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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Petro Georgiou (Kooyong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We need more of them!

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

We do need more of them. One of the unfortunate things about the government is that they have reduced the budget of the parliament. This makes it more difficult for our very excellent officers to carry out the roles that they carry out so well. Having said that, I do admire the way that the clerks and the other staff of the parliament have been prepared to look at the budget they have been given and do the best that they can with it. I certainly commend them for it. I did not want to move away from my bipartisanship, but the honourable member for Kooyong did slightly divert me. I commend this report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs to the House. I would ask the government to give it a speedy consideration, with a view to full implementation of its recommendations as quickly as possible.

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

I am pleased to speak on the report Access all areas. Nearly four million Australians, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, suffer some form of disability. That results in them being excluded in large part from access to buildings, from access to the kind of employment that they wish to enjoy and from access to participation in cultural and community life, and we need to do something about it. That means that one in five Australians suffer from a form of disability. Whilst since 1992 we have had the Disability Discrimination Act on the Commonwealth statute books, the complaints mechanism has resulted in the prosecution of very few cases relating to disability concerning access to premises. The act does not provide detailed guidance with respect to buildings or detailed guidance for a building owner, designer or manager on what they must do to ensure that a building they construct, manage or design is accessible to all members of the Australian community. The consequences are that people who feel they have suffered unlawful discrimination pursue their cases on a case-by-case basis, and they seek outcomes through the Australian Human Rights Commission and, if not successful there, through the Federal Magistrates Court or the Federal Court of Australia.

The Building Code of Australia has been developed and maintained by the Australian Building Codes Board to provide a uniform system of building standards for this country. It provides guidance as to how buildings should be designed and built in accordance with appropriate standards. The Building Code is implemented with the concurrence and cooperation of the states and territories of this country, through building regulation laws, thereby ensuring we have a uniform building code throughout our nation. Since the introduction of the Disability Discrimination Act, it has become very obvious that there is not a good marriage between the Building Code and its regulations and protocols and the Disability Discrimination Act at a Commonwealth level. So premises standards have been developed. Those premises standards have been in draft form for about five years. They have had a long and protracted history. The Building Access Policy Committee was established by the Australian Building Codes Board in 1995. Stakeholders, representatives of the building industry, disability groups and the federal government were involved. Some recommendations to change the Building Code were made after the wide consultation.

The premises standards were tabled by the then Attorney-General in parliament on 2 December 2008. Given the years and years of consultation, review and consideration, the committee felt it was necessary that action should be undertaken and undertaken without delay. The committee urged that the finalisation of the premises standards should be a priority in the circumstances. The transport standards have had a long and protracted history as well and we do not want to see the outcome of the premises standards go the way of the transport standards which, seven years on, a final report of the review of the transport standards has still not been released.

I want to pay tribute to the secretariat for their great work they have undertaken in the circumstances concerning this very technical area of law. I want to pay particular tribute to their fine work, their competency, their diligence and their capacity—and the fact that they make us look so much better than we really are by the assistance they give us.

We need to ensure that the premises standards harmonise the Building Code and the Disability Discrimination Act so that people suffering from disability can get access to common areas. The premises standards in their draft form provide accessibility requirements for access and egress, accessible car parking, signage, hearing augmentation, tactile indicators, wheelchair seating spaces in class 9b assembly buildings, ramps, glazing on access ways, and braille and tactile signs. There are a number of objects in the premises standards: to ensure increased access and certainty; to ensure that we achieve a degree of equity and not just rely solely on cost-effective access to buildings; and, of course, need to give certainty to builders, designers, developers and managers. There are 19 recommendations. However, like the deputy chair, I am not going to recite all of those.

