00:00The Disability Royal Commission was a historic and hard-won opportunity for our community
00:08and particularly women, girls and gender diverse people with disability to finally have our
00:14experiences of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation heard at the highest level.
00:20And since the release of the report, there have been a number of changes and steps taken
00:26that have been reported in the progress report. But the perspective is really many of the
00:33transformative, large-scale recommendations have not yet been taken up, which presents
00:39really serious concerns for us as advocates and the disability community that the harm
00:45and the violence that we have reported will continue. I do want to acknowledge that there
00:50has been some action towards ensuring that the National Plan to End Violence Against Women
00:56and Children has actions that are of particular relevance to women and girls with disability.
01:02And there have been commitments to really critical reforms to the Disability Discrimination Act
01:07and some work around employment for people with disability. But as mentioned, those really
01:13critical recommendations around phasing out segregation, ending forced sterilisation, many,
01:21many other really key recommendations that would better uphold the rights of people with disability
01:26in Australia remain unresolved and unanswered.
01:29What are some of those transformative issues that you say need being addressed immediately?
01:35You mentioned segregation there, forced sterilisation. What are some of the other areas,
01:39the real transformative areas, that you would like to see action taken on immediately?
01:45As you've heard Senator Stiljohn mention, one of the really significant opportunities is a recommendation
01:50around enacting laws that better protect and uphold the rights of people with disability
01:56in Australia. The Disability Royal Commission recommended a Disability Rights Act be enacted in
02:01Australia. Our organisation's position is that we support a Human Rights Act that would implement
02:07the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and all other United Nations
02:12conventions to uphold the rights of all people, including those people with disability and the rights
02:20that have particular meaning and relevance for our community. I remain really hopeful that that
02:25recommendation will be picked up and that will really underpin a lot of the other critical
02:30transformative reforms that we need to see, including in relation to segregation.
02:34You mentioned some of the areas that they've made forward steps in, particularly that was outlined in that
02:39progress report in December of last year. But why do you see there being such inaction with respect to the
02:46recommendations that were made over a year ago? Can you appreciate it is an extremely complex area
02:51of work for the government? Absolutely. I think no one expects that change like this, that the large
02:59scale transformative change we're asking for could happen overnight. We recognise that there are
03:05challenges presented by the shared responsibility across all Australian jurisdictions. That requires agreement
03:12and coordination across all Australian governments. And some of these recommendations do require complete
03:19overhaul of systems, structures and laws because we are starting from a position of such grave and large
03:26scale discrimination, harm and disadvantage for our community. So absolutely recognise that complexity.
03:32But what we need to see is firm commitment to immediate action, recognising that that might take time.
03:38But we need the action, we need the action, we need the commitment to working through that complexity.
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