Paul Simmons on SDA Housing, NDIS Challenges & Building Better | What Are We Drinking Episode 14

In this episode of What Are We Drinking?, Rachel sits down with Hannah Diviney: actor, author, disability advocate and the woman who got Lizzo and Beyoncé to change their lyrics within six weeks of each other.

In this episode of What Are We Drinking?, Rachel sits down with Moustafa "Moustie" Ardati — counsellor, coach, speaker, dual international and founder of Stay True Be You — for a big-hearted, funny and honest conversation about cerebral palsy, backing yourself and refusing to let anyone else set your limits.

What happens when your dad takes back the business, the staff and the shop — and you have to start again from $80 in the bank?

Nine thousand families applied for Back in Time for Dinner. Carol Ferrone got it after a stranger tapped her on the shoulder outside a shoe shop and said she liked the look of her family. Seven days later the show was hers.Carol is a TV presenter, MC and storyteller who spent three seasons on the ABC's Logie-nominated Back in Time series, hosted by Annabel Crabb, living 170 years of Australian history in real time with her husband Peter and their three children. Their house was gutted eight times. She scrubbed laundry by hand in 44 degree heat, churned butter for a corner shop that opened to the public, wore original whalebone corsets, and boiled a calf's head for a Federation dinner. When her son Julian was sent to World War One in an Anzac uniform, the country cried with her.She and Rachel talk about the 1950s dinner where Peter ate alone at the head of the table and Carol threw a plate. What an 1870s corner shop taught her about community and why she thinks we've lost it. Why she quietly loved having no responsibility except the house, and what it costs to admit that out loud. And her view that a woman can run the room at work and still want to be led at home.Carol also wrote and shot Shaking Not Stirred, a documentary about her brother-in-law Ralph, who has lived with Parkinson's since his forties. She wrote it in one night, filmed it in a day on no budget, and had it finished in eight weeks. The premiere sold out in nine days and she upgraded the cinema four times. Every dollar of ticket sales goes to Shake It Up Australia. She has since received a certificate of recognition from the Governor-General for it. The third screening is at NSW Parliament House on 22 September.She finishes with the personal brand masterclass she normally charges for: the fool, the victim and the queen. One brand per category. The same skincare company for seven years. No filters on a 53 year old face.Carol drinks a mocktail espresso martini. A hundred and seventy years of costume, one zero-budget film, and her own eulogy: she never stopped, and she partied the whole time.

Audio Disclaimer:We apologise for some audio inconsistencies throughout this episode. We experienced some technical issues during recording and have done our best to enhance and clean up the audio in post-production. Thanks for your understanding, and we hope you enjoy the conversation regardless.In this episode of What Are We Drinking?, Rachel sits down with psychotherapist and psychosexual therapist Patrick Rory John for one of our most open and thought-provoking conversations yet.Patrick works across sexuality, relationships, disability, queer and trans identity, mental health and recovery. Their own lived experience sits at the heart of the work, having navigated addiction, disability, queerness, faith, discrimination and recovery before becoming a therapist.The conversation explores a topic that is still rarely discussed openly: sexuality and disability.Patrick challenges the idea that protecting people with disability should mean controlling their lives, and explains the difference between safeguarding someone and taking away their autonomy. They discuss privacy, dating, relationships, sex education, online safety, support workers, restrictive practices and the concept of dignity of risk.Rachel and Patrick also unpack queer relationships, pronouns, identity, heteronormativity, the impact of growing up without healthy queer relationship models, and why belonging and community matter so deeply.Patrick opens up about growing up in a Catholic Irish family in Sydney, coming out young, becoming heavily involved in the church, being excommunicated after their sexuality became known, and the addiction and recovery journey that ultimately led them towards therapy.They also talk about the future of sex education for people with disability, why support workers need better training, how providers can create safer environments without making people's worlds smaller, and the importance of actually listening to people with lived experience rather than speaking for them.And, because this is What Are We Drinking?, Patrick joins Rachel over a non-alcoholic margarita.This episode is funny, vulnerable, challenging and deeply human.