National Disability Strategy COAG Working Group
Melbourne 15 January 2010-01-13
Disability Discrimination Commissioner Graeme Innes AM
I, and the Australian Human Rights Commission, strongly welcome the decision to place the development of a National Disability Strategy on the COAG reform agenda. As stated by the Prime Minister last November when he spoke at the National Disability Awards presentation at Parliament House
- People with disability in Australia are too often left without the basic services and equipment they need; denied the chance to work and study or take advantage of opportunities to live their life to its full potential; discriminated against, shut out and isolated;
- And people with disability and their families want Australia to change – they want an Australia which is inclusive, enabling and which provides equality and the opportunity for each person to fulfil their potential .
The goals stated by the Prime Minister, and the obligations accepted by Australia under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to fulfil these goals, require a place on the COAG reform agenda for a national Disability Strategy , because of their national importance and because they cross areas and levels of government.
In many cases, major responsibilities, expertise, and areas of good practice to be shared and generalised, reside within State and Territory government, and I would add local government, rather than within the Commonwealth alone. So there are obvious needs for intergovernmental processes to bring it all together.
Of course, there are already in place major intergovernmental agreements on some specific disability systems and service issues -principally the Commonwealth State and Territory Disability Agreement and the National Mental Health Strategy. A National Disability Strategy based on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities offers opportunities for fresh perspectives on disability systems and services (including the exploration of a national Disability Insurance Scheme).
The importance of a National Disability Strategy and of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, however, is clearly not confined to dedicated disability systems and services.
I welcome the very clear statement by the Prime Minister that improvements are needed not only in disability systems and the areas of government responsible for these, but across the board in mainstream areas such as employment, education, transport, housing, health, communications and more.
Many people, and in particular many lawyers, are using to thinking and talking about human rights as being mainly about law; mainly about telling governments not to do things.
In the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights sixty years ago the great French judge Rene Cassin said ” ... it would be deceiving the peoples of the world to let them think that a legal provision was all that was required ... when in fact an entire social structure had to be transformed”. The Prime Minister's references to a changed Australia , an inclusive and enabling Australia , acknowledge the same challenge - and call on us all in our various roles in Government to measure up.
Australia 's governments – Commonwealth and State – made very big contributions to the development of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. I'm proud that the Australian Human Rights Commission was able to be part of that contribution throughout the process, including being part of the Australian Government delegation in the negotiations.
The Commission has been given some continuing roles in promoting implementation of the Convention, which last year was added to the human rights instruments defining our jurisdiction. So we are very pleased to be involved in this process and look forward to assisting in every way we can.
Implementing the Convention and promoting human rights for people with disability and their families through a National Disability Strategy is full of creative and exciting and challenging positive agendas – on how we can and should work to better the wellbeing of Australia 's people.
The scope of the task is, clearly, very large. Comparisons with relatively small scale, simple and swiftly accomplished tasks like achieving harmonised OH&S regimes, or creating a single national regulatory environment for business, may occur to those familiar with other COAG processes.
However, the very size and scope of the task makes it obvious that neither this nor any single group could be expected to do the whole job. or do it overnight
The Prime Minister has talked about the National Disability Strategy as involving actions over a ten year period. I don't think this means we spend ten years talking about what to do before starting to do anything. I expect all of us want to see decisions which set out approaches which are comprehensive and long term and yet which also aim at and achieve early outcomes on priority issues.
As I understand it, thinking to this point from this group is likewise that that the COAG process should create a framework for development of further component processes.
The submission which the Australian Human Rights Commission put in over a year ago now to the Commonwealth's initial process for consideration of a National Disability Strategy put the view that such a Strategy, while able to contain some immediate measures, will in large part necessarily set a framework for further processes of policy and program development, implementation and monitoring.
We recommended that the National Disability Strategy should include a commitment for each Ministerial Council to develop disability strategies based on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
There may be other approaches available and necessary to achieve the purpose of this recommendation in ensuring cross and intergovernmental disability strategy development and I would urge this group to consider those approaches also.
In making this recommendation we had in mind that most Ministerial Councils also include our New Zealand colleagues who in some areas – such as employment participation strategies and human rights education – may offer lessons for Australian jurisdictions.
We also recommended that the National Disability Strategy should include a commitment from each government for each of its departments and agencies to develop a disability strategy based on the Convention, in relation to
- relevant aspects of each Department and agency's specific responsibilities; and
- elements common to all agencies, including employment practices, accessible premises, accessible service delivery, accessible information and communications, accessible procurement and effective consultation with people with disability.
We also recommended that a National Disability Strategy should include commitments by the Commonwealth and State and Territory Governments to promote and assist in the development and implementation of disability strategies by local government.
The Commission has also sought to emphasise the need for development of better (or in some areas, any) indicators of how we are doing in ensuring enjoyment of human rights for people with disabilities and achieving compliance with our obligations under the Convention and goals and targets for the future.
I know that agreeing on indicators and benchmarks for success are not always easy particularly in Federal-State discussions but I would hope that this COAG process, and related processes on components of the National Disability Strategy, do involve a strong focus on identifying how we will know if and how far we have advanced the goals of achieving an Australia which is inclusive, enabling and which provides equality and the opportunity for each person to fulfil their potential .