Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Website

Disability Rights update: April 2006

Other recent editions: February 2006; October 2005; August 2005; June 2005; April 2005; March 2005 . Material from older editions is incorporated in HREOC's annual reports available online.

About this update

This Update from Disability Discrimination Commissioner Graeme Innes is a slightly edited version of his regular disability rights project report for meetings of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. It is published as close as possible to Commission meetings, which are generally held 6 to 8 weeks apart. Events are notified first in the What s New section of the Disability Rights home page, so check there if you want to keep fully up to date.

You can subscribe to our email list to be notified when new editions of this update are issued and when other major developments occur, by sending a blank message to join-drupdate@list.humanrights.gov.au

Your comments on any project or issue are welcome, preferably sent by e-mail. Contact us at: disabdis@humanrights.gov.au , or by mail to Disability Rights Unit, Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, GPO Box 5218, Sydney NSW 1042.

Employment Inquiry

The Final Report of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission's National Inquiry into Employment and Disability was tabled by the Attorney-General in Federal Parliament on 14 February 2006. We have been working on means for following up the recommendations of this Inquiry, including continuing the Working groups which we convened involving industry, government and community representatives. I will be meeting with the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations next month to discuss follow up to the Inquiry.

Access to Premises

The Australian Building Codes Board (ABCB) is close to finalising the Regulation Impact Statement on the Board's revised proposal for a draft Premises Standard. The Regulation Impact Statement will be provided to the Attorney General and Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources.

I have continued to hold discussions with Departmental Officers from the ABCB, Department of Industry and Attorney-General's to provide my views on both the development of the revised RIS and a range of issues that were not resolved by the Building Access Policy Committee.

I also met with the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources to discuss concerns raised during the consultation period on the effect the proposed standard might have on small business and regional Australia .

Both the Minister and Attorney General have welcomed the Commissions continued participation in discussions on the development of the draft Premises Standard.

Convention on human rights and disability

I have again appreciated the opportunity to serve as part of the Australian delegation to the negotiations for a new Convention on human rights and disability from January 24 to February 4 in New York . As in previous sessions, working in close cooperation with national human rights institutions and with Australian NGOs has assisted rather than being a source of difficulty in serving the Government's objectives for the delegation. I will report in more detail in person on progress in the negotiations.

Productivity Commission review of the DDA

The Attorney-General's Department have advised that they are hopeful of bringing forward a Bill during the winter session to implement most of the legislative elements of the Government's response to the review of the DDA. The President and I with relevant staff have also had discussions with the Department on progressing the Government's decision to provide additional mechanisms for recognition of co-regulatory arrangements under the DDA.

Mental health issues

In February the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) issued a communiqué recognising the need for leadership and additional resources from all governments to address mental health problems in the Australian community and asking senior officials to prepare a national action plan to be brought forward for its consideration no later than June 2006. I issued a media release welcoming this, noting that community would be watching eagerly to see COAG's discussions translated into specific commitments backed by substantial resources and that it was encouraging to see that Australia's governments were now picking up the same themes which people with a mental illness, their families and other experts in the field had been speaking about for some years.

Several project proposals have been put forward through the NPP process for consideration by Government as part of the process of implementation of the COAG discussions and following from the Not for Service and WorkAbility reports.

Health access

In February I hosted a valuable discussion on the issue of the availability of adjustable height examination couches in General Practices. The meeting involved representatives from the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, the disability sector, Government and the Australian Medical Association.

Participants agreed to collaborate on achieving progress in this area. They agreed to a number of strategies aimed directly at improving the availability of adjustable couches and at providing general practices with more information on the importance of this equipment.

I have requested a meeting with the Minister for Health to discuss this issue and a range of other health access barriers.

Copyright and information access

I have written to the Attorney to recommend that amendments to the Copyright Act to permit the already widespread practices of time shifting and format shifting should apply to copies of materials in accessible formats for people with disabilities.

Accessible Curricular Materials

Despite considerable improvement in recent years in the availability of curricular materials in accessible formats for tertiary students with disabilities, we continue to hear of cases where students with disabilities are being treated less favourably than other students. We hope that the release of the DDA Education Standards last year will promote greater awareness by universities and other tertiary institutions of their obligations to their students with disabilities.

Captioning

I have held meetings with a newly established organisation called Media Access Australia to discuss a range of projects concerning access to media formats such as TV and cinema captioning, audio description of films and DVDs. MAA aims to provide information about media access and to develop and apply technological solutions to media access issues. I expect to undertake a number of projects in collaboration with MAA over the next year.

