Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As deputy chairman of the committee it surprised me, when we commenced this inquiry, to find out that some one in five Australians do in fact suffer from some form of disability. In a democratic and equitable society, it is important that people with a disability are treated as equally as possible with those who do not have a disability. The Disability Discrimination Act was introduced way back in 1992 and over the period it has operated it has benefited greatly people who do have a disability.

However, equity is very much a work in progress. While that act was an enormous step forward and helped to bring about a change of culture and helped to bring about a sense of understanding, particularly on the part of those people who do not have a disability, that those who do have to be treated equally. Even though all of these positive things have occurred as a result of the passage of the Disability Discrimination Act, more needs to be done particularly in the area of access to buildings. That is why I am pleased to participate in this debate on the report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs entitled Access all areas.

The Attorney-General, on behalf of one of his ministerial colleagues, referred to the standing committee the following reference:

Committee is to consider and report on the draft Disability (Access to Premises - Buildings) Standards covering:

• the appropriateness and effectiveness of the proposed Premises Standards in achieving their objects;
• the interaction between the Premises Standards and existing regulatory schemes operating in state and territory jurisdictions, including the appropriateness and effectiveness of the proposed Model Process to Administer Building Access for People with Disability;
• whether the Premises Standards will have an unjustifiable impact on any particular sector or group within a sector; and
• any related matters.

They are fairly broad terms of reference, which did enable the committee to get its teeth into the problem. It encouraged people from around the country to make submissions to the committee so that in our public hearings, which were held in Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, a wide range of people were able to express their views and to clarify what they had put into their written submissions.

I am a great believer that committees should travel to where people are who make submissions to committees. If we are serious about enabling people to convey to committees their actual concerns, sometimes face-to-face contact and sometimes personal evidence given by the people who make submissions can be very effective, particularly, in that it gives the committee the opportunity of cross-examining or perhaps questioning or obtaining clarification on some of the points that have been raised.

The House committee is fortunate that during most of its existence in recent years all of its reports have been unanimous. The report we are discussing, Access all areas, was similarly a unanimous report of the committee. When a committee brings down a report that is unanimous it is infinitely more powerful. Sure, the government has the ability on any committee to ram through a list of recommendations. But if the committee is seen as being partisan and if the recommendations are not broadly supported by all members of the committee then that report does not have the same compelling impact in the Australian community. That is one of the reasons why I am particularly pleased to be part of this committee. The 19 recommendations, which were supported by all members, will certainly assist in improved outcomes in due course for people with a disability.

One of the problems of the Disability Discrimination Act is that, while there were certain provisions put in there as to what sort of access should be given and how people with a disability should be taken into consideration, the onus on actually enforcing the provisions of the act often rests on the shoulders of the disabled person. Given the cost of justice, not only in this community but generally, very few people were prepared to take matters to court, quite understandably. Also, there was a concern that the Building Code of Australia did not interact particularly well with all of the provisions of the Disability Discrimination Act.

The draft Disability (Access to Premises—Buildings) Standards take a new view towards accessing premises. The benefit of these standards is that they actually seek to harmonise the provisions of the Disability Discrimination Act with those of the Building Code of Australia. As the chairman of the committee mentioned in his foreword to the report:

The result will be that access requirements will be applied consistently to new buildings and new building work throughout Australia, and will be enforced through existing and effective State and Territory building approval processes.

This is certainly a step in the right direction. One of the key recommendations of the committee was that the premises standards should be introduced without delay. There was an argument that maybe these standards ought not to be introduced until all outstanding issues had been finalised. However, the committee felt that it was important to implement the standards, and then any outstanding matters could be sorted out subsequently.

When one comes to disability and the provision of access, particularly in relation to buildings, there is of course a cost to the landowner. What one needs to do in the interests of equity is to make sure that disabled people have as equal access as possible while not sending commercial property owners to the wall. This sense of finding the appropriate balance is always a challenge. Everyone recognises that disabled people ought to be given access to buildings and ought to have their disability minimised as much as possible, but obviously there are people out there in society who have a vested commercial interest in avoiding as much as possible the additional costs which inevitably flow from having to provide access to people with a disability.

I consider that the committee got the balance right. We listened to all sides of the argument. The report which we brought down was reasonable and moderate and will, if implemented, greatly assist in improved outcomes for Australians who are unfortunate enough to have a disability. As I said, there are 19 recommendations. I am certainly not going to go through all of them. Some are relatively minor and some are relatively major, but all of them when added together will improve the situation for those Australians with a disability.

The committee secretariat did an outstanding job, as they always do. We are fortunate in this parliament to have committee staff of a very high quality. In fact, I will extend that further and say that the clerks and the other people who administer this place are of an extraordinarily high quality. It means that parliamentarians, when they go about their work both in the chamber and in committees, are able to achieve much more than they could if they were dealing with people of lesser capacity.

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