NDIA Accountability Project

Discrimination due to neurological disability in libraries and workplaces

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Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth)

Review - Personal Submission

Authors - Samantha Rowe & P

Sam Rowe - Personal statement

My name is Samantha Rowe. I currently work as a Health Equity Officer - Disability with Metro South Health (Qld Health). I am also a research assistant for a Disability Inclusion in Museums project with Griffith University. I have previously undertaken access and inclusion work at The University of Queensland Art Museum, and as a committee member of the Disability Inclusion Group at The University of Queensland.

I am a recently diagnosed Autistic ADHDer, and acquired Functional Neurological Disorder in 2019. I have experienced bullying, bias, dismissal, stigma and discrimination throughout my life because of my disabilities. Many instances have been from middle and higher up management of an organisation. At UQ Art Museum, my supervisor constantly advocated for a more sensory safe work environment for me, however the higher management ignored the requests. Art Museums are notorious for needing to stick to an artistic and curatorial vision, with no concern about how the artwork or environment impacts the staff who work in the space or the visitor accessibility. There is particular disregard for people with sensory sensitivity, intellectual disability, and learning disabilities.

I was discriminated against on multiple occasions in my role as a Public Programs officer at Ipswich Library. My direct team leader was sometimes supportive, however they continually gave me tasks verbally when I did not have pen and paper on-hand - even though I had disclosed my neurological disability in the interview and stated that I needed tasks and information in written format because of my memory issues. In performance reviews this was the only negative performance feedback given. I asked on numerous occasions to please provide me with written instructions or to wait so that I could write the tasks down, and half the time this was disregarded. The department manager and the next higher manager were incredibly discriminatory towards people with disability. It was known by the whole Librarian team, and I was warned by others on numerous occasions to not disclose all the particulars of my disability because of the discriminatory management attitudes towards people with disability. Department managers refused to provide workplace accommodations and stopped giving shifts to a number of people with disability. I was told directly by the department manager that they hesitated to hire me because I disclosed in my interview that I had a neurological disability. They refused to consider changing a full-time role to part-time, so I could continue working in the team - they stated that it was a hardship to change the role. They told me that they would not consider me for other roles as I was unable to drive on a regular basis because of my disability - there were usually at least 12 public program officers (not including the team leaders and department managers) in the team, so there were always people to take on duties that required driving. I did not want to be further bullied or be treated negatively, so I did not make any complaints to HR. They stopped giving me shifts suddenly, even though months prior they requested Ipswich City Council to create a casual position to keep me in the team - I had initially started in the team as a fixed term part-time employee.

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Samantha Rowe - DDA Review Submission

| have had to advocate for myself during my university studies at The University of Queensland. My university thesis supervisor at The University of Queensland also avocated for me to have education adjustments. My FND is a fluctuating condition. UQ Policy only gives a one week extension to people with disability for any assessment. My initial request for a three month extension for my thesis was denied, even though the policy states that the Head of School could grant my application. The Head of School told me that they had no authority to give extensions longer than one week. | had to write a letter to the chief examiner of the university and basically beg for an extension. This process took almost four months. | find that people who have fluctuating conditions can have more barriers than others, as our disability is dismissed.

Previous to starting my role with Metro South Health, | applied for access and inclusion roles for over five years, with every role being full-time. No organisation would consider changing a disability access and inclusion role to part-time or job share, so that | would be able to have the opportunity to be a successful candidate. This type of treatment by employers / managers is a regular story that | hear from many people with disability.

My role with Metro South Health is quite recent, and a disability identified role, which is great. | disclosed being Autistic, ADHDer, and having FND in my interview. Upon starting my role | emailed the team to disclose my disabilities, how they impact me and strategies that | use and supports that | need from the team. The team is really great and open to assisting me with what | need. | find though that when | suggest new ways of having team meetings, providing me with information etc.. so that my disabilities are supported, that there is inaction in the team. | think that having mandatory disability and diversity training, particularly in neurodivergence, would be beneficial to the whole of society, so that people understand how our brains work, and what supports we need so that we are not constantly struggling to cope. | work three days a week, with one day being in the office, and the other two work-from-home. This flexibility is great for my sensory sensitivity. The office environment is incredibly high sensory. My manager has booked a Quiet Room for me to use on my office day, which helps a lot. However, the Quiet Room, is not low sensory. There is no sound proofing in the walls, the lights are extremely bright, and the room is overly warm. This is one example of an organisation having the initiative to provide spaces for people who need low sensory work environments, however the space is not adequate for our needs. | believe that codesigning low sensory work environments needs to included as a requirement within the building code and standards, or at the very minimum having specifications on what a low sensory / quiet room actually needs.

There are many high sensory aspects of life that | am unable to access, or am significantly triggered by, including shopping centres, airports, retail stores, grocery stores, food and beverage organisations. All of these organisations have so many high sensory stimuli, which is completely unnecessary. It is unnecessary for every store in a shopping centre to play very loud music, have bright lights and fast moving video advertising and to have everything squished together. | rarely visit retail stores because of the inaccessible high sensory environments. When | do visit, | go prepared with all of my sensory reducing items, though they are never enough. | end up triggered and have jerking and tremors, start stuttering or lose my ability to speak, have trouble walking, and find it challenging to make decisions. | am then stared at by the customer service people and other customers.

