Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise on the Disability Discrimination and Other Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2008, and it gives me pleasure to speak on this bill in the House today. This bill proposes to amend a package of antidiscrimination legislation, most importantly the Disability Discrimination Act 1992. In addition, some technical and cosmetic amendments are made—for example, changing the name of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission to the Australian Human Rights Commission.

As was mentioned in the very well written Bills Digest on this subject, the Disability Discrimination Act is part of a package of Commonwealth anti-discrimination laws. The Disability Discrimination Act makes disability discrimination unlawful by aiming to deal with physical and attitudinal barriers that act to directly and indirectly preclude people with disabilities from making optimal use of their knowledge, skills and talents such that they may effectively participate in our communities. It affords people with disabilities the right to substantive equality of opportunity in areas like employment, education and the provision of goods and services.

I would like to quote from the Disability Discrimination Commissioner, Mr Graeme Innes AM, in a speech that he made on the matter of human rights in December last year, particularly his comments about disability and the rights of those with disabilities to participate fully in society. Mr Innes said:

We need a cultural change in Australia when it comes to human rights issues – in the area of disability, and in many other areas. Unfortunately, people with a disability still face enormous hurdles in finding employment. The number of people employed in the Commonwealth public service - for instance - is a national disgrace – it has halved in the last ten years. If government wants to send a message to employers that it’s serious about the issue of employment of people with disability, and the inclusion of people with disability in society, it has to lead by example.

Our culture needs to change. People with a disability still swim in a sea of discrimination. Discrimination is pervasive, not because people are bad, but because our culture is such that when people encounter a person with disability, they still make all sorts of assumptions about what it is that they cannot do, rather than asking about what they can do. There’s a great quote from Rene Cassin, one of the drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, who pointed out during the drafting that 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.

Those are very appropriate remarks in the context of this debate today.

Important though the United Nations human rights declaration and conventions are, I know that to effectively participate in the community as a person with a disability you need to have the community fully accept you. If we look in our own electorates for examples, I think of Aware Industries, in the electorate of Farrer, which is well known and basically on the radar screen of every small business if they need a job done, whether it be checking the faulty cans that come out of the Mars factory pet food line or preparing pastries, danishes and cakes for local caterers, as I saw them doing recently, or just stepping in for a quick printing job when someone else’s machinery has failed. They fulfil an important role in the local community, and the local community supports them. That is the sort of culture that we need, importantly, to encourage.

Australia is a signatory to several international agreements that oblige it to address disability discrimination in good faith, and this means, among other measures, putting in place relevant laws and regulations and monitoring their effectiveness. As part of the former coalition government’s commitment to assessing all existing legislation on the basis of National Competition Policy principles, in early 2003 the Disability Discrimination Act was reviewed by the Productivity Commission. This review was designed to assess whether any restrictions on competition in the Disability Discrimination Act produce benefits that exceed costs and therefore justify the restrictions. Most of the amendments in this bill arise from recommendations by the Productivity Commission.

One of the principal amendments is the creation of a positive duty to make reasonable adjustments for a person with a disability. The test is whether a failure to make such adjustments has or would have the effect that the person with a disability is treated less favourably than a person without disability in circumstances that are not materially different. The proportionality test is to be replaced with a disadvantage test—that is, whether the requirement or condition that is the subject of a complaint is likely to have the effect of disadvantaging people with disability. The burden of proving that a requirement or condition placed upon a person with a disability is reasonable is to be upon the person imposing the requirement.

Amendments to the unjustifiable hardship defence contain additional criteria for the circumstances to be taken into account. These include the availability of financial and other assistance to the person claiming hardship in making adjustments for a person with a disability and the benefits or detriments accruing to the community as a result. The onus of proof lies with the person claiming unjustifiable hardship. There is provision for the minister to formulate disability standards on any matter covered by the Disability Discrimination Act. These standards will prevail over inconsistent state or territory legislation, but the relevant state or territory ministers must be consulted before standards are made.

The defence of inherent requirements is extended so that it is available to employers in most employment situations. This provides that it is not unlawful to discriminate against a person with a disability if he or she would be unable to perform the inherent requirements of the job, even if reasonable adjustments were made. The defence is not available if the employer denies the person access to opportunities for promotion, transfer and training or to access any other benefits associated with the employment. I note comment in the Australian Financial Review today in an article entitled ‘Disability law reforms likely to outrage’ under Steven Scott’s by-line. The article refers to this bill and discusses some of the changes in brief and how they may affect employers. It makes reference to the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which has warned that changes could force employers to accommodate the needs of staff whose disabilities they may not know about. It is said that vague definitions of disability may be contained in this legislation when it is finalised which could see people with drug, gambling or pornography addictions protected from discrimination at work. The Chamber of Commerce wants these types of problems explicitly excluded from the definition of disability.

Importantly, this legislation has been referred to a Senate committee and it is very important that we as a parliament stand in support of the right of those with disabilities to participate fully in employment in our society. Given that the vast majority of the amendments that we are discussing do stem from changes made and instigated by the previous government, I feel that a very strong commitment will be there.

The Bills Digest explains that the bill clarifies that discrimination against a person on the basis of any of that person’s associates’ disability or due to a person possessing or being accompanied by an aid or assistant animal, such as a guide dog, interpreter, reader, assistant or carer, is equivalent to discrimination on the basis of that person’s disability. That amendment came in response to the decision of the full Federal Court in Forest v Queensland health. In that case, Mr Forest, who suffers from a mental illness, had a trained dog that accompanied him in public. He was refused entry to the Cairns Base Hospital and, on subsequent occasions, to a community centre with his dog. He lodged a discrimination complaint under the Disability Discrimination Act. The question for the court was whether Mr Forest’s dog was a guide dog, a hearing assistance dog or a trained animal under section 9 of the Disability Discrimination Act.

At first glance the Federal Court determined that Mr Forest did have a disability within the meaning of the act and the complaint of indirect discrimination was made out. It was found that it was unreasonable for the hospital and the community health centre to use their own discretion in this instance. Discrimination under section 9 of the act was also established as Mr Forest’s dog was not ill-behaved and was clearly trained to alleviate the effects of his owner’s disability. The state of Queensland appealed the decision and the full Federal Court reversed the decision on the grounds that for discrimination to be established it was insufficient for the less favourable treatment to be on the grounds that Mr Forest was accompanied by an assistance animal. What this means is that the law as it then stood was not looking after the interests of a person with a disability such as this gentleman’s in that situation and may have been applied to others with disabilities. So the amendment that corrects that decision has been, I understand, widely welcomed and of course we in the coalition support it.

In conclusion, this bill was referred to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee on 4 December 2008 for inquiry and report by 24 February 2009. The coalition supports the intention of the legislation, which is to help reduce discrimination for people with disability in the workplace. There are some aspects of detail upon which the Senate committee will report, and a final decision will be made once that report has been considered.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to be speaking on the Disability Discrimination and Other Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 today. It is fair to say that in Australia, the prejudice faced by people with disability is entrenched, systemic and subtle. It is experienced by people with disability every day, and it shapes all of their experiences and interactions with the wider world. To the difficulty in walking or seeing or speaking is added the treatment that they suffer and the discrimination they receive when others in our community might dismiss or ignore them, be it on a bus, in a workplace, in a job interview, in a shop or in a school. Some Australians with disability and impairment are made to know by other Australians that they wish they had never been born. I have spoken to mothers with two disabled children who have had unknown strangers speak to them in shopping centres and say, ‘Why did you have a second child?’

Australians are not malicious as a rule. But when it comes to impairment and disability, all too often there is unfortunately still in Australia a two-class society. It is not good and it is not appropriate that some Australians with impairment are still commonly treated in what can only be described as an unAustralian way. Impairment is a fact of life. You can acquire it through birth, through the blink of an eye in a motor car accident, in a workplace or indeed just through the passage of age. What, however, disables people with impairment are the attitudes within the community at large which focus solely upon a person’s impairment and not upon a person’s ability. I believe, and the Rudd government believes, that this sits badly in our democracy and that it sits badly with our culture of mateship and with our history of neighbourhood communion and kindliness that some people are still treated this way. I do not think it is too much to ask that people with an impairment be given a fair go.

This is modest legislation which we are debating today, but I believe it is another step towards normal human decency that we should go this far at least. Like all prejudice, prejudice against people with an impairment is born of ignorance and a lack of empathy with the experiences of others. It can come in the form of attitudes ranging from the patronising to the hostile. People with impairments continually have to deal with systems that have been designed without a thought for people who might have a physical or intellectual impairment or, indeed, a mental illness.

People with impairment know the frustration of living with barriers which, in the case of many of them, could be minimised or avoided with just a little expense and a small amount of thought and flexibility. Imagine if because of my skin colour, or if because of my gender I was refused entry on a bus, or refused a job, or refused entry to a school or university, or if I were refused the ability to own my own house. There would be an appropriate hue and cry in the nation. Yet all too often Australians with impairment suffer worse outcomes than other Australians because of their impairment.

As I have said, it is not the disability or the impairment of the person that is the problem; it is the neglect and the belief of too many in our society that disability is a bottomless hole that can never be fixed, and that no matter what you do you cannot solve the problems of those with impairment. I recognise that some impairments will not be fixed, but I do strongly believe that the barriers put up by the attitudes of others can all be removed. It is true that there have been improvements in attitudes over recent years. But people with disability are routinely treated in ways which no other group in the community would be expected to tolerate.

The Disability Discrimination Act came into effect in 1992. It was the first piece of federal legislation that made it illegal to discriminate against people with disability. It is amazing to think that fewer than 20 years ago people with disability in some parts of our Commonwealth had no legal protection against prejudice and discrimination. The cases which the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission see every day reflect this: the woman who was refused a job as a telemarketer because she was blind in one eye, the man in a wheelchair who was told that he could not board a flight, the many people who have not been allowed to bring assistance animals into buildings. All of these people had to fend for themselves, pushing alone against the immovable barriers of ignorance and prejudice.

