Disability report can be a path to a better future

The final report of the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability can be a path to a better future for 4.4 million Australians with a disability, but only if the will exists to transform Australia into a more inclusive society supportive of their independence and right to live free from abuse.

But we have far to travel. The disability royal commission is the latest in a plethora of royal commissions into robo-debt, child abuse, aged care, banking, and the incarceration of children, which, taken together, have exposed widely unacknowledged habits of neglect or abuse of the vulnerable by Australian governments, institutions and communities.

Loading

The disability royal commission heard of sickening incidents of violence and appalling conditions in group homes, the widespread exclusion of children with disabilities in the school system, the glacial COVID-19 vaccine rollout for people living in disability homes, and the abysmal employment rate of people with a disability.

The commission has recommended a major legal overhaul to protect the rights of Australians with disabilities, including a new Australian Disability Rights Act and the prohibition of involuntary sterilisation and certain restrictive practices such as the seclusion of children in schools or youth prisons. A new independent statutory body, the National Disability Commission, should monitor outcomes for people with a disability.

Loading

States and territories should make laws to reduce the use of restrictive practices – such as chemical restraints and seclusion – with the aim of eliminating them from health services, schools and prisons. The non-therapeutic sterilisation of women and girls with a disability should be banned under law, unless there was a threat to the person’s life, or they had given their free and informed consent. Increasing culturally safe supports for First Nations people and removing barriers to the NDIS in remote communities were also among recommendations.

But after four-and-a-half years of hearings, the six commissioners split over the fraught issue of segregation and whether special schools, group homes and disability enterprises – formerly known as sheltered workshops – should be permanently phased out.

About 10 per cent of Australian school students have a disability, and almost 89 per cent attend mainstream schools. Research has found less than 40 per cent of Australian teachers feel equipped to teach students with special needs, and the sector is currently struggling through a teacher shortage. The Australian Education Union argues that while public schools should be better resourced to cater to students with disability, for a small few, a specialist school with targeted support will still be in the best interest of the child.

Principal Matthew Johnson, who heads the Australian Special Education Principals Association, and has worked in both mainstream and special schools, said children students in special schools were the most complex cases. “I’m terrified to think of them being thrown into the mainstream system for a thought experiment, so someone can feel good about themselves.”

Amid the rash of royal commissions, the $599 million disability royal commission was established in April 2019 in response to growing community concern about widespread recent and historic reports of how people with disability were treated. The disability royal commission chair Ronald Sackville said the final report did not cover every conceivable issue but rather was an attempt to provide a blueprint for all Australian governments to respond to the abuses exposed. The proof, of course, will be in the pudding.

For his part, the Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, Bill Shorten, said it would take time to work through the recommendations but regarded the report as a moment of national unity. He’s right: changing attitudes is everyone’s chance to contribute.

Bevan Shields sends an exclusive newsletter to subscribers each week. Sign up to receive his Note from the Editor.

Loading