The CRPD and the DDA are supposed to protect my human rights to be able

Personal statement

My name is. I currently work as an Assistive Technology Mentor using lived experience of disability and using assistive technology to provide peer-to-peer support. In addition to this work, I use my lived experience in voluntary board and advisory roles to improve the lives of people with disabilities. Prior to the onset of neurological disability, I held professional roles in the education sector, spanning leadership, human resources, information systems and governance. I am a person with neurological and physical disability, a member of the Autistic community and a parent to neurodivergent and disabled teenagers. I am a victim-survivor of domestic and family violence, having exited a coercive controlling relationship with significant stalking and monitoring, where my disability was used to isolate and control me. In exiting domestic and family violence, I have lived experience of homelessness and in navigating services and support systems that have been inaccessible. Just one example of this was not being permitted to have my disability support worker at a “disability accessible” refuge, outside of business hours and being expected to fully clean the apartment at the refuge on exiting despite being physically unable to do so, and also not being permitted to engage a cleaner or disability support worker to do so on my behalf.

As a result of my disability, I experience difficulties with cognitive fatigue and with auditory processing. This means that communicating verbally, including by telephone is exhausting and I frequently cannot recall conversations afterwards. I rely heavily on written information, including using captioned videocalls for important and complex conversations. Captioned video calls provide live written text of the conversation and the opportunity to lip read, and both together improve my ability to process and recall the conversation. When government organisations and private businesses refuse to offer alternatives to telephone as a method, I am unable to interact effectively and experience significant disadvantages.

As a direct result of my neurological disability, I also experience involuntary movements, seizures and episodes of paralysis and loss of speech, and these are typically triggered by sensory inputs and anxiety. Frequently, when I am out in public and I experience these symptoms, I am treated as being “less than” and sometimes treated as though I am not capable of understanding what is happening or making sound decisions.

There are many public services that I am unable to access, or have significant impact in triggering my neurological symptoms, due to the high sensory environments. These include shopping centres, grocery and retail stores, cafes and restaurants, car dealerships, and airports. Two days ago, I visited my local Kmart store, while wearing noise-cancelling headphones. When I arrived, there were two faulty lights just inside the entrance. The lights were strobing in such a way that it had high potential to trigger a seizure for someone with epilepsy and for me, I started to experience painful involuntary movements. I reported the lights to the person at the door and highlighted that they posed a significant

safety risk for the store. They responded that it had been reported but | did not feel | had been taken seriously. | later raised it again at the checkout and the staff member called over the manager. The manager said they had reported it to their external contractor but beyond that, they had no control over the lighting and there was nothing more they could do. | suggested that they could place signage at the entrance to warn customers before they entered and | was dismissed.

I have experienced discrimination including lack of access to accessible communication when interacting with Queensland Police Service, Brisbane Magistrates Court, Child Support Services, Centrelink, Australian Taxation Office, Queensland Department of Education, Queensland Health, National Disability Insurance Agency, legal services, medical and allied health providers, retail and banking services. I have also experienced bias and stigma within medical and health services as a direct consequence of disclosure of my diagnosis of Functional Neurological Disorder, and disclosure of being Autistic with ADHD.

My current work role has lived experience of disability as an inherent role requirement, yet after 2 1/2 years, my workplace has failed to implement two of three essential low-mid cost workplace accommodations recommended by the Employment Assistance Fund.

As a parent, | have witnessed my youngest teenager being discriminated against by the Queensland Department of Education, particularly after entering the non-compulsory phase of schooling. When we exited domestic and family violence last year, we were temporarily relocated to a refuge approximately two hours away from my child’s school and our health and other support services. Aware of our circumstances, my child’s school cancelled their enrolment just days before assessments, due to lack of physical attendance despite full awareness of their health condition and the challenges in physical attendance, and despite advocacy on our behalf by a social worker. This has placed a vulnerable yet insightful, compassionate and gifted student with disability at significant long-term financial and social disadvantage and has had an extreme impact on their mental health.

As a single parent with limited financial resources, my time and energy are limited and precious and are spent primarily in maintaining my very part-time work, community contributions and managing both my own and my youngest child’s disability. | am also still navigating legal processes to separate any remaining assets from my marriage. This means | have limited capacity to report discriminatory practices and systems, particularly when shared experiences of other people in the disability community suggest that the current Disability Discrimination Act lacks teeth and places the onus on people with disability.

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This submission focuses on:

*The issues are bigger than the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 itself. It is not just the DDA that needs drastic improvement, it is every legislation, standard, code, regulation and guideline that impacts people with disability. What is needed is dramatic changes to a number of legislation and supporting documents and development of legislation and supporting standards and codes that do not yet exist or cover many topics so that people with disabilities have more access to everyday life. This includes drastic improvement to the DDA, broadcasting and non- broadcasting legislation and code, building code and standards, public transport legislation, medications legislation and guidelines, assistance animal legislation, and the list goes on. The building code and disability building standards desperately need revision to protect people with neurological, neurodivergent, intellectual and learning conditions. Australia needs to develop legislation and supporting documents to protect people with neurological and neurodivergent conditions, particularly for built and sensory environments. There also needs to be drastic regulation of all broadcast, non-broadcast, advertising and online communication to protect people with any type of brain impacting disability [sensory sensitivity (particularly photo sensitivity), blind /low vision, neurological conditions, neurodivergent conditions, intellectual disability, learning disability].

Developing and implementing health and safety protocols, regulations, codes, and standards for people who experience sensory sensitivity and sensory overload needs to be a priority. There are many aspects of life that we are unable to access because there is no consideration for us in any legislation and supporting documents.