Today we are debating necessary improvements to that landmark piece of legislation. This bill will clarify and improve the operation of the Disability Discrimination Act and other human rights laws. It will enhance the protection offered to Australians with disability. It will ensure that where it is possible to make reasonable adjustments to accommodate people with disability, these adjustments will be made. This bill recognises that for people with disability to be fully included in society there will need to be positive changes made to accommodate them. People with an impairment should not be made to beg or complain or fight for these changes on their own. They should be provided to them as a right, because they are Australian. The bill will also clarify that discrimination on the basis of the disability of a person’s associates is illegal, as is discrimination on the basis of a person having a carer, an assistant, an assistance animal or a disability aid.

The bill will also bring the act up to date with scientific advances by making it clear that discrimination on the basis of a person’s genetic predisposition to impairment is unlawful. It will help enforce what we believe and what the Attorney-General believes are reasonable measures. This is an important part of the Rudd government’s ongoing commitment to enhancing the rights of people with disability and pursuing our goal of greater social inclusion.

The Disability Discrimination Act was reviewed by the Productivity Commission in 2004. The review was a rational, economic view of the legislation. The review found that the act had produced net benefits for the Australian community. The Productivity Commission also found that the objectives of the Disability Discrimination Act can only be met by legislation. We believe that non-regulatory approaches can complement the operation of the act, but they can never be a substitute for regulation protecting the rights of all. Australians with disability look to this parliament for leadership on this issue, and that is what we are delivering.

A major battleground in the area of disability rights is, of course, the workplace. It is shameful that employment rates for people with disability in our nation are still at around 50 per cent, compared with a much higher percentage for the rest of the Australian population. What has been going on in the long years of the economic boom, which have come to a recent close, that, whilst most Australians have increased their prosperity, all of the indicators of fairness and a just life for people with disability have been going in the opposite direction? These are ugly numbers which reflect poorly on the nation.

People with disability want the same opportunities for fulfilling and productive work as the rest of the population. People in this nation deserve to have a chance to contribute and to be useful regardless of impairment. If we can make just some adjustments to help this happen then all of us benefit. We need to create an understanding that employing people with disability is not a burden; it is not an act of charity; it is not too hard. In fact, it is a solution which provides dignity and benefits for all.

Unfortunately, there are some employers whose attitudes towards people with disability are mired in the past. The disappointing comments from the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, reported on page 4 of today’s Australian Financial Review are typical, I believe, of outmoded attitudes—attitudes which, I suggest, cloak unthinking prejudice and a layer of economic rationality. The comments focus solely on the perceived negatives of this bill. They allege it will have a negative effect on businesses, which will be forced to make adjustments to accommodate the needs of staff with disability. How outrageous that businesses should be forced to try to enjoy the benefits and the fruits of the whole diversity of the Australian workforce. I am sure that the same arguments were made against putting in toilets for women in workplaces or for the idea that people of colour could not work for the same wages as the rest of the Australian workforce. This is the category of comment to which those comments by the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry belong.

This legislation does protect the rights of employers. It clarifies that no employer will be required to undergo unjustifiable hardship to meet the needs of a person with disability. Imagine: Leo who cannot hear, Frank who is in a wheelchair, Stephen who has a communication difficulty—is it unjustifiable hardship to employ these people? Imagine if we did not have Ludwig van Beethoven, who could not hear; Stephen Hawking, the great scientist and physicist; Franklin Roosevelt, who was in a wheelchair. It is true, unfortunately, that in Australia some people when they go for a job interview with these impairments would not get past the interview selection process. How many Beethovens, Roosevelts and Hawkings are we missing out on in this nation because of the inability to move beyond looking at someone’s impairment to the whole person?

The attitude typified by the comments attributed by the media to the ACCI is outdated, antiquated, moth-eaten and fusty. The attitude of immediately thinking about the potential problems of hiring people with disability, rather than thinking of what they, with all their skills and experience, can contribute to a business, is the biggest barrier that people with disability face. The Human Rights Commission says that some employers cite an increased risk of worker compensation claims as a major barrier to employing people with disability—another straw man argument, a fig leaf to prejudice rather than an argument based on evidence. There is no evidence available to support this allegation. Similarly, the cost of work based accommodation is sometimes mentioned as a deal breaker in employing a person with disability. This is despite evidence from the United States suggesting that most modifications cost under $500.

Employers who have employed people with disability—and there are many, from small to large business—tell me that people with disabilities tend to remain longer in the same job and have fewer injuries at work than those without disability. Some people at the ACCI should get out and talk to their members who have made efforts to hire people with disability—and I know that there are efforts within that organisation to promote the employment of people with disability. That is why I was even more surprised by the comments reported today. I do believe that when you are an industry leader, be it in a trade union or as an employer, you have an obligation to lead, not to discourage. Furthermore, there was speculation, a vague spectre, that passing this bill would ensure that people with a drug, gambling or pornography addiction could be classified as disabled under this legislation. These claims are irresponsible, scaremongering and factually wrong. This is insulting to thousands of Australians with serious disabilities who will have their rights safeguarded by this bill.

It has been said that there is no clear policy rationale to introduce these changes in a possible recessionary period. Since when have basic civil rights been based on the performance of the ASX or the Dow Jones? Using the global financial crisis as an excuse to deny fundamental rights to Australians with disability is simply prejudice disguised as reactionary economics. And there should be no way that we should be asking people with disability to take a backward step in their pursuit of equal rights or to continue to be at the back of the queue. If we did that, and if we do not push through with this bill, we might as well just admit that we consider people with disability to be second-class citizens.

The bill we are debating today is supported by the Productivity Commission, the Australian Law Reform Commission and parliamentary committee recommendations. The opposition signed up to the vast bulk of the recommendations when in government but unfortunately never had time to implement them. Indeed this bill is supported by the many businesses represented by the Australian Employers Network on Disability. I think some of the dissenters, as reported today in the media, should talk to any of the 86 members of the Australian Employers Network on Disability, companies that have already made a commitment to creating a level playing field and to drawing on the skills and talents of people with disability in the workforce. They include companies such as IBM, Woolworths, the National Australia Bank, Qantas, Telstra and KPMG. They have not found barriers. They have taken steps to employ more people with disability and to provide valuable work experience for young people with disability. Woolworths have employed an extra 287 people with disabilities since 2005, thanks to a very, very constructive partnership with that outstanding organisation Disability WORKS Australia. NAB employed an extra hundred people and was the first Australian company to lodge a disability action plan with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.

This bill is one that benefits us all both in an economic sense and by enriching our society by helping unlock the potential of people with disability. In the long term the challenge of Australia’s ageing population can only be met by ensuring that the human potential of Australia is used to its full. We are a very small nation of the world, and we are not a nation that can afford to avoid, and to discriminate against, a vast pool of talent, which is people with impairment. We need to be employing and engaging older Australians, people with disability and Australians from non-English-speaking backgrounds.

This bill also contains safeguards to protect people from discrimination on the grounds of age. These provisions, which simply bring age discrimination laws in line with other discrimination laws, have also been questioned by some. However, policies to boost the number of people with disability in the workforce are long overdue. This legislation is needed to spearhead a cultural change in the way that businesses view people with disability. I am saddened and a little embarrassed to report that the number of people with disability employed by the Australian Public Service has declined over the last 10 years. This is not a failure on the part of people with disability; it is a failure of leadership, one which this government is determined to reverse.

This bill reaffirms the Rudd government’s commitment to upholding and strengthening the rights of people with disability. It reaffirms our belief that our community has a duty to take the reasonable steps that are required to deliver equal access to people with disability. Let us be very clear today: this bill does not solve all the entrenched discrimination and second-class status which Australians with impairment undergo every day. The fact that Australians with impairment cannot shop in the same shops as other people because the shops are not designed to allow access, and the fact that Australians with impairment do not enjoy comparable levels of home ownership, comparable levels of access to tertiary education and the same level of income security and job employment as other Australians is a disgrace.

This bill is an attempt to rectify some of these wrongs, but it is fair to say, I believe, that discrimination against people with disability is one of the last frontiers of long overdue civil rights reform in Australia. Civil rights do not finish with legislation but they are certainly helped by legislation. For too long the voice of people with impairment has been one which has been shoved to the bottom of political priority. Indeed, we in this government have an opportunity in this parliament, through this bill and through other measures, to increase and provide equal treatment for people with disability.

It is not correct to say that this nation is too poor to afford the solutions which provide lifetime and lifelong care for people with disability. It is not correct to say that the issues of impairment are insoluble. It is not correct to say that we cannot find early intervention to assist each child born with impairment to try to get the best they can out of the education system. It is not correct to say that this country cannot afford the correct and fairest educational outcomes. These problems have been a long time in the making and they are not easily solved. But why is it that when it comes to disability we say that we can cover a percentage of the need but not the whole need? In other areas of endeavour, of social justice, fairness and equality in Australia, we have formed the view that we can solve problems. When it comes to disability we say, ‘Mmm, it’s a bit hard.’ We adopt the metaphorical attitude of kicking a stone around with the toe of our boot. We shrug our shoulders and say, ‘I don’t know how the carers and families do it; I don’t know how those marvellous para-Olympians do it, but really, they have their problems and we can’t solve them.’

