Deafblind Australia Response to the review of the Disability Discrimination Act 2025.
As the national peak representing all people with dual sensory impairment/deafblindness, Deafblind Australia (DBA) welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the review of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA).
Deafblind people and those that work with and support them continue to inform DBA about the many and varied ways Deafblind people are currently discriminated against in all life domains. In disability services, healthcare, education and employment, Deafblind people continue to not be understood and to receive sub-par services specifically because of needs related to their disability. This is particularly true when it comes to accessible information, spaces, events and the provision of in-person supports such as Auslan interpreters.
Deafblindness is a unique and isolating sensory disability resulting from the combination of both hearing and vision loss or impairment that significantly impacts communication, socialization, mobility and daily living.
The term ‘d/Deafblind’ refers to people who have some hearing and vision, as well as people who are completely deaf and blind. Many Deafblind people communicate using Australian Sign Language (Auslan) and/or spoken languages. However, there is an incredibly diverse array of alternative and augmented communication methods including objects, pictures, body language, gesture, key word signs and braille.
It is difficult to accurately state the incidence of deafblindness in the community due to the broadness of the classification and diversity of conditions the term captures. Based on data from the Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers deep dive 2018 the number is thought to be around 200’000 although this is likely an underestimate. This likelihood is due to the fact that many people with dual sensory impairment do not identify as such and may not report this status and because the SDAC does not cover remote regions and thus does not reflect the high rates of sensory loss/es in First Nations communities.
The Deafblind community is very diverse. Its members have varying degrees of vision and hearing impairment and come from diverse cultural backgrounds. Some live with multiple or complex disability.
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Defining Disability.
The legacy of the medical model of disability continues to exert a strong influence over the policy and legislative landscape of this country. It is fuelling NDIS reforms that result in outcomes that are contrary to the spirit and intent of both ADS and the UNCRPD, and it must be systematically and deliberately dismantled. Ensuring this reform includes a more authentic definition of disability is a vital step in this process. However, attempting to define and scope disability in a way that ignores the reality of impairments will fail to achieve the goals of this review.
It is vital that any working definition of disability, social model or human rights model, captures the essential interactive processes that underlie disabling experiences. It is imperative to clearly state that disability is generated by the combination of personal attributes and societal conditions.
As People with Disability Australia so eloquently explains: —The social model sees ‘disability’ is the result of interactions between people living with impairments and an environment filled with physical, attitudinal, communication and social barriers. It therefore carries the implication that the physical, attitudinal, communication and social environment must change to enable people living with impairments to participate in society on an equal basis with others. A social model perspective does not deny the reality of impairment nor its impact on the individual. However, it does challenge the physical, attitudinal, communication and social environments to accommodate impairment as an expected incident of human diversity.”1
The importance of capturing the interaction behind these experiences cannot be overstated. Without doing this, there is a risk of misrepresenting people’s experiences in ways that further distance them from equitable treatment. For many Deafblind people, service systems frequently fail to understand, record or respond to their unique needs. They are frequently forced into ways of being and interacting with systems that were set up for people with a single sensory issue (i.e. Deaf people or Blind people). Deafblindness is a singular, multiplicative disability and appropriate supports and services for Deafblind people must embrace and be directed by this reality.
Given that the DDA is one of the main mechanisms to enact the UNCRPD it would seem that the UN definition of disability is the most appropriate. The United Nations defines disability
1 https://pwd.org.au/resources/models-of-disability/).
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as: “The long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairment that, in interaction with various barriers, hinders a person’s full and equal participation in society.” This definition eloquently and succinctly captures the interactions and interplay of conditions that generates or mitigates disabling experiences.
Intersectionality and the legislative landscape.
In the interest of making the instrument more holistic there should be links to other relevant legislation however the focus of this Act should be on interactively generated experiences of disability.
There is much work to be done before the social model of disability is understood, let alone practiced, by stakeholders at all levels. It is vital that articulating and preventing discrimination arising from the interaction of impairments with an environment is the central and clear focus of this Act.
Whilst intersectionality is a reality of all people’s lived experience it is difficult to see how making anti-discrimination instruments less focused would overall strengthen their impacts.
