Significant change is required for Australia to be a truly inclusive society for people with disability, who “continue to experience high rates of violence and abuse, multiple forms of neglect, and sexual and financial exploitation”, a royal commission has found.
The final report of the royal commission into violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation of people with disability was made public on Friday after four-and-a-half years of hearings, reports, submissions and powerful testimony from people with disability and their loved ones.
The commission made 222 recommendations in its 12-volume final report, including recommending that the Australian government commit to the enactment of a Disability Rights Act that should reflect and embody the principles set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
The new laws should require that any planning of policies, initiatives or making major changes to public services include consultation with people with disability, disability representative organisations, First Nations people, and children and young people where appropriate.
The social services minister, Amanda Rishworth, said on Friday that the government supported the commission’s vision of “a more inclusive society where violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation of people with disability is just not acceptable.”.
“The message of this report is clear. We do need to do better,” Rishworth said.
The commission’s recommendations covered topics including housing, health, education, employment, criminal justice and disability services.
Non-therapeutic, involuntary sterilisation of people with disability should be prohibited, the commission recommended. States and territories should take immediate action to prevent the use of restrictive practices in disability, health, mental health and education settings, including seclusion or solitary confinement of children.
Mainstream housing, education and employment systems must be “significantly reformed to remove barriers to people with disability”, the commissioners said.
All commissioners agreed major improvements were needed in the practices of group homes, with four stating group homes should be systematically phased out.
People with disability were “conspicuously absent” from national housing and homelessness policy frameworks, the commission found. It recommended the proposed National Housing and Homelessness Plan and the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council include people with disability “as a priority group in developing reforms”.
It also recommended changes to tenancy legislation in all Australian jurisdictions to go beyond restricting no-grounds evictions, and require landlords of private rentals to “demonstrate a good reason for terminating any tenancy of residential accommodation”, and for state and territory administrative tribunals to take into account a tenant’s disability in possession rulings.
Systemic changes were required to embed inclusive education for students with disability in mainstream schools, though the commissioners were split over whether to recommend the phase-out of segregated or non-mainstream schools.
Three commissioners recommended “transformational change” that involved phasing out and ending segregated education and “ensuring inclusive education systems”, with an aim to having no students with disability in segregated schools by 2052. There was “compelling evidence” that mainstream schools were engaging in “gatekeeping” practices to keep students with disability from enrolling or staying in the school of choice, the commission found.
Rishworth said the government would not immediately respond to any specific recommendations, as “given the breadth and scope of the final report” it would take “a considered and staged approach”.
She announced the government would establish a Commonwealth disability royal commission taskforce, which would coordinate the federal government’s response.
The NDIS minister, Bill Shorten, said while the report could make “harrowing reading”, its release provided “a moment of national unity”. “I do see this is a moment where we can paint the horizon for people with disability in Australia,” Shorten said.
The Greens senator Jordon Steele-John said on Friday that the release of the report was an “historic moment for the disability community in Australia”.
“What the report also does is state clearly that these crimes occur in particular settings. Segregated settings. Where we are divided away from our non-disabled peers – in education, healthcare, employment and housing – and in those settings that we are subject to abuse,” said Steele-John.
“We need to see an end to segregated education, through a managed transition that occurs in a timely way” Steele-John said.
Human rights was at the centre of the commission’s purview.
“The human rights of people with disability have informed all our work and underpin a great many of our recommendations,” commission chair Ronald Sackville wrote in the report.
“Transformational reforms cannot occur without fundamental changes in community attitudes towards people with disability.”
While most of the recommendations were directed at the federal government, some were directed at states and territories and non-government organisations.
The commission recommended a national disability commission should be established, led by a person with disability and comprised primarily of commissioners who have disabilities and represent disability diversity, to support the realisation of people with disabilities’ human rights under the new laws, as well as promoting best practice around inclusion.
The current Disability Discrimination Act 2002 should also be amended and strengthened, including reversing the onus of proof in alleged acts of discrimination so that people with disability are not expected to prove that discrimination occurred but the alleged perpetrator must prove it did not.
A new national agreement between state and territory governments should be developed to advance equality, inclusion and the rights of people with disability in Australia, the commission recommended.
At the final ceremonial sitting of the commission two weeks ago, the chair, Ronald Sackville, said the abuses exposed by the royal commission demanded an “urgent and comprehensive response from all Australian governments”.
Advocacy by people with disability and disability representative organisations would have a crucial role to play in ensuring the recommendations made by the commission were accepted and implemented, the report said.
The commission has asked the federal, state and territory governments to publish written responses to the final report by 31 March next year.
