Disability Discrimination Act review
Disability Rights
The Australian Government is of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth).
The purpose of the review is to consider options to implement the 15 recommendations from the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability, as well as further changes to improve the experiences of people with disability.
Our response to the review
The Commission – which administers the application federal anti-discrimination laws, including the Disability Discrimination Act – welcomes the review.
The review provides an opportunity for the Commission to advocate for a range of reforms to the Act which will modernise and simplify the Act as well as strengthen how it protects the rights of people with disability.
The Commission will be making a submission to the Attorney-General’s Department as part of the review process. This submission will be published on this website following delivery to the Department.
Read the Commission’s media release
Our key proposals for reforming the Act
Through our Free + Equal project, the Commission proposed a range of reforms to the federal anti-discrimination laws.
These include the introduction of a ‘positive duty’ or a requirement to take active steps to prevent and eliminate discrimination from happening in the first place. Currently the Disability Discrimination Act is reactive, and remedial action can only occur after a complaint has been made.
Another key recommendation the Commission will make to the review will be to call for a range of similar reforms to be introduced across Australia’s full set of anti-discrimination laws – which includes the Disability, Racial, Sex and Age Discrimination Acts – so they achieve consistent standards of protections.
Read the Commission’s plan for reforming Australia’s anti-discrimination Acts
Explainers
The Commission will be publishing a series of explainers to help people better understand what discrimination on the grounds of disability means, how the Disability Discrimination Act works and why, and how, is needs to be reformed.
- Why we need to reform the Disability Discrimination Act (Word 83 KB & PDF 194 KB)
- Does the Disability Discrimination Act protect the human rights of people with disability? (Word 94 KB & PDF 142 KB)
Easy Read
Disability Discrimination Act 1992 Easy Read Translation
ENDS