This bill is, in a minor way and in a modest way, recognition that we can in fact provide equal treatment in this nation. This nation cannot claim to be a fair society when we have so many Australians excluded from participating equally in it. I believe that it is not up to people with impairment to demand the rights to which they are due; it is up to the rest of us to demand on behalf of people with impairment, and their families and carers, the rights which they are due. This proposed legislation does go some of the way. To quote Martin Luther King:

Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

We may not be able to immediately change people’s negative attitudes to disability but we can ensure that people with a disability are given the opportunity to achieve their potential and be included in society. Access and fair treatment at work are fundamental sources of dignity and identity for people. By helping achieve them, I believe that we can start the process of changing attitudes in the long term and ensuring that people with a disability are at the centre of our society, not consigned to the margins. I commend the bill to the House.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In addressing the Disability Discrimination and Other Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 I want to begin with the words of the Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children’s Services. He spoke fine words, powerful words, words with which I do not disagree, but words to which I shall hold him accountable. I say this to the member for Maribyrnong, the Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children’s Services: you are right when you talk about the need for independence for those with disabilities, whether physical or mental, whether in terms of the impairment of eyesight or other elements, but that power is in part within your gift. When the parliamentary secretary says, ‘Those with disabilities should not have to do all the work for themselves,’ he is again right, but it is my task now to say to him that we have a challenge with real people on the Mornington Peninsula which has been with him for over a year, and I want to use this bill to address a serious issue of denial of support and assistance for those with disabilities on the Mornington Peninsula.

The Frankston-Peninsula Carers Inc. of Mornington Peninsula put forward a plan for supported accommodation in Hastings. It is for people with intellectual disabilities, whether inherent or acquired, who are seeking the simple proposition of independent but supported living. That proposal was announced and supported by the previous government. I would ask that the parliamentary secretary take note of this. It has been with him for over a year, and all his words are fine words, but he alone is the person with the ability to turn those words into action and, for all those words, we have not had a response, we have not had an answer and we have not had a result. So it is a fine thing to stand before the dispatch box in this House and say how much one cares, but when you have the power, the authority, the legislative ability, the financial capacity and the moral purpose but you do not deal with that issue—and despite having made such a fine speech—then there are simple questions. Somebody has to stand up for people such as Beryl and David Gibb, Karl Hill, Don Hodgins and those who are members of and working with the Frankston-Peninsula Carers Inc. That group is seeking to establish a form of supported accommodation, was on the cusp of achieving that prior to the election and was dumbfounded after the election to find that the responsibility had been transferred to the state—and the state has said it is a federal responsibility, such that nobody is responsible.

My message, very simply, gives a short, brief response to this bill, which is that for all the words spoken by the government’s representative—all fine, all sustainable, all real, all important—make them reality by really taking the time to bring this one centre into being. We had a plan, a proposal—a program—but it was taken away after the election. So, for those carers who are elderly, who are concerned about their own ability to care for adults with intellectual disability and who want to give their children both the security and the independence of supported accommodation, this bill is the moment—this bill is the opportunity. If the parliamentary secretary’s words are to mean anything, I would ask him to remember the conversation we had in his office, I would ask him to do more than smile and say, ‘Yes, I’ll do something, mate,’ and I would ask him to actually deliver a result. We had a program, a proposal and something that was about to be achieved, and the parents who have lived for 20 and 30 years, sometimes 40 years, taking care of children on the Mornington Peninsula just want to give their kids independence and a way forward.

So I support this bill. It is a fine bill. It is drawn in large part from the Productivity Commission’s 2004 Review of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992. I am not going to take issue or engage on the detail; the bill captures what is necessary. But if the parliamentary secretary, who is somebody whom I respect, means the words he said today, he will help find a solution and not just claim that it is a state responsibility, because the states claim that he is responsible for the parents and the children who have now become adults with a disability on the Mornington Peninsula. There is one test, one outcome. Make this bill a reality, Parliamentary Secretary, by giving the Frankston-Peninsula Carers Inc. a solution for their supported accommodation in Hastings.

Jodie Campbell (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in support of what on the surface might sound like a dry, legalistic piece of legislation but which, at its heart, is designed to fundamentally improve the functioning of the Disability Discrimination Act. The Disability Discrimination and Other Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 implements the key recommendations of the Productivity Commission’s 2004 review. In particular, it makes it clear that there is a general duty to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ for people with a disability. In my home state of Tasmania this is particularly relevant. Tasmania has one of the highest levels of expressed rates of disability in the country. It is in the vicinity of 23 per cent—that is, around 100,000 people. The 2003 Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers found that around 23.5 per cent of Tasmanians reported some form of disability. Disability was defined as any ‘limitation, restriction or impairment which has lasted, or is likely to last, for at least six months and which restricts everyday activities.’ Examples ranged from hearing loss requiring the use of a hearing aid or difficulty dressing due to arthritis, through to advanced dementia requiring constant help and supervision. There was little difference in the percentage of males and females with a disability—around 23.2 per cent and 23.8 per cent respectively. Approximately 18.9 per cent of males and 21.6 per cent of females in the 2003 survey reported having a core activity limitation—including communication, mobility and self-care—and/or a schooling or employment limitation. Surely, the very least that we, as a society, can offer them is that we ensure ‘reasonable adjustments’ are made to accommodate their disability.

As I said, on the surface this seems to be a legalistic and semantic piece of legislation. I will, if I may, spell out for the House exactly what this legislation will do. It will make explicit the general duty to make reasonable adjustments, excluding adjustments that would cause unjustifiable hardship. It extends the defence of unjustifiable hardship to all unlawful discrimination in the Disability Discrimination Act, except harassment and victimisation, and it will extend the defence of inherent requirements to all employment situations, except where it would be meaningless or inappropriate, and clarify matters to be considered when determining unjustifiable hardship. This legislation will clarify that ‘disability’ includes a genetic predisposition to a disability and that it includes behaviour that is a symptom or manifestation of a disability. This is consistent with the High Court’s Purvis decision of 2003.

This legislation amends the definition of indirect discrimination to remove the proportionality test, placing on a respondent the onus of showing a requirement is reasonable, and include incidences of proposed indirect discrimination. It will ensure that the ‘special measures’ and Migration Act 1958 exemptions from the Disability Discrimination Act do not exempt general actions that are incidental to those measures. It allows disability standards to be formulated in relation to any area in which it is unlawful to discriminate under the Disability Discrimination Act and for a standard to set out the extent to which it can override state and territory laws on the same topic. It clarifies that discrimination on the basis of a disability of any of a person’s associates, as well as discrimination on the basis of having a carer, assistant, assistance animal or disability aid, is discrimination on the basis of disability—overcoming the Forest decision of the Federal Court. It will improve the recognition of assistance animals, clarify the obligations of potential discriminators and people with assistance animals and extend the public health exemption in the Disability Discrimination Act to diseases of assistance animals.

This legislation also applies to the Age Discrimination Act 2004 and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act 1986. Regarding the former, this legislation removes the dominant purpose test so that, if an act is done for two or more reasons and one of those reasons is the age of the person, the age of the person will no longer need to be the dominant or substantial reason for that act to be found to be discriminatory; regarding the latter, it changes the name of the commission to the Australian Human Rights Commission. It also extends the period within which a person can take a terminated complaint to the Federal Court or Federal Magistrates Court from 28 days to 60 days and enhances the commission’s ability to handle complaints efficiently and effectively by giving powers to the president to finalise complaints that have been settled.

Make no mistake, for those people to whom these acts apply these changes have been a long time coming, and they greatly improve the operation of the Disability Discrimination Act and other human rights laws. It does this, as I said, by implementing the recommendations from, among other reports, the Productivity Commission’s 2004 report. It also clarifies aspects of the Disability Discrimination Act which have been in doubt due to court decisions. It improves the complaint-handling process for the commission and forms an integral part of the Rudd government’s commitment to enhancing the rights of people with a disability. It will assist in the pursuit of our goal of enhancing greater social inclusion.

With that focus on social inclusion in mind, I will host a social inclusion forum next month in my electorate of Bass. I am grateful for the opportunity to do so alongside Senator Ursula Stephens. I note the Senator’s commitment, drive and passion and commend her work in the duel roles of Parliamentary Secretary for Social Inclusion and the Voluntary Sector and Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Prime Minister for Social Inclusion. It is in these capacities that Senator Stephens will visit Tasmania next month, and I look forward to facilitating an ongoing dialogue between the Rudd government and key stakeholders across a range of sectors in Bass. These sectors include disability services, migrant support services, counselling and trauma support services, to name a few. All these groups are critical to a functioning and inclusive community. They provide the services and support to reduce the marginalisation of the most vulnerable in our society. I take this opportunity to commend the work carried out by these groups and individuals across northern Tasmania.

I have spoken in this House before about the unique opportunities afforded me by the privileged position I hold and about the amazing people with whom I come into contact in my capacity as the member for Bass. Prior to Christmas, I had the wonderful joy of visiting the Adult Day Support Service at Rocherlea. The staff, including Tony Crothers, Belinda Ferrier and Eleanor Kramer, provide amazing support and care for around 90 participants from the greater Launceston region. Gail O’Conner and Liz Scholes opened their pottery and craft workshop to me, and Mark Lynch and Michael Stott were kind enough to share with me their music. They are tireless in their commitment and they give not only their time and expertise but their love to those in their care.

Their work is supported in the wider community by people like Kev Smith. Kev runs an outfit called Kev’s Tricycle Hire and provides hours of untold joy. To talk with Kev is to understand some of the compassion which is evident across Bass and northern Tasmania. Kev’s bicycles are specially designed to allow those people who would otherwise never ride a bike to enjoy the freedom which comes from feeling the wind in your face. Those who have used his service tell stories of families uniting in a pastime which was previously unavailable to them—and let me tell you: it is an absolute joy to watch. These are the kinds of people, I am proud to say, who call northern Tasmania home.

As a government, we are committed to supporting their work through the steps we have taken to reform and improve the lives of people with disabilities, including the development of a national disability strategy and the ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Both the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, the Hon. Jenny Macklin, and the Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children’s Services, the Hon. Bill Shorten, have visited my electorate of Bass. Those whom they met on those visits know them to be absolutely committed to their portfolios. They also know them to be honest about the task they face in fundamentally improving the lives of those with disabilities. The Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children’s Services heard firsthand, at a forum I held in Launceston last year, from key stakeholders and people who have a form of disability. I thank them both for their commitment to Bass and to northern Tasmania and I look forward to working with them in the future, as this government continues with its agenda of social inclusion and a greater focus on the values which underpin a humane and decent society.

