Disability advocate urges government commitment to Human Rights Act against discrimination

ABC NEWS (Australia)

It's been one year since the federal government handed down its response to the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability. At the time, the disability community described the response from some as a failure of leadership. And 12 months on, a lack of progress is continuing to frustrate those who were hopeful for change.

Transcript

00:00The Disability Royal Commission was a historic and hard-won opportunity for our community

00:08and particularly women, girls and gender diverse people with disability to finally have our

00:14experiences of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation heard at the highest level.

00:20And since the release of the report, there have been a number of changes and steps taken

00:26that have been reported in the progress report. But the perspective is really many of the

00:33transformative, large-scale recommendations have not yet been taken up, which presents

00:39really serious concerns for us as advocates and the disability community that the harm

00:45and the violence that we have reported will continue. I do want to acknowledge that there

00:50has been some action towards ensuring that the National Plan to End Violence Against Women

00:56and Children has actions that are of particular relevance to women and girls with disability.

01:02And there have been commitments to really critical reforms to the Disability Discrimination Act

01:07and some work around employment for people with disability. But as mentioned, those really

01:13critical recommendations around phasing out segregation, ending forced sterilisation, many,

01:21many other really key recommendations that would better uphold the rights of people with disability

01:26in Australia remain unresolved and unanswered.

01:29What are some of those transformative issues that you say need being addressed immediately?

01:35You mentioned segregation there, forced sterilisation. What are some of the other areas,

01:39the real transformative areas, that you would like to see action taken on immediately?

01:45As you've heard Senator Stiljohn mention, one of the really significant opportunities is a recommendation

01:50around enacting laws that better protect and uphold the rights of people with disability

01:56in Australia. The Disability Royal Commission recommended a Disability Rights Act be enacted in

02:01Australia. Our organisation's position is that we support a Human Rights Act that would implement

02:07the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and all other United Nations

02:12conventions to uphold the rights of all people, including those people with disability and the rights

02:20that have particular meaning and relevance for our community. I remain really hopeful that that

02:25recommendation will be picked up and that will really underpin a lot of the other critical

02:30transformative reforms that we need to see, including in relation to segregation.

02:34You mentioned some of the areas that they've made forward steps in, particularly that was outlined in that

02:39progress report in December of last year. But why do you see there being such inaction with respect to the

02:46recommendations that were made over a year ago? Can you appreciate it is an extremely complex area

02:51of work for the government? Absolutely. I think no one expects that change like this, that the large

02:59scale transformative change we're asking for could happen overnight. We recognise that there are

03:05challenges presented by the shared responsibility across all Australian jurisdictions. That requires agreement

03:12and coordination across all Australian governments. And some of these recommendations do require complete

03:19overhaul of systems, structures and laws because we are starting from a position of such grave and large

03:26scale discrimination, harm and disadvantage for our community. So absolutely recognise that complexity.

03:32But what we need to see is firm commitment to immediate action, recognising that that might take time.

03:38But we need the action, we need the action, we need the commitment to working through that complexity.

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