NDIA Accountability Project

Carers’ enforceable rights and protections under the Disability Discrimination Act

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Submission to the Disability Discrimination Act Review

Re: Carers and Carers’ Enforceable Rights

We, the members of the UQ Network for Carers of Children with Special Needs and Serious Chronic Illnesses (UQ NCC), appreciate the current review of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth) [DDA] and its consultation.

We write to recommend that the forthcoming reforms to DDA clarify, expand and strengthen the enforceable rights of carers who care for family members or friends with disability. While the current legislative framework, in particular the Carer Recognition Act 2010 (Cth), provides important symbolic recognition of carers, it does not establish enforceable legal obligations. As a result, carers remain vulnerable to discrimination and lack clear avenues for legal recourse, despite the essential role they play and the challenges they may face.

Carers are fundamental to the wellbeing and inclusion of people with disability. For a truly inclusive, fair, and human-rights-based approach, Australia’s anti-discrimination law must provide carers with effective, enforceable protections.

Below we reflect on relevant Issues Paper questions, in particular the question no. 51 (‘Are there any other issues with the Disability Discrimination Act that should be considered as part of this review?’), and argue that carers’ enforceable rights to protect them from discrimination need to be further clarified and expanded as part of the ‘by association’ protection currently afforded in the DDA.

Clarifying and Strengthening Section 7 for Carers

While Section 7 of the DDA protects associates (including carers), there is considerable legal uncertainty about enforcement of the DDA beyond direct discrimination, leaving carers without practical access to remedy for indirect discrimination and access to reasonable adjustments.

Current Protections and Entitlements

current protections and entitlements in Section 7 are insufficient because there is a lack of certainty that carers can access reasonable adjustments; employers are uncertain about their obligations to carers; carers are not able to assert unclear rights; and the “read across” mechanism in Section 7(2) has not been tested in court for reasonable adjustments for ‘associates’.

Beyond clarifying and strengthening the DDA’s provisions relating to carers, it is equally important to increase awareness and understanding of these protections. Both carers and employers need to recognise that the DDA’s safeguards explicitly extend to carers. Building this awareness is essential to ensure carers can confidently exercise their rights and that employers fulfil their legal obligations under the Act.

We recommend the DDA reform include:

    1. Clarify the grounds for which carers may bring complaints under the DDA regime: Clarification that Section 7 entitles carers to protection from indirect discrimination (including reasonable adjustments) in addition to direct discrimination protections; Section 7’s “read across” approach is not sufficient. Carers need a distinct protected attribute in the DDA;
    1. Match enforcement mechanisms and available remedies to those provided to other claimants and rights holders under the DDA.
    1. Provide specific guidance for employers on carers’ entitlements under Section 7;
    1. Support increased public awareness and guidance for carer/associate protections and duties, including clear examples in explanatory materials of what reasonable adjustments for carers may include (such as flexible hours, remote work, leave for appointments, flexible leave provisions, etc); and
    1. Require positive duties on employers rather than reliance on complaints mechanisms (across the DDA)

Why Protection of Carers Matters

  • Caring has significant social, financial, and personal costs.
  • Carers provide essential support: medical, therapeutical, emotional, administrative and financial. The quality of life of certain people with disability depends heavily on carers’ capacity to provide such support. This support is unpaid, with significant time and mental demands. By doing so, carers significantly reduce the economic burden on the state by providing care that would otherwise rely on public resources; and which often cannot match the personal attention and emotional support offered by loved ones.
  • Carers face discrimination themselves: in employment (including a lack of inclusion, limited opportunities for advancement, and other impacts on employment), in access to public policy and services (such as superannuation – due to reduced working hours and time off work), and in broader social inclusion (compounded by the additional time, responsibility, and social isolation that can come with their caring role, as well as by the exclusion experienced by the person they care for).
  • Without protections for carers which clearly include protection against indirect discrimination as well as clarification of requirements for reasonable adjustments for carers, protections for children and young people with disabilities are also more difficult to achieve.

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  • Lack of clarity of the application of the DDA to carers by association reduces the enforceability of protections for carers and reduces the likelihood that carers will access these protections.
  • The Carer Recognition Act also has symbolic, policy, awareness-raising value. However, where carers, already in a more vulnerable position face disadvantage, the law gives them no extra power to insist on reasonable adjustments, protections, or compensation. These must be more clearly provided as essential disability discrimination protections in a new DDA.

Responses to Issues Paper themes, including suggestions for amendments

Issues Paper topic How carers are affected What reforms could help
Who is covered by the DDA / Definitions Carers are not sufficiently protected as “disability- affected persons” under the DDA, yet they are directly impacted by disability policy and practices. They often bear the adverse effects of discrimination directed at or because of the person with disability. Clarify and expand the definition of “disability discrimination” to recognise both direct and indirect discrimination against carers by reason of their association with a person with disability. Include “by reason of caring responsibilities” as a protected attribute or explicitly add “carers” or “family/kin carers” to the list of protected persons.
Issues and discrimination Carers may ask, for example, for flexible work, leave, access to public services together with the person they care for, reasonable adjustments, they may be assigned less favourable or under/non- qualified work tasks than those they performed before taking on caring responsibilities. Carers may be excluded from decision-making processes. There is currently no clarity for enforceable protections for carers to access reasonable adjustments at work. These adjustments are often required to facilitate the access of children and young people to medical, therapy, educational, social and other services. Without enforceable access to

Remedies, Enforcement and Compliance

Carers currently have uncertain legal entitlement under the DDA if discriminated against on the grounds of their care of a person with disabilities.

Make obligations clear and enforceable (i.e. breach leads to complaint under DDA, or under new statutory obligations). Ensure remedies for associates/carers match those available for other claims under the DDA.

Intersectionality / Multiple Discrimination

Primary carers are usually women. Carers are more likely to experience financial and social disadvantage. Some carers have disability themselves - they face dual barriers.

Reforms should be responsive to intersectional disadvantage as considered in the issues paper. Amendments to the DDA must consider combined and compounding grounds of discrimination (e.g. gender + caring + disability).

There may also be requirements for additional and targeted protections or affirmative duties to consider these issues in specific conditions.

Implementation, Awareness and Culture Change

Without clear and legally enforceable protections, the awareness and visibility of issues for carers of people with disabilities remains low. Carers, employers, service providers are often unaware of issues carers face, and/or of any existing protections they may have under the DDA. The Carer Recognition Act provides no legal protections to carers, and the DDA does not clarify the full range of entitlements which carers may have against discrimination they may face.

We thank you for the opportunity to contribute.

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Submitted by the UQ Network for Carers of Children with Special Needs and Serious Chronic Illnesses (NCC).

Date: 24 October 2025

On behalf of the NCC,

Dr Barbora Jedlickova PhD (Glas); LLM (Glas), Mgr Senior Lecturer, TC Beirne School of Law The University of Queensland

Chair, UQ Network for Carers of Children with Special Needs and Serious Chronic Illnesses

and

Dr Michelle King BA (Hons), LLB, Grad Dip (Legal Practice), PhD (Law) Research Fellow, Queensland Aphasia Research Centre (QARC) Affiliate Research Fellow, School of Law The University of Queensland

Member, UQ Network for Carers of Children with Special Needs and Serious Chronic Illnesses

and

Ellen Beattie Member, UQ Network for Carers of Children with Special Needs and Serious Chronic Illnesses

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