How we treat our elderly, how we raise our children and how we show compassion and commitment to those people with disabilities says a great deal about us as people and about our society. The Disability Discrimination and Other Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 implements recommended changes and improves various aspects of the Disability Discrimination Act, and I am proud to commend it to the House.

Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The members opposite are to be commended for embracing the spirit of the Howard government and adhering to its principle of ensuring a fair go for all Australians. But I hope those opposite will not become too complacent about what may appear to be praise, because it is only in the key principles that they have succeeded. In the detail, their efforts rank as a failure, as in just about every other matter that they turn their hands to. Just as Medusa could turn men to stone, so the Rudd administration turn matters of government to farce. Their bungling work would be comical if it were not so damaging.

In the case of the bill before us today, the Disability Discrimination and Other Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2008, giving all a fair go means ensuring fair treatment of the disabled in our society. Many of the elements of this bill are long overdue. Indeed, the Howard government had agreed to several aspects of the bill. The fact that the government have been in office for more than a year and still have not dealt with this matter reflects their true feelings on helping the less fortunate in our society.

The bill explicitly spells out for the first time that all of us must make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to cater for people with disabilities. Of course, the definition of what is reasonable is open to interpretation, though I hope that common sense would prevail. It would seem reasonable, for example, to expect a large public building—perhaps one such as this—to cater for the disabled by providing ramps and special toilet facilities. However, it would be unreasonable to expect the same of my local fish and chip shop. And this is where the cracks first appear in the bill before us. There is no indication of what might constitute a ‘reasonable adjustment’. Imagine an aggrieved person in a wheelchair, in concert with—to put it mildly—overzealous legal practitioners who seek to push the boundaries of reason and common sense well past breaking point. The person might claim it is unreasonable that he or she cannot get over the steps to the fish and chip shop or that a toilet for the disabled is not provided should he or she need one while waiting for food—in the event that they overcome the first obstacle. Of course, such a scenario seems ridiculous. But the government has done nothing to deliver clarity on this issue, and it is the very nature of the litigation industry to exploit such holes.

Even more disturbing is the shifting of the burden of proof in this bill. Our entire legal system is based on the applicant having to prove their case against the respondent. Certainly, in civil law there is a lesser burden of proof than in criminal matters, but the burden of proof still resides with the first party. The government, in this amateurish pamphlet it would have become law, has turned that system on its head. It wants the burden of proof to be on the respondent, who would have to demonstrate that any given adjustment was ‘unreasonable’. The bill does make provision for a defence that making some adjustments would cause ‘unjustifiable hardship’ but, again, it fails to indicate what might or might not be an acceptable level of suffering for a respondent.

The Attorney-General, in a document purporting to explain this bill, says:

… unjustifiable hardship includes consideration of the costs and benefits to all persons, expanding the criteria to include availability of financial and other assistance …

He goes on to say:

… all the relevant circumstances of the particular case must be taken into account, including ‘the nature of the benefit or detriment likely to accrue or be suffered by any persons concerned’. Relevant case law has interpreted ‘any persons concerned’ as extending beyond the immediate parties to the dispute … This item inserts an example at the end of the section to clarify that the nature of the benefit or detriment likely to accrue or be suffered by the community is one of the factors to be taken into account …

That is a lot of words which ultimately tell us nothing, other than ‘unjustifiable hardship’ can mean whatever someone wants it to mean, even if they are not involved in the case at all. The bandying around of such undefined terms in this context does a disservice to the disabled and so to society at large.

Here is another wild application of generality in this element of the bill. It is supposedly intended to guarantee that a disabled person is not treated differently from others in circumstances which are not materially different. The document goes on to say that the fact a disabled person requires additional facilities, equipment or services does not qualify as making their situation ‘materially different’ from that of others. So, presumably, by this measure my fish and chip shop would be obliged to install ramps and a toilet for the disabled. Why shouldn’t the complainant have to prove that their demand is reasonable? How can we, on one hand, treat the disabled as equals but, on the other hand, say that they must be treated differently? I absolutely endorse the principle that the disabled should be treated as equals wherever possible, and that qualification is not intended to give wriggling room for discrimination. It is simply to acknowledge the reality that disabilities do necessarily preclude participation in certain situations. For example, I do not want a blind pilot in the cockpit when I fly back to Perth later this week. I do not want a child or a truck driver at the controls, either, because they would also be unable to fly the plane as required. I support the rights of the disabled and agree with many disabled people of my acquaintance that they should be judged and treated first as humans and should live according to what they can do, not what they cannot.

It is patronising in the extreme to suggest they be granted special privilege because of their disabilities. This concept is offensive to most disabled people, who have perhaps learnt more than most of the rest of us to deal with their handicaps and make the most of their attributes. As Helen Keller said:

I thank God for my handicaps, for through them I have found myself, my work, and my God.

Helen Keller was blind and deaf. The wording of this bill marks yet another slip on the long slide towards a hellish world where ridiculous political correctness—a trait ingrained in many members opposite—reigns supreme.

Another sign of this descent into madness can be found further into the bill, with an amendment to reduce the exemption from the Disability Discrimination Act in immigration matters. When in government we opposed this measure, not because of any wish to discriminate against the disabled, but simply to protect the interests of Australia and its citizens. That is what a government is supposed to do. Members opposite were in opposition so long that maybe they have forgotten that. At the time the issue was raised, we said:

… the existing exemption set out in section 52 of the DDA is necessary and appropriate.

While Australia’s immigration laws do not exclude persons with disabilities from visiting or migrating to Australia, they do contain health requirements that must be satisfied. The health requirements include that the person does not have a disease or condition that would be likely to result in a significant cost to the Australian community in health care or community services; or prejudice the access of Australian citizens or permanent residents to such services.

You would think that this would be a perfectly reasonable stance to take. But, no, not in this bill and not for the government. The government would rather damage the national interest than be accused of being un-PC by their chardonnay-sipping amateur socialist mates. This amendment relating to discrimination, like most of this bill, also lacks specifics and is wide open to interpretation, and that is a problem which could come to haunt us all.

The Department of Immigration and Citizenship specifically asked to be involved in any attempt to amend this section of the Disability Discrimination Act, stressing that particular care must be taken in separating the criteria and decision making for Australian entry and migration visa categories from general administrative actions because of the overlap between the two. Of course, this particular amendment is a knee-jerk response to the government being left red-faced last year when Dr Bernard Moeller’s application for permanent residency was refused because he had a son with Down syndrome and that was expected to incur a significant cost to Australia. When we were in government, we did not flip and flop according to the headlines of the day. There was no need to, because we never made a mess of things, which the present government does. We stood firmly behind the health requirements for issuing visas, but we also recognised genuine, compassionate grounds such as family ties and granted waivers where appropriate.

One element of the bill which has been sensibly carried over from the Howard government is extending exemption from the provisions of the Disability Discrimination Act to employers, under the defence of ‘inherent requirements’, if employees are unable to perform the inherent requirements of the job, even after reasonable adjustments have been made. This defence is not available in cases where a disabled person is denied access to opportunities for promotion, transfer, training or any other employment benefits. Of course, these exemptions are quite rightly geared to protect disabled people who are already employed. There is no such protection for an employee who becomes unable to meet the requirements of their job, including by becoming disabled, and they could be dismissed or have their terms and conditions of employment changed as a result. And here, not surprisingly, the ugly bedmate of affirmative action raises its grotesque head.

Discrimination which is intended to confer some advantage on disabled people is acceptable, according to the explanatory memorandum, as long as it is ‘necessary to implement the measure for the benefit of the person with the disability’. This is the same disastrous approach the ALP has taken in dealing with other sections of society, most notably with Indigenous people and with women, and it continues to belittle and make automatic victims of the target group and offend the wider community. I reiterate: if you start giving advantages to one particular group regardless of individual circumstance, you are not treating them as equals but as helpless children.

Today’s bill reveals further contradictions, not least in the area of genetic material. The government wants to change the definition of ‘disability’ to include genetic predispositions to disabilities as well as ‘behaviour that is a symptom or manifestation of the disability’. So you are now disabled if you have a family history of certain conditions. At the same time, the government wants to bar employers from ‘requesting or requiring genetic information from a job applicant or employee, except where the information is reasonably required for purposes that do not involve unlawful discrimination’. Yet again, what is ‘reasonable’? This measure seems particularly short-sighted given the vast strides made in recent years in genetic research—progress which can be expected to continue in future. A key component of this research is identification of specific genetic traits, including those which indicate predisposition to certain conditions. Under the definition in this bill, this research could render many of us disabled even though we show absolutely no symptoms at all. All of this politically correct hype is at best an irritant to society and at worst potentially explosive.

Like most of us in this House, I meet a wide range of people every day. They come from all walks of life and all sorts of backgrounds. But I see them all as Australians. I do not see them as Indigenous Australians, Asian Australians, deaf Australians, Christian Australians, female Australians or vegetarian Australians. They are all simply Australians—many, if not all, of whom have characteristics which some would have us say distinguish them as members of certain groups within the wider community. To me, that is not only irrelevant but divisive and possibly dangerous. It is what we have in common, our way of life, our values and our aspirations, which are important, not the differences that are between us. The differences add colour to the mix but are not key factors at the end of the day.

The members opposite, however, prefer to emphasise the differences between us. Perhaps they should listen to their ideological American cousin, Jesse Jackson, who said:

The white, the Hispanic, the black, the Arab, the Jew, the woman, the Native American, the small farmer, the businessperson, the environmentalist, the peace activist, the young, the old, the lesbian, the gay and the disabled make up the American quilt.

