Governments response to disability royal commission falls short, advocates say
Disability advocates say the federal government's response to the four-year long Disability Royal Commission falls well short of what's needed.
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00:00This is the government's initial response that it's put out this morning.
00:05Now, there are 222 recommendations that the Disability Royal Commission handed down in
00:11its final report.
00:12Let me give you a bit of a breakdown of those figures.
00:14So 172 are recommendations that fall within the federal government's remit and the remit
00:21of both the federal and then the state and territory governments.
00:24So let's talk about those.
00:2613 of them were accepted in full.
00:30Then 117 were accepted in principle.
00:33Now what that means is that the intention and the idea has been accepted.
00:38The way that it will be implemented might be slightly different to the way that the
00:42Royal Commission perhaps recommended or intended.
00:45So obviously further kind of consultation needing to be happening there.
00:49Now some of the things that have been accepted, for example, some small legislative changes,
00:56for example, updating the Australian Disability Strategy.
00:59Now that's a 10-year strategy that basically outlines key indicators of how you kind of
01:05set out measuring performance and outlining, you know, positive indicators for people with
01:11disability across the country.
01:12So an update to that.
01:14When we talk about the recommendations that were accepted in principle, it's an update
01:19to the Disability Discrimination Act.
01:21Now that is something that the disability community itself has been calling for for
01:26a very long time.
01:28It's one that hasn't been updated in more than a decade.
01:31So they're definitely welcoming that in principle acceptance of that and obviously hoping that
01:37that will come to fruition.
01:39And then there are some recommendations that are going to need further consideration as
01:44the government puts it.
01:45So there are things like the phasing out of group homes, which the Royal Commission
01:50recommended should happen within 15 years.
01:53There's going to be further consideration around that.
01:56The phasing out of segregated employment, so what some would call sheltered workshops
02:01where about 20,000 people, for example, with intellectual disability are working in those
02:07earning about $2 to $4 an hour.
02:09So the phasing out of those by 2034 also needs further consideration.
02:15Some people have said it really does fall short and particularly it isn't as comprehensive
02:21or the scale isn't big enough or impactful enough when you think about the scale of the
02:26abuse that is continuing to happen, but also the abuse of the stories that people shared.
02:33So it's just not on par with the scale that we heard.
02:37So then Naz, what happens now?
02:40It'll be really interesting to see what happens now.
02:41I mean, let's acknowledge that this was a huge body of work, 12 volumes, 222 recommendations.
02:48The government has said today that it will provide six monthly sort of progress reports
02:53and that'll be really important because in a sense I guess the community will be very
02:58interested to continue receiving those reports to in a sense keep the government accountable.
03:04That is the way that the community will be able to make sure of what recommendations
03:08are actually being put in place, how they're being put in place, and to ensure most critically
03:13that the voice of the community is at the centre of all of that, but really in the end
03:18what the disability community wants is for violence and abuse to end because it wants
03:23everyone to know that it is not a thing of the past, it is still happening to many people
03:29and this is what the Royal Commission was set up to do, it was to stop that.
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