The need to clearly and inclusively define disability to ensure the full protection of ALL disabilities. Further, the DDA needs to clearly set out the human rights that the act protects, and clearly articulate that legislation set out in the DDA supersedes all other legislative tools. E.g. where there is discrepancy between DDA and Disability (Access to Premises-Buildings) Standards or the National Construction Code, then the DDA is the highest authority and requires full compliance.

The need for a ‘positive duty’ to be placed on Employers, Organisations providing goods and services (including shops and other businesses), Schools and other education providers, Accommodation providers (including landlords), Government departments and agencies. To achieve this, resources need to be provided to these organisations to provide examples of good practice and suggestions for effective implementation. This needs to be backed up by consequences for poor practice and reporting systems that do not rely heavily on the person disadvantaged by their non-conformance.

Organisations need to be proactive in implementing policies, strategies and ongoing training to ensure that disability inclusion is practiced in reality and not pretend or an afterthought. This includes having clear accountability with measurable plans.

The need to remove or specifically define (in favour of people with disability) ‘reasonable adjustments’ and ‘unjustifiable hardship’.

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  • Within employment, organisations must ensure equitable employment of people with disability at all levels of an organisation (i.e. not just entry level roles). This includes accessibility at all stages of the employment relationship.

  • How the DDA interacts with other Australian legislation, standards, strategies, policies, and guidelines and how these all need to also be reviewed and changed to protect the human rights of ALL people with disability, not just people with physical -apparent disabilities, particularly learning disabilities and sensory sensitivity. Learning disabilities - particularly dyslexia - and Sensory sensitivity accessibility is disregarded in most aspects of life.

  • There are discrepancies between State and National legislation, eg. Assistance Animal legislation. This is ambiguous and does not protect the human rights of people with disability. There should not be different State legislation concerning disability rights - they should all be at a national level and enforceable at the same level for every state and territory in Australia.

  • The human rights of the Deaf community to be able to actively participate in all aspects of life is not being upheld in Australia. Deaf people are unable to be on a jury, and are not provided Auslan Interpreters for court cases. This is a violation of their human rights as well as the UN CRPD.

  • Education providers need to provide greater supports and longer extensions for people with fluctuating conditions.

General Comments

  • Disability definition - inclusion of fluctuating conditions: The definition of disability needs to include fluctuating conditions e.g. most neurological conditions fluctuate daily in their symptoms and severity. However, because of the nature of being a fluctuating condition, it has further impacts such as not being recognised under the NDIS, eg. Functional Neurological Disorder is not on the NDIS approved condition list because it is a fluctuating condition.

  • Clear definitions of human rights: Need to provide clear plain language definitions of human rights (rather than rights of people with disability) that are protected under the act and what actions individuals, businesses, communities and government organisations need to do to be compliant and uphold those rights. Including proving clear examples of how they might do those things for people with different types of disabilities.

  • Too broad/ambiguous: The DDA is too broad. It needs to be more specific. Disability inclusion and the access and support needs that everyone has is very diverse. Unless organisations and people work in the disability inclusion space, then they don’t know or understand about disability access and support needs. If the DDA has more specific parameters, or even a full list of examples of specific access

and supports needs, this would support organisations in understanding what their responsibilities are.

  • Intersectionality: Need to include reference to intersectionality and reinforce that human rights protect rights of the whole person - that often people with disabilities are also members of other marginalised groups. E.g. may be a person with disability from a CALD background, or may be LGBTQIA+, First Nations person with disability.

  • Protection of ALL disabilities: The DDA does not protect or support all people with disabilities. It only supports people with physical disabilities, with bits and pieces here and there for blind and Deaf people because of the compliance requirements for the Building Standards and Public Transport Standards. But even they are not fully protected or supported. Another impact of this is dividing the disability community, creating and perpetuating lateral ableism.

  • Inequity within services - Services may consider and accommodate some disabilities but provide no consideration for others. E.g. When using Caption Calls for the National Relay Service, there is no option to use the app, but instead you need to open a web browser on the phone and log into the site to access caption calls. Eg. Health services provide at-home services for seniors, but not for younger people with disability, or may provide support for patients with disability but not for disabled parents supporting a patient who is a minor.

  • Lateral ableism / exclusion - language for services narrows who might access them. E.g. People with sensory processing (e.g. visual processing, auditory processing) difficulties are not included in services for Blind/Low Vision or d/Deaf and Hard of Hearing. People with neurologically caused mobility issues are excluded by services for mobility caused by spinal cord injury.

  • Processing disorders: There is no recognition of hearing difficulties caused by neurological conditions (where it is a processing issue in the brain rather than a receiving issue in the ear, e.g. auditory processing disorders).

  • Fatigue conditions: There is minimal recognition and support for fatigue conditions in many areas of life. There needs to be more specific information and requirements in the DDA to support people who have high fatigue conditions. Support considerations could include:

    • Shorter waits in reception for appointments if needed
    • Skip the queue
    • Tele / health appointments
    • Work from home, low sensory work environments & flexible hours being enforced
    • Providing sufficient seating in all service, retail, leisure, and community organisations

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Psychosocial / Neurodevelopmental / Learning Disabilities

  • Legislation, regulations, guidelines: There is limited specific legislation, standards, recognition, accommodations and hence enforcement to protect and support for people with psychosocial disabilities and neurodevelopmental disabilities within all aspects of society e.g. CPTSD, PTSD, OCD, fibromyalgia, Tourettes, dyslexia, anxiety etc… Almost every type of communication is not accessible for dyslexic people, eg. road signs, way finding, government documents, websites, emergency signage and information etc all use capitalisation, italics, serif fonts, underline etc….
  • Content warnings: There needs to be greater regulations about ensuring there are trauma and content warnings for TV, Movies, Museum content, art content, news - tv, radio and text, literature, performance, concerts, music etc…. These conditions are overlooked in many aspects of life. Provisions are made to provide ‘accommodations’ - particularly in the education sector - however the very nature of education requirements, including sitting in class, 2-3 hour long lectures, audio only lectures, digital projected text with no captions, non-dyslexia friendly information etc…. There needs to be specific information and requirements of providing accessible information and education as a standard - in both education and workplaces.

