We are a society that treats people with disabilities with condescension and pity, not dignity and respect.

Yooralla, like most disability service organisations, is full of good people who are passionate about the rights of people with disabilities.

Most disability charity hinges on that notion - that you need to send your money in quick before all these poor, pitiful people die. Peddling pity brings in the bucks, yo.

Many of us, particularly those of us with disabilities who have faced persistent discrimination throughout our lives, not least when trying to find employment in the first place, take enormous pride in our hard-fought jobs and careers.

I use the term 'disabled people' quite deliberately, because I subscribe to what's called the social model of disability, which tells us that we are more disabled by the society that we live in than by our bodies and our diagnoses.

If we can't hold ourselves up as an example of how to treat people with dignity and respect, we can't ask that other nations do that to our soldiers.