The same could be said of Australia. The sophistry of the government’s approach to equal opportunity has fostered an unjust system where people are no longer allowed to speak truths and where discrimination has been given state endorsement, so long as it is of the affirmative action variety. While there are many things to admire about the United States, the rise of political correctness is not one of them. The Urban Dictionary, a forthright online reference originating from that country, defines ‘politically correct’ thus:

The laws of moral and ethical relativism; all systems of cultures and thought are equal in value, steming from a perceived guilt from white liberals who believe that the Western Civilization is the root of all evil to the exclusion of all else.

It also adds that political correctness is:

A powerful form of censorship—

and—

A method of controlling and dictating public speech and thought.

Political correctness is not something we should be fostering in Australia, a society long renowned for its frankness and its fair go mentality. Some members of this House are short; they are not vertically challenged. Others are fat, though the extreme PC crowd would have us say they are horizontally gifted. I am sad to say that I am balding, though I would never describe myself as follicularly challenged. This refusal to speak forthrightly and the insistence on defining people by their differences and their handicaps, for want of a better word, is the thin end of the wedge in the rise of political correctness.

This bill would have us take much the same stance with the disabled, and this entire approach is wrong. Some Australians are at a disadvantage to the majority. They deserve and need our support to participate in society and be given the same opportunities as everyone else. They deserve the chance to make the most of their skills and abilities and to be treated as all other Australians. Instead of foisting yet more legislation on employers in this country—especially one so open to judicial activism—perhaps we should first be looking at what we are currently not doing properly.

I have been approached, as has my colleague the member for Stirling, by the Disabled Workers Union. This wonderful group is actually helping the disabled in the most positive and real way—by helping them get gainful employment or training and offering them protection from exploitation. The DWU has in the past received government funding, because of course by definition the people they serve cannot afford to pay much for DWU’s services. This funding has been cut off by this so-called caring government, basically because of bureaucratic semantics. Before burdening the country, especially employers, with another lawyers’ picnic of regulation, how about spending a few measly thousand dollars and do some real good? I challenge the minister to stop hiding behind technical jargon and support the DWU, which is actually in the business of real help for the disabled. They do not deserve condescension, pity or patronising affirmative action. They do not deserve to be treated as being different or as not being among us. We all deserve to be treated for what we are first and foremost—Australians.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Disability Discrimination and Other Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2008. After I was elected in 2007 I came to this chamber and listened to speeches made by those opposite. I am always interested in the speeches made by the member for Kooyong, the member for Murray and the member for Farrer, who is in the House at the moment. They always make interesting and worthy contributions. I may not agree with everything they say but they are dedicated parliamentarians who really exemplify a proportion of our society—the small ‘l’ liberal type proportion, whose views are legitimate in our society. But there are some people who I have listened to since I came to this place whose views I simply cannot respect.

I wonder how the members that I have given praise to can sit in the same party room as the member for Tangney, who tonight has given us what I would describe as a Hansonite type response to this legislation. It was a mean-spirited and quite offensive attempt to belittle this legislation, which was put forward with the best of intentions and is supposed to be supported by his side of the House. I wonder whether he actually listened to the contribution of the member for Farrer before he came into this chamber. I know that there are so many members opposite who are concerned, like we are, about ending discrimination against people with a disability and also those who suffer discrimination on the basis of their age.

The member for Tangney consistently used pejorative expressions about those sitting on this side of the House. He said that we had spent so long in opposition we had forgotten things. Sadly, there are some on that side of the House who have spent so long in power that they have forgotten things. One of the things that they forgot to do, as is the case with so much of what we have had to pick up, is genuine reform in the area of disability. It is interesting to look at the attitude of the then Howard government and the attitude of the now opposition, because you see that generally they support what we are doing. It was an extraordinary performance by the member for Tangney to criticise and cast aspersions on the actions and motivations of the Rudd Labor government in relation to reform.

I will give a short history lesson: it was Labor governments who brought in reformist legislation in the area of discrimination—the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 was brought in by the Whitlam Labor government, the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 was brought in by the Hawke Labor government, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act 1986 was brought in by the Hawke Labor government and the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 was brought in by the Keating Labor government. It was Labor governments who brought forward the legislative reforms which have made enormous differences in the lives of people with a disability. And again it has been left to a Labor government to bring forward reforms which are long overdue and should have been done when the Howard government had the recommendations of the Productivity Commission report in 2004. They simply did not do their duty as a government. They did not bring in legislative reforms; they did not do what we are now doing. It is all right for the member for Tangney to criticise our motivation for what we have done and what we are proposing to do to help people suffering from discrimination but we are the ones, on this side of the House, who are helping, through this legislation, those with a disability.

Justice Kirby has said—and this is a great statement by a great jurist:

… the modern notion of democracy, at least in a country such as Australia, is far more complex than simple majoritarian rule. It is a sophisticated form of government which involves the general ability of the will of the majority to prevail but in a legal and social context in which the rights of vulnerable minorities are respected and defended …

That is a wonderful statement from a very fine judge.

We have signed various international agreements which obligate us to address disability discrimination in good faith and we are doing so with this legislation. The minister who is responsible for this legislation, the Attorney-General, made it very clear in his second reading speech that the reforms in relation to disability uphold and strengthen the rights of people with a disability, demonstrate our commitment and accord with our attitude towards the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

One of the key elements in this particular legislation introduces an explicit and positive duty to make reasonable adjustments for people with disability. The member for Tangney went on and on defending his position in relation to this matter, but the opposition has accepted what was a recommendation of the Productivity Commission in 2004 in this regard. The bill here simply clarifies the existing rights and obligations on employers, service providers and others to make reasonable adjustments to remove discrimination against people with disability. We had the Purvis High Court decision a little while ago, which caused some consternation and cast some doubt on this particular meaning. We are incorporating the High Court’s interpretation to ensure there is no doubt at all in relation to much of this legislation. For example, in the area of assistance animals, we have ensured that the law is crystal clear. The Forest decision has effectively been overturned and you will see in the reforms we are bringing in that the rights of people with disability, which seemed never to be a high priority for those opposite, are being respected in our legislation.

In this legislation we are making it explicit that the definition of disability also includes a genetic predisposition to a disability. That is pretty obvious, but we need to make it very clear. Like the Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children’s Services, the member for Maribyrnong, I was appalled to read comments in the Australian Financial Review on 11 February by the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, warning that the changes in this bill would force employers to accommodate the needs of staff whose disabilities they may not know about. I thought that was a heartless attitude. It was an attitude expressed in terms of the almighty dollar being over and above those most vulnerable in our community. Protection of those with disability and the aged says so much about where we are going as a country and about our humanity and our commitment to social inclusion.

It is important that we make it clear to employers that they must include people with disability in their workplaces as full members of their staff, that they give every opportunity to those people to gain employment and that assistance animals are accepted in workplaces and in hospitals—such as in the case of the Forest matter—or in other public amenities. It must be very clear to the Australian public that we will not tolerate discrimination against those with serious disability.

I will tell you why this part of the legislation is important from my point of view in the Blair electorate. It is something that goes back a long way and that is why it is really important. We have a very high number of people in my electorate with disability. Way back in 1878 an institution was established called the Sandy Gallop lunatic asylum, which later became known as the Challinor Centre. That institution dealt with people with disability and was the subject of a lot of dispute and controversy. Eventually, the Challinor Centre was closed down and a more caring model of care for the disabled was brought in in Queensland. The reforms were initiated by a former member for Ipswich, former Liberal Deputy Premier in the Joh Bjelke-Petersen government Sir Llew Edwards, and have been followed up by David Hamill, the member for Ipswich in the Queensland legislative assembly. The reforms resulted in the site of the old lunatic asylum, the old Challinor Centre, becoming the site for the University of Queensland Ipswich campus.

In a circuitous way I am getting to the point, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Queensland government has established Australia’s first disability centre of excellence on that very site at the University of Queensland Ipswich campus. The Queensland government is to be commended for its $113 million investment, a four-year response to the Carter report in reshaping Queensland’s disability service sector. Ipswich campus in my electorate of Blair will lead the way in research, developing best practice models for dealing with people with disability and rolling out the kinds of programs to help improve the quality of life for people with disability, helping many Queenslanders and also many Australians. The research undertaken at that particular site will go a long way to helping people with disability, as will this legislation that is before the House today. I am so pleased to speak on this particular legislation because it marries in with my strong commitment to the centre of excellence at the University of Queensland Ipswich campus.

Many groups have arisen in my electorate as a result of the historical commitment to disability services in the Ipswich area. The Friends of Challinor Aid League, FOCAL, run a wonderful facility helping people with disability. They offer family respite, vacation care programs and much more. That group arose out of long-held community support for the Challinor Centre going back to 1973. There is tremendous support from the Rudd Labor government for the Extra Support for Children with Disability Program Outside School Hours Care. We have committed $23.6 million to the initiative over five years and I am pleased to say that my electorate is the recipient of much of the funding. But we need legislation, as in this legislation before the House, to help people with disability. That is why this particular piece of legislation is just so important for the people of my electorate.

I want to focus on a local aspect by praising the work of CODI, the Coordinating Organisation for the Disabled in Ipswich. It is a non-profit organisation that helps the frail, the elderly and people with a disability with their transport. It is funded by HACC for the Ipswich-West Moreton area, and I am pleased to say I am a great supporter of CODI. It has done a wonderful job over a long period of time. So you can see, Madam Deputy Speaker, that in my electorate this legislation will make a big difference.

The second aspect of the bill I want to talk on very briefly relates to age discrimination. The Attorney-General and the Minister for Ageing made it very clear in a press release they issued on 1 October last year that we were intent on amending the Age Discrimination Act 2004 to remove the ‘dominant reason’ test. The current test is that a person’s age must be the dominant reason that something has been done for it to constitute discrimination under the act. That is inconsistent with other federal unlawful discrimination laws. The legislative change we are talking about here, which follows a bipartisan report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, Older people and the law, is an important change in this area.