Immunological Conditions

  • Immunological conditions: There is no specific protections or support for people with immunological disorders, such as cancer, allergies, auto-immune diseases (such as coeliac disease), arthritis, diabetes, etc. There needs to be better support about having to provide dietary adjustments and having sections in kitchens where dietary adjustments are prepared and cooked.

Intellectual Disability

  • Intellectual disability: Intellectual disability is dismissed, neglected, ignored, and discriminated against within all aspects of society. There needs to be better systems in place to support people with intellectual disability. Mandatory training for all employees in all sectors on all the different types of disability and how to interact with people with disability will significantly improve the inclusion of intellectual disability. Mandatory training would also need to include information on human rights and the legislation, so that people are not told to leave for being noisy, be excluded for being different, and be neglected because of being labelled as ‘difficult’.

Positive Duty

  • Burden placed on PWD: There is a burden on PWD to prove / disclose their disability in their request for access. The DDA, as any legislation, should not be reactionary, but should be proactive in enforcing human rights. When the burden is on the PWD it creates many challenges. Some people with disability have only so much energy to get through their day, and having the added burden of constantly having to fight for simple human rights is

incredibly frustrating and tiring. This burden on individuals leads to advocacy fatigue, and as the current DDA is not being enforced, it is therefore compliance on paper rather than access in practice. The responsibility of compliance should not be with the individual, it needs to be with the employers, policymakers, educators, and leaders. Human rights should not depend on those with the strength and energy to advocate, or with those with sufficient funds to fight for justice in the court system.

o Systemic discrimination and neglect - Health system: Positive Duties are essential in order to address Disability Royal Commission findings of systemic neglect of people with disability across the Australian Health System. The Australian health system has major gaps in proactive systems to ensure access to safe and quality care for people with disability. Health care delivery is often offered in very rigid ’models of care’ and adaptions for people’s disability access and support needs are often not met.

o State and National governmental job positions: State and National governmental job positions - including graduate roles - are foundationally inaccessible for people with disability who require workplace accommodations other than flexible hours. Roles are often full-time, with no consideration given to offering or changing roles to part-time or job share to enable people with disability who have reduced capacity to be able to be even considered for the roles. Work from home is often only allowed to be one or two days a week, with the rest of the time being required to work in the office. Office environments are often high sensory and a huge challenge for people with sensory sensitivity (which is over 30 health conditions). Though there is increased awareness of being inclusive and accommodating for people who are neurodivergent, in reality neurodivergent people are still having to navigate daily tasks, meetings, performance reviews etc., under a neuronormative lens. This is a societal widespread issue. If organisations have a positive duty and a mandatory requirement to provide disability inclusive positions this places the onus on organisations to not only increase their awareness, but provide accommodations to current and future employees who may not be currently receiving the needed accommodations.

o Mandatory disability inclusion training: There needs to be a positive duty placed on all employers, goods and service organisations, education providers, and accommodation providers - especially government organisations - to provide mandatory training for all employees in disability inclusion, as well as specific disability type training. This training needs to also go beyond physical disability. 90% of disability in Australia is non- apparent. This needs to be reflected in the DDA and all standards and guidelines that directly interact with and reference the DDA.

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Communication Accessibility

e Specific Communication access: The DDA and Building standards only recognises providing interpreters, and having hearing loops and braille on signage in the protection of communication access. There is so much more to communication accessibility, for example (though not limited to):

e Website accessibility: All websites need to be screen reader friendly. Make Accessibility widgets an offense to use, as they override screen reader user settings, making websites inaccessible.

  • Captions / captioner: needs to be available when interacting with QPS, Magistrate’s Court, Centrelink, NDIS, Child Support, ATO.
  • Online video appointments: Telehealth appointments and longer appointments for any appointment type - particularly health appointments - this is still not widely available.
  • Accessible formats: Providing information in different formats, eg. Easy English, braille, raised print, large print, video, captions. Providing PDF and Word documents, as PDF are not accessible for screen readers.
  • Language: Use plain language. Use inclusive language.
  • Dyslexia: Enforce dyslexia inclusion communication for all public service organisations, including signage, road information, etc.
  • Environments for information absorption and decision making: Low sensory environments for important decision making environments, such as in health and purchasing high value items.
  • Ensuring understanding: Ensuring understanding for supported decision making. Carer / family involvement in decision making.
  • Asking for consent: Explain what you are doing and ask for consent - particularly in health settings.
  • ACC communication: Inclusion of people who use alternative or augmentative communication styles, and training and awareness of different ACC.
  • What to expect information / accessible guides: What to expect information is vital for many disabilities and particularly needed in health environments, appointments and procedures.
  • Literal language: Literal language needs are not recognised or supported - e.g. initial signage for Brisbane Metro bus service displayed “Emergency Access Point” signage for accessible boarding point. Many Autistic people and other people with disability would not perceive the requirement for accessible boarding as an emergency so would not have utilised the access point.