The committee supports the introduction of the draft access standards. The committee also looked at a number of classes of buildings. Class 1a buildings are detached or semi-detached residential buildings. Most residential housing in Australia falls into this classification. The draft premises standards do not apply to these private homes, because they are simply not open to the public and access to premises, accordingly, should not be classified. Class 1b buildings are, by and large, smaller buildings used for short-term accommodation—B&Bs and eco-lodges. The premises standards do impose certain accessibility requirements for these buildings with four or more bedrooms or dwellings. They include a special bedroom and access to common areas. Class 2b buildings are buildings containing two or more sole occupancy units. In general they are residential apartments and flats, but not hotels, motels or the like. The 2004 draft premises standards impose accessibility requirements in relation to pedestrian entrance to units on at least one floor and to certain common areas serviced by an accessible ramp or lift.

It is important that we ensure that people suffering from a disability have access to class 1b and class 2b buildings. We heard evidence from people suffering from disability who could not get access to these types of buildings, could not find suitable accommodation when on holidays, could not find access to their rooms, could not find access to lavatories and found it difficult to get through common areas. The humiliation, desperation and feelings of isolation were quite clearly demonstrated in the submissions we received.

This committee received 146 submissions and held six public hearings and one roundtable. There was an enormous amount of interest in this particular committee’s report. The committee recognised that many class 1b buildings are run by smaller businesses with limited resources, but it is clear also in the circumstances that, in the case of new and purpose-built class 1b buildings, we need to provide greater access for people with a disability. The committee also recognised that, regardless of the number of bedrooms that these class 1b buildings contain, there should be access for people suffering from disability and changes need to be made. So we are recommending in relation to new and purpose-built class 1b buildings but not existing class 1b buildings.

We also heard evidence in relation to fit-out and the implications for people suffering from disability of what fit-outs in buildings look like—and not just in the common areas and the lifts. The committee considered this and recommended that consideration be given to the development of disability standards in relation to fit-outs in buildings. It is important to consider how buildings look, whether people suffering from visual impairment can move around without bumping into things and how they can respond in circumstances where there is a fire or other type of emergency.

We recommended there be a review and that that review be undertaken in five years from the commencement date of the premises standards.

Perhaps the most contentious aspect was not just the ‘regional or remote location’ part of the unjustifiable hardship provisions but the presence of the unjustifiable hardship provisions as a limitation on the application of the premises standards. The premises standards provide that it is not unlawful to fail to comply with a requirement of the standards to the extent that compliance would impose unjustifiable hardship on a person or organisation. Unjustifiable hardship can only be assessed on a case-by-case basis and, even when unjustifiable hardship is proven, compliance is still required to the maximum extent not involving unjustifiable hardship.

We heard evidence from some people who were travelling around Australia, particularly in regional and rural areas, who could not get access to buildings which were suitable for them in their particular circumstances of disability. We also heard evidence from stakeholders from various parts of the building industry and the tourism and hospitality industry who, I must say, did not always show the degree of compassion, understanding and empathy with people suffering from disability that I would have liked them to have expressed.

It is important that there be less emphasis on dollars and more emphasis on people. People count a lot more. I would like to see more compassion shown and the industry have a really good, close look at itself in the circumstances. I know a number of members from this side of the House had a number of quite testy confrontations, almost, with people in those industries. I know the member for Moreton and I both had very interesting conversations with people who gave evidence from time to time. Even the chair, who is quite measured, cautious, diplomatic and dignified in the way he conducts the meetings, had some interesting discussions from time to time.

This is a bipartisan and unanimous committee report. It makes very important recommendations that will help provide dignity for people suffering from disability. I commend the report and urge the government to give serious consideration to it, to get a uniform national approach in relation to these matters and to ensure that we give all Australians, regardless of the geography and the circumstances in which they find themselves, the same kind of access to buildings, social inclusion, employment opportunities and lifestyle that we expect for all of us, our children and the generations ahead.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A few weeks back I had the pleasure of going to the ACTU Congress dinner. It was my second congress dinner. It was held in Brisbane; normally those dinners take place in Melbourne, wonderful city that it is.

