Labor for Refugees
New South Wales/A.C.T. www.labor4refugees.com
Convenors: Lauren Honcope Mob: Jenny Haines Mob:
12 November 2025
Hon Michelle Rowland MP Attorney-General PO Box 6022 House of Representatives Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600 michelle.rowland.mp@aph.gov.au
Dear Attorney-General
Re: Review of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992
Thank you for your letter of 30 July 2025 in which you informed L4R NSW/ACT of your department’s current Review of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (DDA). I have attached a copy of your letter and the letter from L4R dated 16 July 2025, to which you were replying.
For the purposes of the Review, we reiterate our submission in our letter dated 16 July 2025. We are very heartened by the following in your letter dated 30 July 2025 to us –
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The Australian Government is committed to upholding the rights of people with disability and ensuring Commonwealth anti-discrimination legislation remains fit-for-purpose. You mention recommendation 4.31 from the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability (the Disability Royal Commission), which states that the Australian Government should initiate a review of the operation of section 52 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth), insofar as it authorises discrimination against people with disability seeking to enter Australia temporarily or permanently. The review should consider changes to the legislation and migration practices to eliminate or minimise the discrimination.
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As part of the Government’s Response to the Disability Royal Commission, the Government accepted in principle 15 recommendations from the Disability Royal Commission relating to the reform of the DDA, including recommendation 4.31. The Government committed $6.9 million for the Attorney-General’s Department to review and modernize the DDA. The next step for the DDA Review will be to conduct broad and accessible public consultation to ensure that all voices are heard.
L4R has completed the online community survey part of the Review. L4R has also uploaded, in the online space provided, a copy of this letter to you, and included our previous correspondence. As you would deduce from this previous correspondence, L4R considers that a review of section 52 of the DDA should result in repeal of section 52 of the DDA, in order to uphold the rights of people with disability and ensure Commonwealth anti- discrimination legislation remains fit-for-purpose, to adopt your description of a very worthy Labor goal.
Section 52, DDA reads as follows –
Section 52
Migration
Divisions 1, 2 and 2A do not:
- (a) affect discriminatory provisions in:
- (i) the Migration Act 1958 ;
- (ii) a legislative instrument made under that Act; or
- (b) render unlawful anything that is permitted or required to be done by that Act or instrument.
Section 52 and the Divisions referred to are in Part 2 of the DDA, concerning Prohibition of disability discrimination etc, and they cover Discrimination in Work, Discrimination in Other Areas and Disability Standards, respectively.
The Migration Act 1958 (MA) and Migration Regulations and other instruments made under the MA result from the Commonwealth’s Constitutional power to make laws with respect to ‘aliens’, called in the MA ‘non-citizens’. In Australia there are millions of non-citizens on any given day, present in the Australian community as visitors, or as migrants (people who are resident for more than 12 months, as we understand the ABS definition of ‘migrant’) or people not migrants but resident for periods under 12 months. Non-citizens fall into two broad categories – ‘lawful’ and ‘unlawful’.
A non-citizen is ‘lawful’ if they have a valid visa under the MA, issued by an officer in the Department of Home Affairs or a Minister. An ‘unlawful’ non-citizen is one without a visa which means the non-citizen is subject to arrest, detention and deportation1. At the moment, decisions to –
- issue a visa,
- add visa conditions such as a right to work (or to ban the person from working) or to access SRSS2, Medicare, Commonwealth social security benefits or to add any other of the myriad conditions available, and
- cancel a visa,
can all be made so as to discriminate - lawfully - against a person with a disability of any kind.
In our opinion that lawful situation is contrary to the human rights of people with disability, is contrary to Labor values, is inconsistent with Australia’s wealth and clearly is not ‘fit for
1 MA sections 14, 189 and 198 mainly.
2 SRSS means Home Affairs Status Resolution Support Services
Labor for Refugees NSW/ACT
*purpose’ today (to adopt your words).
The millions of non-citizens in Australia also interact (as do citizens) with local, State and Territory and Commonwealth governments and agencies, and large and small non- government institutions and individuals. Mostly, in modern Australia, non-citizens cannot be lawfully discriminated against on the basis of disability, other than under the MA. This is a glaring anomaly and embarrassment.
The impact of decisions under the MA creates a lawful Commonwealth unfairness gap which can be life-threatening to some. This gap is largely lawfully filled by local government, States and territories and the non-government sector – churches, charities and a range of civil society groups and individuals. An example of the gap and how it has been filled is the case of a disabled child, who arrived at Australia’s sea border several years ago with a parent, and they were then subject to a punishing visa regime. The local Canberra Catholic community embraced them and supported her education for years, as did the local trauma service for refugees and the wider community. She and her parent were granted permanent visas after the change to a Labor government – at the end of 2024 we understand. This case demonstrates that the MA can be administered without needing to discriminate against people with disabilities. This young person will go on to contribute to Australia, just as would another person.