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State and National Government public services

Disability identified job roles: Disability as a priority target have a higher rate of not being met compared to other priority targets such as First Nations and CALD. Disability identified job roles are slowly increasing. However, there needs to be regulation and targets on these roles, as there is for First Nations roles. And there needs to be guidelines about ensuring the role is completely flexible, including changing a role to be job share or part-time, and 90 or even 100% work from home if the person with disability requires it.

Captions / captioner: needs to be available when interacting with QPS, Magistrate’s Court, Centrelink, NDIS, Child Support, ATO.

Concession card for people under 18: as a person with disability with limited capacity to engage in paid employment, | am currently in receipt of a partial disability support pension, which also provides concessions for my medications. As a child over 16, my youngest (17 yo) teenager is not covered by this concession card, despite me being financially responsible for their health needs. Being under 18, Centrelink advised that they are not eligible for their own concession card. It was only by luck that | encountered an experienced senior Centrelink worker with compassion and common sense, who understood their processes well enough to manually create a work-around to provide my teenager with a concession card. There appears to be a “no-man’s land” for 16-18 year old children of parents ona Disability Support Pension, which has significant financial impact for parents already experiencing financial hardship as a result of their disability.

Video calls: Video call communication options for interaction with public service departments - e.g. Child Support, NDIS, ATO, Centrelink. Currently options are telephone or sometimes web chat. There is no option to have captions when speaking with a Financial Information Services Officer through Centrelink. Police discussing significant legal and safety issues over the telephone even when they are aware that it is not accessible for the person with disability and not providing any written follow-up.

Domestic and Family Violence Support Services

  • Emergency crisis accommodation is not accessible for disability - this comes down to resourcing within the sector

  • When accessing a “disability accessible” refuge, support workers were only able to attend during business hours Monday to Friday, so people with disability exiting domestic and family violence are not able to access disability support services on weekends, evenings or early mornings.

  • Disability equipment suppliers were not allowed to make deliveries to the refuge, nor would the refuge collect equipment, so the person with disability was required to travel to the supplier to collect essential safety disability equipment (e.g. shower chair).

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  • On exit from a “disability accessible” refuge, the person with disability is expected to complete a “vacate clean” but is not permitted to engage a disability support service/cleaning agency to complete the clean if they are physically unable to do so themselves.

Department of Housing - providing person-centred appropriate housing:

  • Downlights with fans sitting below causing strobing effects should not be permitted in disability housing. Lights should be placed away from fans, or use fans that have a light underneath. Despite the issue being raised and then confirmed by a Department of Housing Occupational Therapist, the department has refused to make any modifications, including the low-cost option of replacing fans with a style of fan with a light underneath.

  • Emergency accommodation is typically not accessible, and accessibility needs are neither considered nor communicated to the emergency accommodation provider. Emergency accommodation providers have not completed disability inclusion training.

Building standards and codes

  • Streamline: The streams of legislative requirements presented across Australian Standard AS1428 suite, the National Construction Code and the premises standards (per DDA) should be streamlined so there is one source of truth for the mandatory elements of accessible infrastructure design. Also explore the concept that designs that prioritise flexibility and adaptability are consistent with inclusive infrastructure, whilst acknowledging that physical spaces can’t be all things to all people, but should be able to be easily adapted to maximise their accessibility.

  • Legislative exemptions: There should be NO legislative exemptions to accessibility within the Construction Code and Building Standards. Every area should be accessible by people with disability. Any worker may become ill at any stage of their life. If they are the ‘expert’ or manager in their area, if they develop a condition or disability, would that mean that they are no longer suitable for their job, just because they acquired a disability? This is discrimination. Why would there not be wheelchair users who need access to a plant room? Why would there not be staff with mobility issues who need to access any room in a hospital? These broad legislative exemptions on which areas of life people with disability are not allowed / able to access is perpetuating the attitude that people with disability are not as knowledgeable, skilled or as worthy an employee as people without a disability. At the very minimum, the onus should be placed on the building owners to ensure that project teams using the building are not being overly risk adverse or dismissive towards what people with disability can do and go. So therefore seeking a way to stop risk averse project teams from preferring a position that exempts as much of the design as possible.

Employee and Consumer Focus - Workplace / Organisation Disability Inclusion

NOTE: PWD are both employees / managers and customers, so the following ‘employee’ and ‘customer’ points need to be considered from both perspectives. E.g. Workplace accommodations around noise levels also benefit customers and vice versa.

  • ‘Reasonable accommodations’ and ‘unjustifiable hardships’: The understanding and actioning of ‘reasonable accommodations’ and ‘unjustifiable hardships’ by employers is vague and provides employers with a “free pass” making it easy to avoid their responsibilities and legal obligations (including obligation to provide a physical, sensory and psychologically safe workplace). As it stands, this practice favours businesses and is discriminatory towards people with disabilities. ‘Unjustifiable hardship’ is used by employers when employees ask about changing a full-time role to part-time. There would essentially be minimal job roles that could not have the duties and responsibilities separated into two, therefore this is discrimination. It places a burden on the person with disability to right for their human rights, and requires energy and courage to fight an employer who does not want the additional hassle of having two people fulfilling a role. This is an industry wide issue, and particularly noticed in local government job roles.*