My electorate of Blair has a lot of aged-care facilities. Three are run by the Baptist Union of Queensland, and I was a member of the board of that organisation for 14 years before I was elected in 2007. Aged care is an area that I am really interested in, as a person and as a politician. I think it is important that we care for our aged, and I know that the Queensland Aged Care Alliance was highly critical of the previous government in relation to funding. The Rudd Labor government has, through its minister and through the Treasury, committed huge sums of money, far more than the previous coalition government ever had the intestinal fortitude to commit, to aged care: $40 billion for the aged in community care, $28.6 billion of which will be spent on nursing homes and hostels alone, and $2.2 billion on community care. In my electorate our senior citizens in aged care will receive $1.5 million at Cabanda Aged Care, a wonderful community program and project in Rosewood, just west of Ipswich, and RSL Care is getting an interest-free loan of millions of dollars as part of the Rudd Labor government’s election commitment.

The aged-care sector is always a challenge, but discrimination against our senior citizens is just intolerable. We must recognise that we have the second-longest lifespan in the world, behind that of the Japanese, and if we want to treat our senior citizens with respect we ought to legislate that we do so. A law has an educative framework to it. It says that discrimination against disabled people is wrong. It says a lot about what we believe as a country. Discrimination against the aged, our senior citizens, is also simply wrong and unacceptable in a decent, humane society that aspires to social inclusion. So the reforms in this legislation are important for my electorate in the area of disability and in dealing with our senior citizens.

The other reforms in the bill include changing the name of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission to the Australian Human Rights Commission, extending the time a person has for making a complaint to the Federal Court or Federal Magistrates Court from 28 days to 60 days and enhancing the capacity of the commission to deal with complaints, which effectively gives the president power to finalise those complaints when they have been settled by compromise or agreement.

The bill that is before us is a genuine commitment by the Rudd Labor government, offered with real humanitarian care for senior citizens and those who are vulnerable in society by virtue of the challenges they face through no fault of their own but by accident, by genetics or simply by the sad fact that things that were out of their control have happened in their lives. It is sad that business has criticised this legislation. It is sad that the member for Tangney has criticised this legislation. It is sad that there are still people in our society whom this legislation must be used to stand up to. We need to care for our senior citizens. We need to care for those with disabilities. We need to make them feel as much a part of the Australian family as is humanly possible. This is a great legislative reform, a great Labor initiative. I commend the bill to the House.

Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek to make a contribution on the Disability Discrimination and Other Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2008. I will begin by stating that if we are to drive this country forward and keep it being the best it possibly can be then we should always be a little critical of our performance and strive to do better. We should, however, always be constructive in that criticism and not be afraid of comparing ourselves positively in the context of the wider international community.

Rather than concentrate on our shortcomings, I feel that we should not be worried as much by what the international community thinks of us, given that we are towards the front on providing opportunities for the disabled and removing discrimination. Certainly there will always be more to be done, and we should never accept that we have achieved everything, but we have no reason to feel that the international community should judge us badly.

I will now move through the legislation before us and comment on a number of matters. The first matter relates to the amendment of section 16 of the Age Discrimination Act 2004. This section as amended certainly makes sense. It seems appropriate that, regardless of whether an act of discrimination is the dominant reason for an employer acting against an employee, the mere fact that a person was treated differently and that the treatment was as a result merely of the age of a person is wrong and should be dealt with. That, of course, seems different from a person being unable to undertake their assigned duties and being dealt with on those grounds. That should not be involved in the amended act.

I would also say that in reading this act I personally gained a great deal from the experience. I found section 33 very interesting as it relates to positive discrimination. I have never held a position of great support towards the concept of positive discrimination. I still subscribe to the position that the vast majority of those in this nation are in a position where they can compete equally on the merits of their character and their education. For those who cannot due to circumstances beyond their control, I appreciate the fact that, for example, in this act section 33 allows points of positive discrimination such as seniors’ discounts and specific scholarships.

I will now move on to the schedule 2 amendments, which make changes to the Disability Discrimination Act 1992. I note the changes to section 4 interpretations and the reference to section 9, which is essentially about guide dogs and assistance animals. These changes are worth while and will refine the act after these amendments are passed. Given the nature of the amendments and that this matter is fundamentally about disabilities, I would also like to speak about the challenges, the efforts and the successes of the education support centre at Wanneroo Senior High School. The principal of Wanneroo Senior High School is Pauline White, and she has led the school at Wanneroo Senior High for four years. The school has a small education support centre, or ESC, of one classroom, which caters for nine students this year ranging from year 8 to, in the case of one student, what is the equivalent of year 13. The ESC draws children from the surrounding district and provides them with progressive programs and opportunities to develop their potential in the areas of community skills, independent-living skills and work skills.

In 2009 Wanneroo Senior High School will undertake the ASDAN pilot program for year 11 and year 12 students. I know that the ESC teacher, Debra MacDonald, is very excited about implementing the Award Scheme Development and Accreditation Network, which offers credits and awards for self-management, work and study skills, and problem solving. I understand that ASDAN was developed in the UK and is working very well in New Zealand. While I am very pleased to be able to speak about the great work being done at Wanneroo Senior High School, it is with a little regret that I realise that the school has never before been mentioned in the House Hansard and so I am pleased to correct that situation today.

When I started speaking about Wanneroo Senior High School and the education support centre I did so with some level of understanding of the challenges facing those with disabilities. Last year one of the ESC students adopted me as part of the politician adoption scheme. Justin Cox is now in year 10. Justin has septo-optic dysplasia, which is a visual impairment, with epilepsy, hormone deficiencies and an intellectual disability. Justin is a very friendly young man and despite his visual impairment loves his basketball and his time down at the local gym. That time at the gym has helped him to lose weight, and in fourth term last year his hard work paid off and he was awarded the school’s flexibility award. I would also mention that Justin Cox has been greatly assisted by Nadine Williams, an education assistant at the ESC. I have met Justin’s mum, Sue, and his stepdad, Steve, and it is great that Justin now has a baby brother, Cayl. I know that Justin is doing very well at Wanneroo Senior High School and I pay tribute to the dedicated efforts of his teacher Debra MacDonald; her education assistant, Nadine Williams; and all the staff at Wanneroo high for all the work they do to integrate students with disabilities into mainstream classes and to educate mainstream students about the challenges presented by disabilities.

I understand that the nine students in the ESC have nine different sets of needs—not even two students would be classed in the same disability group. The challenges facing the students and the staff range from learning disabilities to severe cerebral palsy. If it were not for the professional and dedicated staff at Wanneroo high, such as Debra MacDonald and Nadine Williams, children with disabilities and the community in general would be far worse off. As the federal member for Cowan I thank them and the other staff at Wanneroo Senior High School for the work they do.

I should also make mention of another excellent organisation that operates in the northern suburbs of Perth, and in particular Girrawheen, within the Cowan electorate. In December last year I was invited to the Valued Independent People, or VIP, organisation’s end-of-year function. VIP provides a flexible, daytime occupation focusing on community access, integration and participation for people with disabilities, according to their needs and desires. VIP’s staff and volunteers provide services to school leavers and older people with disabilities under the Post School Options and the Alternatives to Employment programs. These services are for people who live at home or in hostels or group homes. VIP operates on the principle that each person is an individual and they plan the service around his or her needs, interests and aspirations. VIP provides services for adults who have intellectual and/or physical disabilities and who require a daytime activity as an alternative to employment.

The CEO of VIP is Margaret Walsh. She is supported by training and support officer Cheryl Rogers and administration and finance officer Lynn Smith. At the Girrawheen centre, the supervisor is Pam Haunold and the assistant supervisor is Linda Norman. They also have other centres at Nollamara and Hamersley, in the electorate of Stirling. VIP is a great organisation that does excellent work for a lot of families and people who have disabilities. At the function that I attended it was very clear that the board, the management and the staff of VIP approach the service they provide seriously and with great personal regard and respect for the people with disabilities who they assist. I think very highly of the VIP team and all their volunteers. I wish them well for the expansion of their operations and their new facility in Duncraig in the electorate of Moore.

Finally I would like to make mention of the Landsdale Family Support Association in Darch. For over 10 years this not-for-profit organisation has been providing support to children with special needs and their families. They provide holiday camps, accommodation and respite care. For example, they provide camp activities and accommodation on the weekends for two-day blocks and also over the weekdays of the school holidays in five-day blocks, giving respite to families and interesting activities for the children. The executive officer is Andre Shannon and his staff are Carly Latcham, the service manager; Cathy Watkins, the administration manager; Tina King, the finance officer; Kaitlyn Morrell, the receptionist; and the chairman of the board, John Morrell. A special mention must be made of the respite carers and host families, such as the Keeble family, who do so much to help these children.

I have digressed a lot in my speech on this bill. This bill is very technical and detailed. I see the value in the changes the government is proposing and I support those changes and the bill in total. I support it because I have had the opportunity to see the challenges that face families and the challenges that young people with disabilities face in their futures. Those challenges are not insurmountable, but the physical challenges of their disabilities are enough for them to deal with, let alone any form of discrimination placed in their path to reaching their overall potential. I commend the bill to the House.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in favour of the Disability Discrimination and Other Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2008. The amendments contained in this bill reflected Labor’s longstanding commitment to human rights. The enjoyment of full citizenship by all Australians requires the existence of a legislative framework to act as a shield against prejudice, against bigotry and against discrimination. The Disability Discrimination Act, which is one of the acts that are being amended by this legislation, was introduced by the Keating government in 1992 and it is part of this framework of antidiscrimination legislation built by successive Labor governments over the years in all spheres of government. This framework can be said to protect the rights of each and every Australian and help to ensure full participation of every Australian in civic and economic life.