Our final point is that section 52 of the MA is inconsistent with the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 and the Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986, none of which make exemptions for the MA. The Age Discrimination Act 2004 does (section 43), so that Act needs to be reformed and made fit for purpose also.
Regards
Nizza
Nizza Siano Secretary Labor for Refugees NSW/ACT
The Hon Michelle Rowland MP
Attorney-General Federal Member for Greenway
Reference. MC25-032425
Nizza Siano Secretary Labor for Refugees NSW/ACT
Dear Ms Siano Nizza
Thank you for your letter of 16 July 2025 regarding the migration exemption in the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (DDA).
The Australian Government is committed to upholding the rights of people with disability and ensuring Commonwealth anti-discrimination legislation remains fit-for-purpose. You mention recommendation 4.31 from the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability (the Disability Royal Commission), which states that the Australian Government should initiate a review of the operation of section 52 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth), insofar as it authorises discrimination against people with disability seeking to enter Australia temporarily or permanently. The review should consider changes to the legislation and migration practices to eliminate or minimise the discrimination.
As part of the Government’s Response to the Disability Royal Commission, the Government accepted in principle 15 recommendations from the Disability Royal Commission relating to the reform of the DDA, including recommendation 4.31. The Government committed $6.9 million for the Attorney-General’s Department to review and modernise the DDA. The next step for the DDA Review will be to conduct broad and accessible public consultation to ensure that all voices are heard. If you wish to receive updates about the DDA Review, please sign up to the mailing list on the Attorney-General’s Department website: www.ag.gov.au/rights-and-
protections/human-rights-and-anti-discrimination/australias-anti-discrimination-law/review- disability-discrimination-act.
Thank you for taking the time to write to me on this matter.
Yours sincerely
Michelle Rowland MP
20/7/2025
Labor for Refugees
New South Wales/A.C.T. www.labor4refugees.com
Convenors: Shane Prince SC Mob: Jenny Haines Mob:
Secretary: Nizza Siano Mob: E:
16 July 2025 Hon Michelle Rowland MP Attorney-General PO Box 6022 House of Representatives Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600 michelle.rowland.mp@aph.gov.au
Dear Attorney-General
Re: People with disabilities in Immigration detention
Labor for Refugees first wrote to Immigration Minister Tony Burke on the 2 November 2024, after members at our meeting, unanimously endorsed a motion urging the government to implement the recommendations of the Royal Commission to remove the migration system’s exemption from disability discrimination law.
We circulated this motion to our members, urging them to seek support for this matter at their branch meetings.
The motion reads as follows:
“That this Branch recognises the urgent need to support CALD/CARM people with disability, especially those who are refugees with disability, and writes to the Australia & the World Policy Committee (International Affairs Policy Committee in the ACT) and the four (4) key Federal Ministers (Minister Burke, Minister Giles, Minister Rishworth, and Minister Shorten), urging them to implement Recommendation 4.31 of the Disability Royal Commission and Recommendation 8 of the Home Affairs Review of the Migration Health Requirement and Australia’s visa Significant Cost Threshold, which respectively recommends:
o Reviewing Section 52 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth) to remove the migration system’s exemption from disability discrimination law; and o Reforming the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) and the Migration Regulations 1994 (Cth) to enable Australian- born children with disability to obtain both visas and protections from deportation.”
The Minister responded on the 27 November 2024 outlining the amendments made to the Health Requirements to “provide special consideration for child visa applicants born and ordinary resident in Australia living with a health condition or disability”. This took effect on the 16 October 2024. Our letter dated 2 November 2025 and the Minister’s response dated 27 November 2025 are attached.
We wrote back to the Minister on the 11 March 2025 to thank him and acknowledged that this amendment reflected the government’s commitment to ensuring greater fairness in the Migration Health Requirement space. However, we also pointed out that our recommendation to review Section 52 of the Disability Discrimination Act, with a view to removing the exemption in the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 to the Migration Act 1958, was not addressed.
We pointed out that this matter may be an issue for the Attorney-General as the Attorney-General, under the Administrative Arrangements Order, is responsible for this Act. However, because the government was in election mode, we wanted to wait until the election was over, before writing to the Attorney-General.
At our last meeting, the matter was followed up. It was pointed out that this issue has been in the public arena for a very long time. In 2010 – fifteen years ago - there was a Parliamentary Inquiry and Report called ‘Inquiry into Migration Treatment of Disability’. Its recommendations have since been reiterated by those of the Disability Royal Commission. In 2020, there was a Welcoming Disability Campaign, led by the Australian Lawyers for Human Rights. A group of more than 100 organisations and experts signed an OPEN LETTER calling for urgent reform of Australia’s migration health laws to remove their discriminatory impact on people with disabilities and health conditions.
The Labor Government has a large mandate and if there was ever a time to address this decade plus long issue, it is now. We cannot keep kicking the can down the road on such an important issue.
We urge you to address this matter and look forward to your response.
Regards
Nizza
Nizza Siano Secretary Labor for Refugees NSW/ACT