Disability is the experience of attributes interacting with environment but not all attributes. It’s vital to not deny or exclude the presence of impairments and their role in these experiences even as we try to move away from the medical model. A Deafblind person requires access to information in Auslan for very different reasons than other CALD groups need access in languages other than English. This is not an attempt to say that one is more deserving than the other but is to illustrate that the origin story of disability-related needs is quite different from needs arising from other characteristics and separate protections are required in order to preserve clarity around the elements of protected attributes.
There should be express requirements that any decisions made under this Act can be shown to be advancing the principles and goals of the UNCRPD and ultimately facilitating better outcomes for people with disabilities in-line with the aspirations of that convention. If the DDA is indeed one of the key pieces of legislation through which the government fulfills its obligations under the UNCRPD then steps must be taken to ensure it is interpreted and used in accordance with the spirit and intentions of that convention.
Additionally, if the existing legislature is to continue to be cited by the Commonwealth as evidence of the lack of necessity for a federal human rights act to embed the UNCRPD in practice and codify it in domestic law, then this must be explicitly stated and enabled through the functionality of this act.
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Positive Duty and the recommendations of the Disability Royal Commission
We support the recommendation of the Disability Royal Commission that positive duty should be applied to all duty holders under the DDA in-line with the Act’s overarching goal of eliminating all forms of disability discrimination including harassment and victimisation. Achieving this goal requires a move away from a system of redress to one where duty holders are required to proactively assess their compliance with obligations.
A positive duty is in essence a call to be proactive about making processes, spaces and services genuinely inclusive. Inclusive design and service delivery benefits everyone. It is highly likely that a positive duty of this nature would drive innovation that would lead to better and more accessible services for all.
DBA supports the proposed amendment to unjustifiable hardship proposed by the DRC. This builds a comprehensive picture that would make the definition usable for duty holders and people with disability. The requirement to document consultations with any person with disability concerned will go a great way in achieving greater fairness and transparency.
However, consideration also needs to be given to adjacent workforce realities when assessing unjustifiable hardship. The provision of Auslan interpreters, for example, is severely restricted by thin markets and it is important that duty holders are not penalised for failing to provide support that it is impossible for them to procure. This is especially important when the reasonable adjustment requires the engagement of human, in-person supports that are sourced from outside the duty holder’s area of operations.
The expansions recommended by the Disability Royal Commission would add a layer of clarity and transparency for both people with disability and duty holders. The current practice of allowing employers to make decisions about what a person needs without a requirement that this decision be made in consultation with said person cannot continue.
The DDA should also be amended in-line with the recommendations of the Disability Royal Commission to add a new provision making it unlawful to do an act other than in private which is:
- reasonably likely, in all circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or group of people.
- the act is done because of the disability of the other person or because some or all of the people in a group have or are perceived by the first person to have a disability.
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If the DDA was amended to prohibit offensive behaviour and/or harassment they should be defined thusly:
Offensive behaviour: actions, words, or attitudes that demean, belittle, exclude, or otherwise harm a person because of their disability.
Harassment: unwanted conduct related to a person’s disability that has the purpose or effect of:
- Violating the person’s dignity, or
- Creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating, or offensive environment for them.
Along with the DRC recommendation that these definitions are not applied to acts in private, protection of artistic freedom is vital and the Racial Discrimination Act provides a good template to follow regarding carve outs (Section 18D).
Concluding Remarks.
Deafblind people are frequently discriminated against because of a lack of awareness or skills relating to deafblindness among the people, places and systems that make up their lives. Historically it has been difficult if not impossible for many Deafblind people to seek restitution in these cases and the proposed updating of the DDA will go some way to changing this.
However, it is vital that in an attempt to be intersectional and inclusive that the updated DDA does not stray from its core mission and function where it can be most useful. The role played by the environment in mitigating or creating disabling experiences among citizens with impairments is not well understood in Australian society generally and as such is not broadly observable in practice despite being prevalent in policy. An updated DDA in line with the recommendations of the DRC is a vital step in translating the social model of disability and commensurate concepts like positive duty from page to practice. This is a non-negotiable step in bringing to life Australia’s commitments under the UNCRPD.
The recent UNPRPD guidance note on meaningful engagement of historically marginalized communities of people with disability specifically highlights Deafblind people as one group that needs to be more effectively considered and directly engaged in the formation of public
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policy2. Deafblind Australia stands ready to support further work on the DDA to ensure it is inclusive, evidence informed and fit for purpose.
2 https://unprpd.org/new/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/20250109_UNPRPD_MARG_GUIDANCE_web-pages.pdf
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