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

Not as good as Brisbane.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But not as good as Brisbane, obviously. This dinner was held on a Wednesday night in Brisbane. It was actually State of Origin night, and only a Victorian based establishment like the ACTU could hold a congress dinner on State of Origin night in Queensland! I was actually there with Richard Marles. We were a little bit late and we had to run into the convention centre. We did not go up the 100 steps at the front of the building; instead we went up an escalator on the side and made our way into the dinner. I do not want to be a name-dropper but I ran into a friend of mine called Kevin. As you know, Kevin probably is not known for his long connection with the trade union movement, although he was a trade union member when he was younger. Strangely enough, Kevin and I come from the same home town.

There we were, in the convention centre in Brisbane. I should stress that this man’s name was Kevin Cocks, not  the other more famous Kevin. Kevin Cocks is famous certainly in disability circles. I know Kevin from when I was a kid. He is the same age as one of my brothers; we both used to play football at St George. In fact, I was at the Rowden Park football ground in St George on the day that he was playing against St George. He had been a shearer and then he had joined the bank and went to another country town—Dalby, I think it was—and they were playing against St George. I vividly recall where I was sitting on the day that a scrum collapsed. I was in grade nine, so I was whatever age that is—12 or so. I remember there was a bit of a kerfuffle and they took him off in the ambulance and then we found out later that Kevin Cocks had broken his neck and was now a quadriplegic.

Fast forward quite a few more years, Kevin Cocks in his wheelchair had became an advocate for people with disabilities and the Queensland government, in their wisdom, had decided to build a brand new convention centre. Strangely enough, it decided to put 100 steps at the front of the building. It is about 100; it seems like about 500 when you walk up them. It is certainly not something you could take a person up in a wheelchair, like Kevin Cocks. So Kevin said, ‘Before you finish that building, maybe you should consider, rather than saying we can go around to the goods entrance at the side, making reasonable allowance for the fact that people in wheelchairs, maybe people who are getting on in years, or people with prams would find those steps a little bit hard to navigate.’ Obviously the Queensland government, in their wisdom, said, ‘Don’t be ridiculous—we are the government; we know what is best. It would cost a lot of money to make such an adjustment’.

Thankfully Kevin triumphed in his case at the Anti-Discrimination Commission Queensland and we now have a convention centre that, while not perfect, is much improved. Maybe if we had our time over some of those universal design concepts might have led to a slightly different design. Certainly every time I walk up those front steps I think of Kevin. So it was fantastic to be at the ACTU Congress dinner. I was at one table and there was my mate Kevin from St George there as well. I have ended up in federal politics, and my mate Kevin was there sitting near the Prime Minister. In terms of a tale of two Kevins, there were two people who despite their different lives were sitting in the same room. It was a very touching moment.

This brings me back to the reason I am on my feet, which is to talk about the report put forward by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. I am proud to be associated with that report. As the member for Blair pointed out, it was a unanimous report and there were some great contributions put forward. I acknowledge the great work of the chair, Mark Dreyfus QC, and the deputy chair and all the members of the committee. The report is called Access all areas: report of the inquiry into draft Disability (Access to Premises—Buildings) Standards. On the cover—it was my idea, actually—there is the idea of a backstage pass. It did not quite a translate, but the concept was that if you have a pass at a rock concert that says ‘Access all areas’, you can meet all the rock stars, you can drink all the drinks and consume everything in the green room et cetera.

That was the concept. Certainly for me the idea would be that we should be doing what we can with our design principles for everyone in Australia—whether you have a disability or not, whether you are young, old or in a pram—to make sure that we can all access all areas. Obviously, we start off in a pram and then, maybe, at the end of our lives our mobility may decline somewhat.

This report addressed public areas only. I have my own beliefs about the ideas of universal design principles eventually extending to all buildings, be they private dwellings or public buildings, but this report only looked at public buildings. It was a fantastic process in terms of hearing from witnesses, from people who had been affected by these governmental decisions and from people who count the beans when it comes to the cost of building design. I do believe that this report and the legislation which will follow are important steps towards the day when our ageing population and the 1.3 million Australians with a severe or profound disability will be able to access all buildings, be they private dwellings or public buildings.

