In April 2017 Disabled People’s Organisations Australia (DPO Australia) welcomed the opportunity to provide a submission to the Senate Community Affairs References Committee inquiry into the delivery of outcomes under the National Disability Strategy 2010-2010 (NDS) to build inclusive and accessible communities. The NDS is the principal national strategic plan, agreed by all Australian governments, to implement the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). DPO Australia believe that The NDS is critical to the realisation of the human rights of people with disability in Australia.
In our submission to the inquiry, DPO Australia made a series of seven recommendations:
- Commit to investment in accessibility initiatives that sustain innovative action and measures at the local government level in order to increase accessibility for people with disability in their local communities.
- Resource a series of targeted working groups with people with disability and their representative organisations to identify concrete measures for inclusion in the NDS to address the barriers to achieving NDS policy outcome area 1, including in relation to the built and natural environment, transport and accessible communications, captioning and audio description.
- Commit to investment and support to the ABC to establish a dedicated disability online portal or programming voice within the ABC, to meet the obligations of the ABC Charter in respect of disability, such as a multi-media news, opinion and podcast portal to build on the work of ABC Ramp Up.
- Commit to regulatory intervention for universal housing design in the National Construction Code in line with the proposal developed by the Australian Network for Universal Housing Design and Rights & Inclusion Australia.
- Establish National Expert Advisory groups made up of cross-sector representatives for each of the review processes of Accessible Public Transport and the Access to Premises Standards to facilitate effective negotiation that leads to enhanced transport and premises access for people with disability.
- Establish a coordination mechanism for monitoring implementation of DSAPT and the Access to Premises Standards, and which is informed by rigorous data and compliance measures, and that can publicly report on progress in achieving the DSAPT and the Access to Premises Standards.
- Engage with State & Territory and Local Government authorities to develop nationally consistent guidelines for disability inclusion action planning.
Download the full submission: