The Federal Government's response to the Disability Royal Commission

Speaker 1 00:28

Hello and welcome to New Horizons. I'm John Simpson, thanks for joining us. My guest in this week's program is Jonathan Craig, Policy and Advocacy Advisor with Vision 2020 Australia. Jonathan, today we're going to talk about the government's response to the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disabilities - better known as the Disability Royal Commission. But before we get to that, what's Vision 2020's role in the disability sector?

Speaker 2 01:01

Vision 2020 is the peak body for the blindness, low vision, and eye health sector. So that means that many of the organisations whose names you might be familiar with, including service providers like Vision Australia and Guide Dogs, as well as consumer advocacy organisations like Blind Citizens Australia, for example, are members of Vision 2020. And all of these organisations speak to us about issues of concern, and then we take consensus positions on those issues to government. Of course, Vision 2020's membership also includes the peak bodies for ophthalmology, optometry, and orthoptics, as well as many other organisations which cross the sector and work in the prevention and early intervention space as well.

Speaker 1 01:53

Let's come to the Disability Royal Commission. The Royal Commission handed down its final report, I think it was last September, but since then government and other organisations have been looking at the 222 recommendations to see how to progress the issues that have been raised. And in fact, it was only in late July that the Australian government responded to the recommendations. Jonathan, did the Australian government agree with all of those 222 recommendations?

Speaker 2 02:28

Well, so not all of the recommendations were directly towards the federal government, many of them were directed at state and territory governments as well as other bodies, but there were 172 recommendations with either joint or sole federal responsibility. And so of those 172 recommendations, the government accepted 13 recommendations in full, accepted 117 recommendations in principle, flagged 36 recommendations as for further consideration and noted six recommendations - noted essentially means for one reason or another that those recommendations will not be pursued.

Speaker 1 03:20

Now, announcing this position, the government, of course, tied it to some funding initiatives. Can you walk us through some of those that have most relevance to people who are blind or vision impaired?

Speaker 2 03:34

Yeah, so probably when they were framing it, you know, they spoke about a figure of $389 some million. The largest part of that figure was $227 million toward a new disability employment program, which will be replacing disability employment services, which currently exists. However, that is not necessarily a response directly to a DRC recommendation because that had been agreed to well before the Royal Commission released its final report. Nonetheless, it is important to note how necessary it is to create a new employment program because the government has acknowledged itself that the current disability employment services program is not really working.

And because we know about the high unemployment rate amongst people who are blind or vision impaired, and we know that there needs to be better systems and better processes to make sure that people with a vision impairment can get into open employment. So what the government did accept was some of the ideas that the Royal Commission had about what the new disability employment services program should look like. And we would, you know, we would agree certainly with the Royal Commission's ideas.

There's another thing which is quite interesting and also relevant here, which is $19 .6 million toward improving community attitudes toward people with disabilities. Now, in the forward to the Royal Commission's report, the chair, Ronald Sackville, actually ended by saying that we couldn't just say that this was the response to the Royal Commission was solely up to government, that actually real transformation of society of the kind that the Royal Commission envisioned could only occur with significant changes in community attitudes. So, you know, it's good to see that the government are aiming to pull what levers they can to do that. And I'm interested to see what the details of that ultimately look like.

Speaker 1 06:05

Jonathan, do you think that that will play out through a revamp of the National Disability Strategy?

Speaker 2 06:11

Yeah, I think the community attitudes piece will definitely link to another recommendation that the Royal Commission has accepted, and that is around reviewing Australia's disability strategy. And they're currently actually consulting on that review because the government has agreed that the disability strategy needs to incorporate the new thinking that's come out of the Royal Commission. And, you know, it was released in 2021, but things have changed a lot since then. And, you know, the Royal Commission was a bit critical of the strategy in terms of, you know, the actions and responsibilities that were in the original document were insufficiently clear. 

So absolutely, I think that the review of the strategy, which is currently underway, will definitely inform the way the community attitudes piece fits together.

Speaker 1 07:16

Jonathan, I understand that one of the areas that the government announced funding for was in relation to improving a national approach to accessible information, of course an area that is of particular relevance to our listeners.