Telecommunications

On February 28, a forum was held to initiate the process for developing voluntary national guidelines covering the design, installation and siting of payphones. The forum was hosted jointly by the Commission and the Australian Communications Industry Forum (ACIF) and resulted in the formation of a Working Group to draft the guidelines. The Commission is represented on this group. It is anticipated that an initial draft will be released in May, and a final version of the guidelines is expected by September. While not binding on industry, these guidelines should lead to an improvement in the accessibility of payphones in Australia . Despite the rapid takeup of mobile phones, payphones are still an important communications tool, especially for people in rural areas where there is poor mobile coverage, and for people on low incomes. People with disabilities are represented in both groups, and recent reports have highlighted a range of significant barriers to access that currently exist.

Web Accessibility

A meeting was organised in February to consider the implications of the impending release of the Worldwide Web Consortium's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0.

Version 1.0 of these guidelines has been used for a number of years as an international benchmark for the accessibility of the web to people with disabilities, and it is referenced as such by the Commission's Web Accessibility Advisory Notes. Version 2.0 appears to be a significant departure from version 1.0 in terms of content, style and scope, and a number of web accessibility consultants have expressed serious concerns about its likely impact on web accessibility. We are in the process of preparing a submission based on the latest publicly available draft, in which we will discuss the possible regulatory impact of the upcoming version. We hope that by bringing our misgivings to the attention of the development group, there may be time for the most significant ones to be addressed.

Accessible electronic financial services

I recently met with the Australian Bankers' Association (ABA) to discuss a number of issues including accessible security and authentication systems, progress in industry adoption of the ABA standards on accessible electronic banking systems and the value of financial institutions developing Action Plans.

Over the past few years we have developed a productive working relationship with the ABA on a number of projects and I am confident new projects will develop out of this meeting.

Electoral access

I have written to Ministers responsible for electoral matters to recommend that the forthcoming trial of electronic voting include a specific focus on disability access issues, in view of the potential for technology in this area to make possible access to secret ballots for people with disabilities, in particular with a vision impairment, consistent with our human rights obligations.

Exemptions

I will be convening a meeting on 6 April with the Australian Railways Association and the Accessible Public Transport National Advisory Committee to discuss the ARA's amended application for exemptions in relation to the Disability Standards for Accessible Public Transport.

Accessible events guide

Work has been completed on a guide to assist organisations responsible for organising events such as conferences, festivals and workshops. This guide has been developed in collaboration with the industry association Meetings Events Australia (MEA). The guide will be launched at the MEA national conference in late April and will be available through both the MEA and the Commission's websites.

Recent meetings / speeches / media

23 March: Meeting with Vic Advisory Council and EOC (Mr Small)
22 March: Meeting Vic. EOC, Vic Building Commission (Mr Small)
17 March: Meeting with Attorney-General's Department re co-regulation under the DDA (President, Cmr Innes, Mr Mason, Ms Roberts, Ms Toohey, Ms O'Brien)
15 March Meeting with Ben Wallace, Head Disability Program Division, FACS Canberra (Cmr Innes)
15 March: Meeting with ABCB re access to premises (Cmr Innes, Mr Small)
14 March: Meeting Minister Nairn re electoral access (Cmr Innes)
2-3 March: Meetings with NZ Human Rights Commission and NGOs on disability issues (Cmr Innes)
28 February: Meeting ACIF, ACMA re accessible payphones (Cmr Innes, Mr Maguire)
28 February: Telephone interview Australian Doctor magazine re adjustable examination beds (Cmr Innes)
27 February: Meeting with Australian Bankers' Association (Cmr Innes, Mr Small)
23 February: Telephone interview Mal Davis, WarCry Salvation Army magazine
23 February: Interview Disparity magazine re disability issues and Convention
23 February: Telephone interview Link Disability magazine SA
23 February: Workshop on computerised building access checking system (Mr Small)
22 February: Meeting Minister MacFarlane re Disability Standard Access to premises (Cmr Innes, Mr Small)
22 February: Teleconference with Disability Advisory Council Network
22 February: Meeting with NSW Heritage Access Advisory Committee (Mr Small)
20 February: Meetings W.A. EOC and W.A. Minister for Disability Services, Perth (Cmr Innes)
17 February: Telephone interview Radio 6PR Perth Howard Sattler re Qantas policy on wheelchairs
16 February: Telephone interview Macquarie Regional Radio Charles Wooley Across Aust Program re Qantas policy on wheelchairs
15 February: Adjustable Examination Couches in General Practice meeting with representatives from disability community, RACGP, AMA, Rural Doctors Assoc, Cth Dept Health and Dept FACS (Cmr Innes, Mr Small)
9 February: Telephone interview Geoff Shang, Access All Areas

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