  • Equity in Employment: employers must ensure equitable employment of people with disability at all levels of an organisation (i.e. not just entry level roles). This includes accessibility at all stages of the employment relationship (i.e. not limited to accessible recruitment) and specifically includes onboarding, performance management, promotion and resignation/termination. All training and professional development (especially mandatory training), must be accessible for all employees regardless of whether this is developed in-house or externally sourced. Similarly any organisation-wide communication, especially change consultation, must be accessible and equitable for all employees, regardless of the chosen method of communication - whether via email, productivity software or in-person/virtual meeting (e.g. live captions must be available and everything communicated verbally must be included in transcripts after the meeting). There needs to be specific guidelines about how to give performance reviews for different disability types. And there needs to be specific regulation about employers not being permitted to judge an employees performance based on the inherent nature of their disability. Eg. Critiquing an employee for not completing all tasks, however the tasks were provided verbally and no written information was provided, and no capacity to write down a task when told.*

  • Disability inclusion / awareness training: Society can only change with understanding and awareness. Therefore Disability Inclusion training needs to be

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mandatory for all staff in every business type. Particularly for public service organisations. Domestic Violence training is mandatory, so why not Disability awareness?

  • Employment Assistance Fund: Need accountability for employers in providing Workplace Adjustments, particularly when these are recommended by the Employment Assistance Fund. This needs to include requiring businesses to have documented policies for how they provide workplace accommodations and who is responsible for each step of the process. There needs to be more onus on the employer and less load on the employee seeking accommodations.

  • National workplace accommodation guides: National resource for employers and employees with information and case studies of workplace accommodations with comprehensive guides of workplace accommodation examples and implementation information (e.g. American Job Access Network www.askjan.org). People don’t know what they don’t know, so having a specific list of all the different possible workplace accommodations would be highly beneficial.

  • Regular physical, sensory, communication, psychosocial audit: Need to implement requirements for workplaces to complete regular physical, sensory, psychosocial and communication audits, assessing appropriateness of environments for both employees and visitors (including but not limited to PWD).

  • Business self-accessibility audits: There should also be mandatory self-audit accessibility checks made mandatory for anyone operating a business. And they need to be for all disabilities, not just physical. They need to consider all stakeholders, including customers, employees, suppliers, board directors, etc.

  • Service & Retail stores:

    o Physical regulation: Service and retail stores need clearer and well-published guidelines for meeting accessibility requirements. E.g. their obligations for meeting physical, sensory, and communication accessibility requirements. Not just how wide an aisle needs to be for a mobility aid user to get through but also clear instruction not to narrow the space by adding promotional bins and stacks of stock making it impossible to get through (e.g. Robin’s Kitchen) (Sensory requirements referred to below).

    o Communication regulation: There needs to be more specific guidelines and regulation on communication accessibility in service and retail stores.

    o Sensory sensitivity regulation: So many service and retail organisations play extremely loud music, neon / flashing lights, promotional videos with flashing and flickering content, strong smells at the entry to the store (eg. Myers and perfume section). There needs to be comprehensive regulation on this, including Low sensory hours at different times of day everyday. There also needs to be specific regulation on not allowing high sensory advertising to be displayed in external public spaces (on the exterior of the store).

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Environmental regulation and decision making

High sensory environments negatively impact executive function including concentration and decision making, and should not be permitted in organisations where consumers are making significant decisions (e.g. in the banking, car, finance, health, justice, legal and real estate sectors).

Taxi / Rideshare

  • Regulation and training: Greater and specific regulation and training needs to be provided for taxi and rideshare organisations. People with disability are being refused service, as drivers either do not understand that they are breaking the law when they refuse service.
  • Taxi subsidy scheme: There needs to be increased and specific regulation on the Taxi subsidy scheme so that taxi drivers cannot refuse service because of a PWD having a taxi subsidy scheme as payment.

Education

Flexible policies for fluctuating conditions: Universities need flexible policies to support people with fluctuating conditions. The assessment policies are usually rigid and have no further information on how to apply for or have adjustments that include longer extensions for people with disability, even when you have a Student Adjustment Plan.

Physical Accessibility

  • Regular physical, sensory, communication, psychosocial audit: Need to implement requirements for workplaces to complete regular / annual physical, sensory, psychosocial and communication audits, assessing appropriateness of environments for both employees and visitors (including but not limited to PWD). Having a checklist that needs to be filled-in and submitted with photographic evidence will ensure that organisations are aware of their responsibilities. The responsibility of accessibility needs to be with organisations, NOT with people with disability having to request access constantly.

  • Parking across footpaths: not enough public information and no enforcement.

Public transport

  • Wheelchair ramps: The regulation width of wheelchair ramps needs to widened to accommodate wider motorised wheelchairs. They also need improved safety features, such as luminance contrast edges and side edges so that users do not accidentally roll off the edge.
  • Low sensory: Public transport needs to be more considerate for people with sensory sensitivity. Loud noises for bells to close the doors, flashing to show next stop, loud announcements over the PA etc need to be reduced in intensity.

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There are all required, but they don’t need to be extremely loud. It is unnecessary however to have flashing to indicate next stop.

Audio and text next stop: There should be an audio and visual text display stating the next stop. Some have none, some one, but rarely is there both. The text also needs to be in sentence case.

Seating fabric: There needs to be regulation on the fabric type for seating. Many buses and trains have low pile polyester fabric, where the pile is very sharp and painful for Autistic individuals. It is also very hot to sit on in summer.

