The Justice and Equity Centre welcomed the Attorney-General Department’s review of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth) (‘DDA’). The DDA is no longer fit for its intended purpose and is long overdue for modernisation. It is unnecessarily complex, contains several practical hurdles for those seeking its protection, and imposes an undue burden on people with disability to enforce their rights.
Our submission makes 44 recommendations to improve the Act. Our recommendations are based on principals including: that protections under the DDA should apply broadly; that exceptions, exemptions and defences should be as limited as possible; that the law should be clear and easy to understand and apply; and that the DDA should aim for best practice in the realisation of human rights.
Specific recommendations include:
- updating and simplifying the tests for discrimination;
- introducing a positive duty to eliminate discrimination applying to all areas of public life and DDA duty holders, and granting the Australian Human Rights Commission robust powers to enforce the positive duty;
- introducing a standalone duty to provide adjustments in all areas of public life;
- changing the application of the general defence of unjustifiable hardship;
- introducing standalone prohibitions against offensive behaviour and vilification;
- extending the DDA to cover state and territory laws and programs; and
- adding sunset clauses to permanent exemptions and review those exemptions on an ongoing basis.
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