hours, but
radio doesn't allow that. But again, congratulations on that award.
Such richly deserved. And we wish you well and I'll
chat to you another time for sure.

S3 (14:32):
Thank you very much, Peter, and continue the great work
that you and your radio station do. Thank you everyone.

S2 (14:39):
Listen now I am there. This year's Blind Australian of
the year. This year is a very worthy blind Australian
of the year.

S1 (14:48):
Thank you for listening to Vision Extra with Peter Greco.
You can find this interview on the Focal Point podcast.
This show was produced in the Adelaide studios of Vision
Australia Radio.