Bus and train stops:

  • Blind people: Improvements are needed at bus stops for people who are blind. The call buttons do not always work, and bus drivers are not always getting the message of a blind passenger trying to flag down a bus.

  • Sensory sensitivity: Bus and train stops need to be accessible for people with sensory sensitivity. There should not be flashing lights to indicate that a bus has arrived. Using a continuous normal lux level light that is coloured but not vibrantly coloured is sufficient for other disabilities to notice. Eg. King George Square bus station in Brisbane is completely inaccessible for people with sensory sensitivity. Each bus stop has an intensely bright vibrant coloured light surrounding the whole door, that flashes vibrant bright green when passengers can board the bus, and then changes to flashing vibrant bright red when the doors are closing. The couple of times I tried using this station, my neurological disability was triggered immediately. I immediately became non-speaking, disoriented, my arms started having strong tremors so I could no longer hold my Go Card, and I could barely walk. It was sending me into a stress response of fight or flight. I have contacted both Brisbane City Council and TransLink about this, with no response. This should at the very least have been checked and co-designed with people who experience sensory sensitivity before implementing it. And it should not be allowed. Health and safety is only ever considered for people with physical, vision or hearing disabilities, and never a consideration for people who experience sensory overload. This desperately needs to change.

Assistance Animals

Assistance animal legislation: National and State legislation does not match and is ambiguous. The DDA would override any state legislation as well, to my understanding, therefore when state legislation differs substantially - as does the QLD legislation - then it makes the requirement ambiguous. Qld legislation is actually quite discriminatory towards where Assistance animals cannot go, particularly that they are not allowed in many healthcare services. These places are usually where a PWD would need their assistance animal the most. There should be a national assistance animal act.

Courts and Criminal Justice

e Deaf rights: The CRPD protects the rights of Deaf people for courts and criminal justice. However Australia does not provide Auslan interpreters for Deaf people. And Deaf people are unable to be on a jury, which is denying their human right to public and civic duty.

e Captions: Live captioning needs to be provided in court, for any phone / video calls made between the court or police and the public for anyone who needs it.

Products Accessibility

e Braille on poisons and medications: There needs to be increased inclusion for the blind community, particularly with regards to braille on products. This includes medication and poisons, and cleaning agents. The UK and Europe have braille on their medication boxes.

e Minimum font sizes and Tactile markings: Regular household products such as shampoo need to have a required minimum size of font for key information (e.g. the word “Shampoo” rather than the brand or logo) and some type of tactile marking. This will assist people with vision issues, or even as we age and our eye sight worsens, having tactile markings on bath products such as shampoo, conditioner etc would greatly help people who can’t read without their glasses. Text also needs to be at an appropriate colour contrast to the background.

e Accessible packaging: There needs to be regulations on accessible packaging that ensures that consumers can see, read and feel where and how to open an item, and are physically able to be opened with ease by people with limited dexterity and strength. This should also include regulation on restricting the use of disorienting patterns and patterns that might trigger people with neurological disabilities. Eg. Ultrathin pads by Kotex have a colourful disorientating pattern on the pad, making it disorientating for me to look at, and impossible for me to see where the opening is.

e Product differentiation: This should also include clear visual and tactile differentiation between types of product within a range of products especially when they are products essential for maintaining personal hygiene - e.g. shampoo vs conditioner, or light - super sanitary products.

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Broadcast, non-broadcast, advertising and online regulations

Limited accessibility requirements within standards, codes and regulation: There is limited accessibility requirements and regulation within Australia’s broadcast, non-broadcast, advertising and online codes and standards. The requirements that do exist are about captions. There are no other accessibility requirements.

Brain disability / sensory sensitivity accessibility and regulation: Sensory sensitivity is not covered at all by any federal or state legislation, standard or code. These need to be developed to support people with sensory sensitivity, neurological disabilities, neurodivergence, low vision, intellectual disability and mental health. More and more organisations are using flickering /flashing content, loud noises etc to grab their audience’s attention. This is triggering for the 30 or more health conditions that experience sensory sensitivity. Eg. I can no longer watch Channel Nine, as the majority of their program ads contain flickering content. Will it take someone to die from an epileptic episode for Australia to implement regulation and legislation to protect us, just as it did in the UK?

In-game ads: There are no captions being used in any Australia organisation ads that are played when using app games. This includes private organisations as well as state and federal governments.

Dyslexia, learning disability and low vision accessibility: There is no accessibility requirements for people with dyslexia, learning disabilities and low vision in the requirements for text size, font type, font style, contrast between the text and background. Anything on TV or online should be a large sized sans serif font, use sentence case, bolded headers, and not use capitalisation, underline or italics. There needs to be a 4.5:1 or even better yet 7:1 contrast ratio between the background and text.

Social media:

  • Communication accessibility: There needs to be accessibility requirements and regulation for all social media with regards to dyslexia and low vision (as above), as well as captioning for any video with spoken language. Social media organisations also need to be required to allow more accessible documents, such as word documents, to be shared. Currently only pdf documents and images are allowed, which are both inaccessible for blind people.

  • auto-play & flickering content: This includes demanding that social media disable auto-play as the standard setting, so users need to turn it on if they want to use it. Currently there is no option for users to disable autoplay on Instagram. Therefore using Instagram is challenging for people with sensory sensitivity because of the constant flickering and fast movement content uploaded by users.