The Disability Discrimination Act 1992 built on the Whitlam government’s Race Discrimination Act 1975, which was legislation of historic significance on the road to reconciliation with Australia’s Indigenous people. It of course was the enactment in Australia of rights that Australia is obliged to bring into our domestic law through an international covenant. I could mention also that the Disability Discrimination Act built on the Hawke government’s Sex Discrimination Act of 1998, which reflected the Labor commitment to the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. It is worth mentioning also the establishment of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission in 1986 under the Hawke government.

The Rudd government is continuing Labor’s concern for the human rights of all Australians and of all people in Australia, having announced on 10 December last year, which was the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the National Human Rights Consultation, chaired by Father Frank Brennan and now under way. Members will recall that in the first sitting week of last year, Father Brennan was here in the parliament to announce the way in which the Human Rights Consultation is going to be conducted over the first half of this year.

The bill before us today will enact much needed reforms to the federal antidiscrimination framework. It clarifies the existing laws and ensures that the legislative shield protecting the rights of Australians keeps pace with fast-moving digital technology and developments in genetics. It also adopts many of the recommendations of the 2004 Productivity Commission’s Review of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992. This bill reflects the government’s commitment to protecting the human rights of all Australians. The bill is also a statement of the trust the Rudd government has in our peak human rights body, the Australian Human Rights Commission, an organisation which I regret to say was somewhat sidelined during what is properly thought of as a long winter for human rights over the 12 years of the coalition government. More generally, these amendments are part of a renewal of interest in and engagement with issues relating to the human rights of all people in Australia that has occurred since November 2007. It is not acceptable for the Commonwealth to pay only grudging attention to human rights. It is not acceptable for the Commonwealth to ignore the fact that Australia, as a signatory to a whole range of international covenants, has obligations not only to bring into our domestic law those human rights obligations but to improve our domestic law where we have already at some earlier time made law in this area.

The amendments will make it clear that discrimination on the basis of genetic predisposition is unlawful. Commencing in February 2001, the Australian Law Reform Commission undertook a joint inquiry with the Australian Health Ethics Committee into the protection of human genetic information. This bill adopts the recommendation in their report, which was entitled Essentially yours, to the effect that the definition of disability should include a genetic predisposition to disability. The discrimination with which this amendment is dealing is a phenomenon that has advanced with technology. However, as early as 1998 the United States National Human Genome Research Institute identified 550 people who had suffered discrimination in employment or insurance on the basis of unsubstantiated genetic possibilities. Similarly a study by Dr Kristine Barlow-Stewart, now the director of the Centre for Genetics Education at the Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney, found instances of discrimination against sufferers of haemochromatosis, inherited breast and bowel cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

When disability was defined purely in terms of impairment or, as section 4(1)(e) of the Disability Discrimination Act provides, ‘malfunction, malformation or disfigurement of a part of the person’s body’, there was confusion as to whether a healthy person with no malformation could make use of the legislation. However, the very injustice of this form of discrimination is that any such malformation may never eventuate. In her 1999 study Dr Barlow-Stewart identified at least three cases of completely healthy individuals with a genetic potential for late onset neurological disorders who were demoted or sacked when their employer became aware of their genetic condition. After the passage of these amendments, this form of discrimination will be unlawful.

These amendments also acknowledge the difficulty of compliance for some organisations and small businesses. Where conformity with human rights legislation is unduly onerous or inappropriate, the defence of unjustifiable hardship will be extended to some organisations, ensuring that rights, tempered by reasonableness, continue to be recognised throughout Australia.

By way of example, as some other speakers in this debate have mentioned, the High Court, in a case known as Purvis v New South Wales, looked at the situation of a student at Grafton High School. The court held that the school was only able to use the defence of unjustifiable hardship in relation to admitting students to the school and not in relation to the way in which a student must be treated once admitted and enrolled at the school. Once the school had admitted a student with particular needs, the school could not require that child to attend a school with more appropriate facilities if care became too difficult, even as the child’s condition changed. For these reasons, the amendments have made some changes to the defence of unjustifiable hardship.

The amendments will also make changes to the criteria for indirect discrimination. The Equal Opportunity Commission in my state of Victoria submitted that the previous criteria were, to use their words, ‘unwieldy and difficult’, causing confusion for both complainants and respondents. The former proportionality test imposed an unnecessary evidentiary burden on complainants. Instead, under the changes that are brought in by these amendments, the onus would fall on the organisation to show that the conditions they impose are reasonable.

The amendments also seek to overcome the decision of the Federal Court in Forest v Queensland Health. That case concerned an incident at Cairns Base Hospital where a sufferer from a psychiatric disorder who claimed his dog was an assistance animal was denied entry on the basis that the animal was not a guide or hearing dog or a dog approved by hospital management. Assistance animals are an essential part of securing the independence and mobility of people with a vision impairment. In my state of Victoria, 69 per cent of all people who are blind or vision impaired are unemployed. For this reason the government is committed to ensuring that being mobile with an assistance animal is not in any way a further handicap to people with a disability, and for this reason the amendments clarify that discrimination on the basis of having a carer, an assistance animal or a disability aid is discrimination on the basis of a disability.

The amendments also make some changes to the age discrimination framework. Until now, where age discrimination was a factor but not the dominant factor in a decision, older Australians have been unable to make a claim of discrimination. The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission always opposed this. It is at odds with the way in which tests for discrimination are set out in the Sex Discrimination Act and in the Disability Discrimination Act, which do not have a dominant reason test. Former High Court justice Sir Ronald Wilson, as the HREOC commissioner, noted the difficulty in the Racial Discrimination Act of sifting a dominant reason out of several competing reasons, which led to the eventual removal of that dominant reason test from the Racial Discrimination Act in 1990.

This particular amendment is the implementation of a recommendation made by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs in the last parliament. That is the committee which I now chair but which in the last parliament was chaired by the present deputy chair of the committee, the Hon. Peter Slipper. In a lengthy report entitled Older persons and the law, there were a number of recommendations. One of those recommendations, in the clearest possible terms, was for the removal from age discrimination law of the dominant reason criterion. One can readily see why it is that that recommendation was made. It is one which simply brings the age discrimination law in this country into line with other antidiscrimination statutes. It is hard to see why there could be any opposition to that particular change, and it is certainly a change that is supported not only, as I say, by that report of the legal and constitutional affairs committee in the last parliament but by the Law Council of Australia, the Australian Human Rights Commission and many other interested people.

To explain it a little bit further, prejudice of any sort often hides behind a more amiable face of excuses such as ‘lack of experience’ or ‘wrong attitude’, but the fact remains that these excuses are just that. An example has been given of an Australian company that was accused of citing a lack of ‘behavioural competencies’ to disguise the discrimination in their selection criteria. It is because of that problem of reasons often being stated which are very far from the actual reason that it is important that it be possible to judge all forms of discrimination without reference to a dominant reason kind of test.

The amendments also change the legal name of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission to bring it into line with the new corporate identity which was launched last year. The new name, the Australian Human Rights Commission, clarifies the national stature of the commission and distinguishes it from similar bodies in the states and territories. The removal of the phrase ‘equal opportunity’ from the name emphasises that the inherent dignity of each human being includes equal opportunity and that our freedom from persecution and discrimination is not severable from our human rights.

A number of speakers in this debate have commented on a very unfortunate article that appeared in the Australian Financial Review this morning, which quotes comments made by an official of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. It would appear that those comments are something of a late attack, if you like, on a bill which contains amendments that have, in the case of almost all of them, been a number of years in the making, being recommendations made by the Productivity Commission in its review of the Disability Discrimination Act as long ago as 2004. The recommendation of the legal and constitutional affairs committee in the last parliament that I mentioned a short time ago is also now a report of some considerable age.

The attack is one which, as I say, is unfortunate because these amendments have been a long time in the making, there was very wide consultation during the preparation of them, they have been endorsed by almost all interested bodies and people who have made submissions and the bulk of them were accepted by the opposition when they were in government. Why it is that we should be asked to endure the kind of unreasoned and really quite intemperate attack that has been advanced here by the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry is something of a mystery. In fact, it would not be going too far to say that it is uninformed attack.

It is uninformed in a similar way to what I would describe as the bizarre rant that we heard from the member for Tangney in the debate on this bill just a few minutes ago. It was bizarre to hear a member of this House using phrases like ‘ridiculous political correctness’ and ‘a lawyer’s picnic of regulation’ in his rant against imagined political correctness. Perhaps, to give him some credit, it was mildly entertaining to hear him going through his familiar list of phrases like ‘height challenged’, ‘vertically challenged’ or ‘follicly challenged’—I think that was the phrase that he used—leading to his attack, which was to the effect that this bill contained amendments and changes to discrimination law which involved, as he saw it, ‘a refusal to speak forthrightly’.

There is no refusal to speak forthrightly on the government benches and nor, in putting forward this legislation, could the Rudd government be accused of anything remotely like a refusal to speak forthrightly. This bill speaks forthrightly about the need to correct discrimination against Australians who suffer from discrimination because of various forms of disability. It is an attempt to ensure that all Australians will be able to, as much as they can, live the most productive lives in our society. As do all reforms of this nature, dealing with the elimination of discrimination suffered by Australian citizens, it is a bill that will lead to an enriching of our society. Far from being in any sense a refusal to speak forthrightly, it is in fact an engagement with and a square-facing of the problems suffered by those amongst us—those of our citizens and those who live with us even if they are not citizens—as a result of one or other disability.