Universal design is the simple and powerful concept of building homes that meet the needs of all people, regardless of age or impairment, and that can be easily and cheaply adapted to meet the changing needs of occupants. As I said, we start off in a pram and then our circumstances change over our threescore and ten—or whatever it is that we are allotted. The report certainly opened my eyes, as had Kevin Cocks when I met him and had a lot to do with him over the years when I started off my post-teaching career as a lawyer. He made the point that you can assist if you design properly at the start; then the costs are minimal when it comes to redesigning rooms later whether private or public.

I know that there were lots of confrontations in the corridors when we had these hearings throughout Australia—corridors that were sometimes a little bit too narrow and at other times were able to accommodate all. But it was a fantastic process and I thank all my fellow members on the committee for their input. I look forward to the legislation that flows from the report.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was not a member of the committee and I only learnt about the report when I was up here this morning—and I admit that is nobody’s fault other than my own.

This is an issue that is very close to my heart. Prior to becoming a member of parliament I worked on a spinal injury team and with people who had disabilities. I saw firsthand the problems that they experienced. Whilst there have been numerous improvements over the years it is still very difficult for people with a severe disability—the 1.3 million people that the member for Moreton spoke about—to actually be able to access a number of public buildings. The fact that was brought out in the report was that the Disability Discrimination Act was passed by parliament in 1992 yet still there are significant access problems for people with disabilities. It also goes on to point out that equal access to premises is crucial to justice and social inclusion. It talks about how the Disability Discrimination Act recognises the importance of access to premises and about the disability access to buildings draft standards. It looks at this as being a fresh approach and giving more teeth to the Disability Discrimination Act. Recommendation 19 lists a number of issues that I think are also very important.

I received a letter in my office on Friday, when I was back in my electorate. I want to read it into Hansard, because I think it is pertinent to this report and pertinent to the fact that we need to look at putting in place the recommendations of this report, Access all areas. That is what it is all about. This letter is from Mrs Betsy Mary Allington, who will be 85 at her next birthday. She says:

… During the past 20 years I have had hip replacement operations and a knee and shoulder replacement. Over the past six years I have needed a walker, both inside and outside my home, to improve my mobility.

The point of this letter is that when out of my home visits to the toilet are fraught with complexity. Entry through doorways, even of disabled toilets, is sometimes difficult because of the heavy doors. Double doorway entrances to toilets are impossible to manage. Toilet seats are too low and using a walker to go to the toilet is impossible if disabled toilets are not available. In fact, I have yet to find any public toilet of adequate height.

I would like you to look into this concern on behalf of all disabled and elderly frail people not only in your electorate but for all of us across Australia.

I think this report has done that, to some extent.

I have a young woman who comes and works in my office two days a week, Tracey. Tracey, who I have mentioned in the House before, has had an operation for a brain tumour. As a consequence of that operation she is confined to a wheelchair. In the building where my office is there is a disabled toilet. One of the problems that Tracey experienced when she first started coming to my office was that the disabled toilet was totally inappropriate and set up in a way where it was not accessible to people with disabilities. Tracey is on the Lake Macquarie City Council Disability Access Committee. She looks very closely at the guidelines and the codes that are in place for new buildings in that area and helps the council develop a policy in relation to disabled access.

The fact that there can be variations in standards, the fact that these problems exist, really demonstrates that there do need to be standards and there does need to be the fresh approach that is referred to in this report. It is important that buildings in Australia do conform to the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act, because so many people’s lives are affected by the fact that they cannot access buildings and cannot access toilets or other facilities when they are outside their houses. To some extent that does confine them to their own homes. The story that the member for Moreton told us about Kevin Cocks is replicated just about every day in this country, where a person who has been in a football accident, a car accident or has had some other mishap ends up a quadriplegic or a paraplegic. Unless we have in place the right sorts of standards, the kinds of standards that are recommended in this excellent report, then things will not change.

I would like to recommend to the parliament that this report be endorsed. I congratulate the committee and everybody involved with it because I know that they have put a lot into it, and I emphasise just how important it is that those standards are introduced, because it is all about quality of life and about people being able to really join in and be part of mainstream Australia.

Danna Vale (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.