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Website accessibility widgets

Website accessibility widgets should be banned in Australia. The idea of them is good, and they can be helpful for people who need to change the contrast of a web page. However, they are fundamentally inaccessible for people who are blind and have low vision. The code within the widgets overrides the users screen reader settings, making the website inaccessible for the screen reader. There are thousands of court cases in the US on his very issues. There is a growing consensus within the European Union that accessibility widget at non- compliant with user accessibility, particularly with the recent European Accessibility Act. Australia needs to mandate that accessibility widgets are non-compliant with providing an accessibility website and therefore should be banned.

Sensory sensitivity / hypersensitivity

  • No legislation, standards or regulation: Sensory sensitivity is not covered at all by any federal or state legislation, code or standard. Legislation and a national standard needs to be developed that supports people with sensory sensitivity, neurological disabilities, neurodivergence, low vision, intellectual disability and mental health. The standard needs to cover every aspect of life including buildings, services, retail, workplaces, community services, sports and leisure etc… The UK has a national standard - ‘Design for the Mind’.

  • Public space, TV, online or email communications & advertising, warnings: Australia does not have any legislation or standards for people with sensory sensitivity and photo sensitivity with regards to any advertising or online communications. So much of our media and communications, warnings and safety have flickering, flashing, strobing, fast movement, or patterning effects that trigger people with sensory sensitivity. This is present in our ads (including both regular ads as well as program ads), public space digital ads, retails shops digital ads, airports; in most of our digital communications such as on website, social media, emails; in streaming service programs; and in many other areas, such as driveway warning strobing light, low quality dimmer lights (these flicker at all luminance levels). Many TV ads, both usual advertising as well as broadcast station program advertising have flashing, stroking, flickering and very fast movement content.

  • National legislation and standards for sensory sensitivity and photosensitivity: The UK has national standards and legislation on advertising (for public spaces, advertising, TV, and online communications) stating that ads and online communications cannot have flashing, flickering, strobing, or patterns that can trigger people with photo sensitivity, including epilepsy. Over 30 health conditions experience sensory sensitivity, so Australia needs regulations to protect people with these conditions and disabilities.

    o UK broadcast and non-broadcast codes that specifically address photo sensitivity and flickering content:

    « Broadcast code - The UK Code of Broadcast Advertising (BCAP Code) applies to all advertisements (including teleshopping, content on self-promotional television channels, television text and interactive

Mental health inclusion regulation and enforcement

  • General protection: People with mental health conditions and addiction (which is a mental health condition) should be fully protected under the act in all aspects of life. This needs to have follow on changes to standards and guidelines, such as building standards for hypersensitivity inclusion and advertising and broadcast standards that could trigger people with PTSD or addiction.

  • Gambling Ads: Gambling ads are triggering and should not be allowed on TV. Mental health is just as an important health factor as lung cancer. Smoking

DDA interaction with other National and State standards, Acts and Regulations

  • Disability Standards such as the Disability Standards for Accessible Public Transport 2002 (Transport Standards) and the Disability (Access to Premises- Buildings) Standards, predominantly focus on physical disability / access, with some considerations to blind / low vision and d/Deaf and hard of hearing.
  • There is no provision or consideration for any other type of disability.
  • A ‘Design for the Mind’ guide should be developed that aligns with the Disability Building Standard.

Accessible Autism and ADHD assessment and diagnosis

  • No regulation supporting access to assessment, diagnosis, treatment and supports: People with disability disproportionately experience financial disadvantage, poorer access to health services and lack of access to advocacy supports. This impacts their ability to equitably access assessments, diagnoses and treatment for many health conditions. Where they are also neurodivergent, the impact of this is magnified as there is no regulation on financial costs, significant wait times and other barriers for private providers and no options available through the public health system. There is significant research and published literature that sets out the longer term personal costs and national health and economic costs for late/lack of diagnosis and support. This includes shorter life expectancy and higher comorbity rates, higher rates of mental health impacts and suicide, equitable access to education and reduced social and economic participation.
  • Financially accessible Assessment, diagnosis & treatment: Autism and ADHD (and all other neurodivergent conditions) assessments and diagnosis needs to be standardised and regulated, made financially accessible, and provided under the public health system. People are having to pay between $1,000 to $8,000 for an assessment, again for a diagnosis and report, and between $300 and $5,000 for script renewal appointments with psychiatrists. This is financially inaccessible for many people and money grabbing.
  • National standard: All states and territories need to fulfill the Disability Royal Commission recommendation to have national standards for ADHD diagnosis,

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Discrimination in NDIS eligibility

ADHD is currently considered a treatable condition by NDIS, as there is medication that can be prescribed, so people with ADHD are not currently able to access disability support. Not all people with ADHD are able to tolerate or benefit from medication, and medication alone is typically not sufficient to fully compensate for executive function issues. A wheelchair user does not become “cured” when prescribed a wheelchair, and still faces significant societal and infrastructure barriers but is still eligible for NDIS, including accessing supports for secondary mental health conditions that often arise from onset of disability that challenges their sense of identity. Similarly, a person with ADHD is not “cured” by stimulant/nonstimulant ADHD medication and still requires assistance in developing cognitive and sensory strategies to effectively manage their condition and engage equitably in society, and may also experience similar secondary mental health impacts. These secondary mental health impacts are especially obvious in late diagnosed women, girls, intersex people, and trans/queer/nonbinary people, who are forced to reexamine their world view and perception of themselves after a lifetime of shame and feeling different without understanding why. Facing social stigma and lack of understanding, people with ADHD often face more significant barriers, yet are discriminated against and refused access to critical supports through NDIS.