Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Payments) Share this | Hansard source

I wish to speak to the government response to the Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme report Accommodation for people with disabilities and the NDIS. I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

This report arose from the joint standing committee's review of affordable and appropriate accommodation for people living with disability. This followed an earlier report which noted:

… the lack of adequate accommodation can limit people’s ability to fully exercise their individual choice and control. It can also limit people’s ability to fully participate in society and live an ordinary life like any other Australian.

It is clear that Australians with disability cannot be assured at present that there is housing suitable for them. It is also clear that one size does not fit all. Australians with disability are not all the same. They differ in needs and preferences, like every other member of our community. This is a key factor which must be recognised and accepted if we are to make real progress in providing housing for people with disabilities.

In undertaking the review, the committee received 55 submissions and conducted a roundtable meeting on 23 October 2015. The committee made six very important recommendations to address the issue. I would like to cover each of them, briefly, and the government's response in the time that I have available. In the government's response that we've just had tabled the government has agreed with five of the recommendations and noted one.

The first recommendation is:

… that Commonwealth and state and territory governments work with national disability peak organisations and the Australian Building Codes Board to examine updating the Building Code of Australia in regard to accessibility.

This task remains unfinished. In the work that the Senate Community Affairs Committee has been doing in looking at the National Disability Strategy, we have heard considerable evidence to suggest that we need to not only ensure that the Building Code is updated, but that steps are taken to ensure that accessibility becomes a shared goal for all those involved in building houses—that is, builders, architects and homeowners. Accessibility shouldn't be an add-on or a nice thing to have. It should be a given, and we have some way to go before we get there. There is some interesting innovation happening, but in my view we still have some way to go to ensure that accessibility is a normal part of the scoping, designing, building and finishing process. And government does have a vital role to play in making sure everyone involved in the building process recognises this.

The government, in its response, has advised that the Building Ministers' Forum has:

… agreed to propose to COAG that a national Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) be undertaken as soon as possible to consider applying a minimum accessibility standard for private dwellings …

Now, that's good. However, with that work being undertaken and the discussions that have been had over many years, we know that if the RIA goes ahead, it will still be at least 2022 before it is implemented. So we do have a long way to go.

The second recommendation that the committee made was:

… that accommodation for people with disability be integral in the development of affordable and social housing policy proposals.

The report noted that the NDIS is not the fix-all solution for accommodation for people with disability. The NDIS will not provide housing solutions for all people with disabilities. While some housing needs will be addressed, there is a need to build housing for people with disability in all affordable and social housing policy proposals. There is a need to integrate these so that housing for people with disabilities is not seen as separate to affordable and social housing projects, but as an integral part of all proposals. Just today, I read reports that the Tenants' Union in my home state of Tasmania is calling for residential buildings on previously public land to incorporate a mandatory component of social and affordable housing. My belief is this call should also include the provision of accessible accommodation for people with disability. As a community, we are getting our minds around this but we need to go further and we need to go further soon.

Again, the government has agreed with the recommendation but does little, in my view, to explain what it is actually going to do. It does talk about the new National Housing and Homelessness Agreement. Senators in this place will know that that agreement has not been released and, as far as I'm aware, hasn't even been signed off. I think the government really does need to do more in its response to recommendation 2 and needs to come back and provide more information in regard to recommendation 2 because it's vitally important.

We now move to recommendation 3. The committee recommended:

… the Commonwealth government explore all possible proposals for disability accommodation, and the ways it can assist in bringing them to fruition.

I know that getting housing proposals off the ground can take a long time. When it's a proposal that includes housing for people with disabilities, it can be even harder. So, talking here today, I'd like to mention the tireless work of my Tasmanian colleague Bob Gordon, who has been pursuing cost-effective solutions for affordable housing that would help maximise independence and choice. Despite all the frustration Bob has faced in this work, he has kept plugging away, and he should be congratulated on that. The Commonwealth needs to take an active role to get this done, and it must work with the whole community to promote the value of a truly inclusive and accessible community.

Now we turn to recommendation 4, which was for an analysis of proposals that the Commonwealth should assess about how financially accessible they are for people with disability and their families. Again I have to say that, whilst I'm happy the government has agreed with this recommendation, I think the information that's been provided by the government does fall quite short and it would be good, again, for them to supplement their response. Obviously, a key part of determining just how practical housing proposals for people with disability are is the affordability of the accommodation for people with disabilities. We need to work as a community to ensure that the best type of accommodation, which maximises choice and control, is actually affordable for the people it is designed for. People with disability already face enormous challenges without paying a premium for accommodation. We need to make sure that suitable housing is affordable and no more expensive than other housing. This is a task that we all need to work towards and to complete.

I haven't got enough time to go through the other recommendations, so I hope that further speakers will keep this response on the Senate books, but I would like to say that, if people haven't read this report, I ask them to go and have a look at it and then compare it with the government response. As I've said, the government has accepted five out of the six recommendations, but we do need to make sure that the needs of people living with disabilities are at the forefront, and so we must be— (Time expired)