It is very important that it be understood that all people in Australia have the right to lead as full a life as they can, a life which is free of discrimination by other members of their society against them because of some disability. I want to quote something that I heard Justice Kirby say extrajudicially—in other words, not in court—in a speech that I saw Justice Kirby give at Melbourne High School in 2000 to, as I recall, the political interest group of Melbourne High School, a group that my two sons were then members of. In speaking to the Melbourne High School students, Justice Kirby said this about respect for human rights in our country:

… the modern notion of democracy, at least in a country such as Australia, is far more complex than simple majoritarian rule. It is a sophisticated form of government which involves the general ability of the will of the majority to prevail but in a legal and social context in which the rights of vulnerable minorities are respected and defended - particularly where such minorities are unpopular.

That is the kind of thinking that underlies these amendments to parts of Australia’s discrimination laws.

There are vulnerable minorities in our society. There are vulnerable minorities who suffer from discrimination by other parts of our society. The people who are part of those vulnerable minorities have rights, and legislation like this ensures that those rights are respected and it defends those rights. I commend the bill to the House.

Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Disability Discrimination and Other Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 and I do so as the son of a man who has spent his life improving the quantity and quality of life for people with disabilities. I start with this and mention it with pride because—as a consequence of growing up playing at places like the House With No Steps in Lismore and learning to swim at the hydrotherapy pool at North Shore Hospital, which was mentioned by the previous speaker, and associating with many people who, on the surface, would be defined as people with disabilities but who, in so many ways, have strengths which many able-bodied people of the world can certainly learn from—I can report to the House that, if this bill is a step towards the future where all are treated the same, which is the background that I come from, then the future is certainly a good one. The future is one that does not have a mere step or a mere handrail or a lack of consideration for these simple, built-form acts of acceptance and grace; the future is one where these simple impediments do not get in the way and are not points of difference when we all have so much to celebrate and enjoy together within Australian society.

I know that several speakers since the member for Tangney spoke have made reference to his speech, but there was one point in that speech that I certainly agree with, and that is that all of us in this chamber do need to focus on what unites us and we do need to work on what we have in common. But that is the point at which he lost me and where I am fundamentally opposed to the logic put forward in that speech by that honourable member. In my time in this chamber, even though it has been short, I would have to give that speech the points for being what I consider the most poorly considered contribution to date. In a week where there have been some tremendous contributions made in bipartisan spirit, that speech certainly disappointed me and, I would hope, would disappoint parliamentary colleagues.

The reason for my disappointment at the contribution of the member for Tangney is that it is our job here as members of parliament to promote more than the simple Darwinian theories of survival of the fittest, and we have a job to do in making sure that our society is not ruled by the simple laws of the jungle. If these theses are true, we may as well shut this place down, as none of us has a role or a purpose in public policy if that is the case. That is where I hope the honourable member reflects and considers what his role is in celebrating a life enjoyed by all. This is the exact point made by Justice Kirby when he was talking about this very topic and discussing the nature of Australian democracy and the balancing act in human rights, where, yes, we work for the majority but in doing so we have to defend the rights of individuals and the vulnerable minorities. They need to be respected and defended and that is what this legislation is contributing in building a better Australia.

I was surprised by the contribution of the member for Tangney because, when I look through the background notes with regard to this legislation, this bill looks to be the product of a rich bipartisan history on this matter. It started in 2004, when the coalition government was in place, following recommendations from the Productivity Commission. I was pleased to see that most of those recommendations were accepted by the coalition government at the time. The roots of this bill and its bipartisan background bring together all of us in this chamber, bar a few. I support this legislation because, from my point of view, I want to engage with all Australians at a practical level. I have just moved an electoral office because of poor access issues, in that it was denying people access to their local member. I want to be able to talk to everyone, as I would hope all members of this chamber would like to do within their own electorates. I do not do this to be airy-fairy, antsy-pantsy, chardonnay sipping or an amateur socialist, which I think is another term that was used. Rest assured that my reasons for doing so are far from wanting to be any of those. I do this to celebrate life in all its many wonderful, varied, confused and challenging shapes and forms. My life and our life is a lesser place if a simple step means I have fewer people to celebrate life with, and my community and our community is a lesser place if a simple step means we have fewer people to celebrate life with. I will be pleased to see this bill go through the parliament because my country and our country is a lesser place if a simple step means we have fewer people engaged in the celebration of Australian life. I welcome the legislation, I applaud its bipartisan roots and I certainly look forward to it making a real difference in community life in Australia.

Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with great pleasure that I speak on the Disability Discrimination and Other Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2008. A lot of good bills that come into this place take a long time both to get here and to take the really great steps forward that legislation can achieve in this place. This bill is one of those great bills that really do make a difference out in the community. It is something that, as a member of parliament, I am very proud to associate myself with and support. I know that we in here are all supportive of removing barriers for all Australians—people with disabilities and anybody who has some sort of barrier in front of them. I know that we in here are all supportive of removing either regulatory or legislative barriers, as well as physical and emotional barriers and other things that impede people’s ability to make a full contribution and, as we heard from the previous speaker, celebrate life—good words about the contribution that so many different people can make.

I spent a little time thinking about what this bill meant to me and how important it was. Maybe I have an unfair advantage in this place, in that one of the schools I went to, Corinda State High School, which is in my electorate, was a little unique, particularly in the days when I attended that high school. We had a student cohort there with profound disabilities. They were integrated as part of the school in probably an unusual environment for the time. Every class had a student with some form of disability, be they in a wheelchair or something of the like. It was a great experience for me, as a student, to be in a class with somebody who was deemed to have a disability, somebody with some sort of impairment, because it really taught me a whole heap of lessons. One of the most important lessons that it taught me is that in the end we are really just the same. Whatever our physical attributes might be, whatever limitations are placed in front of us, whatever physical things we may or may not be able to do, we are really all just the same, with the same wants, needs and desires, and in the things we want to achieve in life. We laugh about the same things and share a common humour. There is a whole range of things. It made me, over a period of time, almost blind to people’s disabilities because no longer did I see the disability—I just saw the person. I did not realise until I was much older just how much impact that had on my life—to be able to be in a room with people who have profound disabilities and not feel uncomfortable and to be able to be with people that other people have trouble or difficulty in talking to because they only see the disability and do not see the person first. So maybe I have some advantage over others in this House who have not had that experience.

When I looked at this bill and what was proposed, I supported it. It is a good bill. Any steps that we can take in here to remove physical, regulatory and other barriers so that people can enjoy a full life are really important. The changes in this legislation relating to recognising the different needs of people are laudable. I believe that clarifying that ‘disability’ does include people who have a genetic predisposition to a disability is important, as is looking at the definition of indirect discrimination—how discrimination itself plays a role in our society. Such was the case when I was a youngster at school, but what was not acceptable in those days is much more commonplace and acceptable today. We have made progress in our capacity to move beyond the way things were. I think that we can see that as part of a continual change in improvement and acceptance, just as in parliament we are giving better recognition for people who use animals for assistance and other aids and recognising that those people’s carers may have particular needs for those animals as well. In all these different measures we are helping people with a disability to go about their lives and business with as much support as is needed. It certainly does, I think, go to the core of some of the issues.

I just want to deal with a couple of other measures, in particular the ‘special measures’ in the Migration Act 1958 which exempted from the Disability Discrimination Act—general actions that were incidental for those measures at the time. It is important that we are dealing with those in this bill as well. Also important are the standards that are formulated in terms of the Disability Discrimination Act and relate to actions that are unlawful, particularly in the way in which they can override state and territory laws in the same area. It is a good way for the Commonwealth to override, in a whole range of areas, inconsistencies that exist across states and territories.

Also important in this bill, particularly in relation to discrimination on the basis of age, is the removal of a particular dominant purpose test. It was the case that, where there was more than one reason for discrimination, the dominant reason had to be age. The change now is that that no longer needs to be the case. If there is more than one reason for discrimination, the other reason could be just as important as age. The reality is—in life and in society—that discrimination continues, and it continues on the basis of a whole range of factors, be they age, disability, assistance animals or a range of other factors. Continually improving the legislation that we have in order to remove those barriers is, I think, the key purpose in what is being done here today.

This bill will improve the operation of the Disability Discrimination Act and other human rights laws. It comes out of some key recommendations of the 2004 Productivity Commission report and other reports, and it goes a fair way in clarifying important aspects of the Disability Discrimination Act. The bill, as I said, also removes the dominant purpose test in complaint-handling processes for the commission and changes the legal name of the commission to better reflect what the commission does. In the end, these changes further enhance the rights of all people in this country, whether they have a disability or not, and assists in pursuing our goals—and, I think, everybody’s goals in this place—of greater social inclusion, which takes me back to where I started. When I was at school, as for all young people growing up, difference was a very obvious and important factor in the way we lived our lives. The more that sense of difference is removed and not made a basis for discrimination and the more people can be included in all the things that we do, the more they can enjoy a better life. So to support this bill is, for me, a great pleasure. It is a good bill, and it is something which I think this House is fully supportive of.

There are also changes to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act 1986 and other acts. The bill proposes to amend that act to formally change the name of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission to the Australian Human Rights Commission—something which is also, I think, important. Earlier this year, the commission changed its corporate identity, and that was really done to assist in ensuring that all Australians know that Australia actually has an independent national institution—that we are not somehow excluded from this, and that the name reflects what the institution actually does. We have also changed the period in which a complaint to the Federal Court or Federal Magistrates Court can be brought forward—it has been more than doubled from 28 days to 60 days. There are also a number of other amendments to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the commission’s complaints-handling process. Not only do you need to do everything you can to make things fairer by removing the barriers of discrimination but you also need to make sure that, when problems do arise, complaints-handling processes are efficient and do not create further problems. You also need to ensure that people feel that there is some transparency and accountability and that there is a resource for them to access. It is our responsibility to make sure that those things operate in an efficient and proper manner.

In summing up, I would like to congratulate the minister for his work in this area. I know he is a passionate believer in improvements in these areas. It is very important that we make these sorts of changes in the Disability Discrimination Act, the Age Discrimination Act and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act, and I commend the work that he has done. I fully support this bill and commend it to the House.

Debate interrupted.