Speaker 2 07:31

Yes, if you want to look it up, if you're that kind of person, it's recommendation 6.1 and 6.2 and 3 are also relevant because they are to do with Auslan and communications for people who are deaf as well. I think, you know, that's particularly of importance to people who are deaf blind. But 6.1 talks about the idea of an associated action plan under Australia's disability strategy and that would be to improve the availability of accessible communications and that includes a lot of different things I've referenced in there.

Auslan is mentioned in there but audio description is mentioned in the text of what the Royal Commission recommends and also of particular importance we know to BCA members are emergency preparedness and, you know, some of that I think in response to BCA's great work in this area last year. So we're very pleased to see that work is going to begin on that associated action plan soon and that $12 .3 million have been allocated to it.

Speaker 1 08:54

Now I understand another area that's of particular relevance, Jonathan, is the whole debate if you like, but the number of recommendations out of the report around human rights and in particular improving the Disability Discrimination Act.

Speaker 2 09:11

Yeah. And so there's, Volume 4 of the Royal Commission's original report kind of reflects on this area. And there's two, you could divide it up into two key kind of streams. One of which is around rights and the rights of people with disability. And there's, I guess, the recommendation, essentially, which is at the heart of what the Royal Commission is thinking for a Disability Rights Act. Now that act would basically enshrine the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities into Law. But that that's an accepted in principle recommendation, as are the many that under it, because there's currently a debate going on about whether there should be a Disability Rights Act or a Human Rights Act, which has disability rights included within it. So I think that's... going to go on for a while. 

However, the second stream is the idea of reforming the Disability Discrimination Act. Now, the Disability Discrimination Act or DDA was originally introduced in 1992, and hasn't been updated, I believe, since 2009, or somewhere around there. And really... there has been, I guess, a strong agreement from the government, even if even if these recommendations are accepted in principle, the government has committed to reforming the Disability Discrimination Act and the term they use is "modernising" the Disability Discrimination Act. 

And I think this is a big win for people who are blind or vision impaired. Because the DDA is quite good with things like buildings, accessibility of buildings and of public spaces. But it really doesn't include or kind of recognise digital accessibility. And this is more and more the world that we live in is we're online, we're using apps, we're using websites, and they're being developed at such a breakneck pace that, you know, it's very hard to make sure that they're being developed with accessibility in mind.

And so some of the recommendations we think might make it easier to oblige governments and businesses to make their websites and digital products accessible from the ground up. And that could be a really good thing. And then also I would say that, you know, that there have been many complaints made under the Disability Discrimination Act that have not resulted in satisfying outcomes for the complainants. The DDA reforms, that's a big win for us because, you know, people who are blind or vision impaired are constantly facing this difficulty around not being included in various elements of society, often because they're not considered. 

And they have to, in order to get any kind of resolution to that, they have to be the one that comes forward with a complaint. There's no positive duty to eliminate discrimination, which is one of the key things that the Royal Commission recommends. So there will be, I think over the rough timeline of the next two years, a major process to modernise the Disability Discrimination Act, and we think this is very positive.

Speaker 1 13:13

Jonathan, we could talk about this subject for an hour or so, I guess, with the breadth of what the Royal Commission and then the government have covered in their response. But time's beaten us today. We'll no doubt come back to this subject with you - but also, of course, be talking to representatives of Blind Citizens Australia to get their perspective on these and other recommendations that have been accepted or accepted in principle by the government. But thanks for your time today. It's been great to have this sector-wide analysis of the government's response to the Disability Royal Commission.

Speaker 2 13:52

Yeah, thank you so much. And look, I would just say, you know, that this is not the end, you know. One thing that's positive out of this is that there has been a commitment from government to report on the progress of their response every six months. And, you know, we feel like this is, there is much more opportunity to leverage the recommendations from the Disability Royal Commission in future. So I feel like we'll be in touch.

Speaker 1 14:26

Don't forget that if you want to contact Blind Citizens Australia, that phone number is 1800 033 660, that's 1800 033 660... or just email bca@bca.org.au ... Thanks for being with me, I'm John Simpson.