NDIA Accountability Project

Addressing systemic barriers for Aboriginal women experiencing family violence and disability

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17 November 2025

Disability Discrimination Act Review team Human Rights Branch Australian Government Attorney-General’s Department

By email: DDAReview@ag.gov.au

Dear Colleagues

Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth) Reform

Thank you for accepting this submission from Marninwarntikura Family Support Legal Unit regarding the review of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth) (DDA) currently being undertaken by the Attorney-General’s Department.

The Marninwarntikura Family Support Legal Unit (FSLU) is a Family Violence Prevention Legal Service. These submissions have been prepared by the FSLU in consultation with Marninwarntikura’s other programmes including the Marulu team, Marnin Studio and Strengthening Families Team.

Our primary position within these submissions is an understanding of disability as arising from the interaction between characteristics (particularly those arising from trauma histories, addiction or family violence – including, for example memory loss, fatigue, emotional disregulation) and the barriers within their environment. Disability discrimination exists when systemic barriers prevent inclusion - such as when forms are written in higher level English, processes are culturally unsafe or not trauma-informed, or reasonable adjustments are otherwise refused.

Amending our disability discrimination legislation could create structural change that will have an immediate impact on vulnerable people.

By way of content warning, please note these submissions contain personal stories from Aboriginal women who have experienced family violence and systems abuse. All case studies included in these submissions are de-identified and shared with consent.

Yours Sincerely

redacted

Managing Solicitor Marninwarntikura Family Support Legal Unit

Marninwarntikura Family Support Legal Unit is a service provided by Marninwarntikura Women’s Resource Centre ABN 78 560 614 562

Submission by Marninwarntikura Family Support Legal Unit to Australian Government Attorney-General’s Department review of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth)

Date of submission: 17 November 2025

MWRC contacts for this submission:

Managing Solicitor, Marninwarntikura Family Executive Officer, Marninwarntikura Support Legal Unit Women’s Resource Centre

E: redacted E: redacted

We acknowledge that we work on Aboriginal land, traditionally the home of the Danggu people of the Bunuba nation (Fitzroy Crossing, Western Australia) and pay our respect to elders past and present. We extend this respect to all language groups within the Fitzroy Valley, including Bunuba, Walmajarri, Nyikina, Wangkatjungka and Gooniyandi peoples.

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About us

  1. Marninwarntikura Women’s Resource Centre (Marnin) is an Aboriginal Community- Controlled Organisation located on the traditional lands of the Danggu people of the Bunuba nation in Fitzroy Crossing, Western Australia. ‘Marnin’ means ‘women’, ‘Wanti’ means ‘big mobs of women’ and ‘Kura’ means ‘belonging to’. When said together, the word refers to women belonging to country and to each other, coming together.

  2. We work in partnership with Aboriginal families and communities to strengthen systems and sustain purposeful, engaged and healthy lives for women and their families in the Fitzroy Valley who are impacted by family and sexual violence. MWRC adopts ‘two-way learning’, whereby Indigenous and non-Indigenous staff work alongside and from each other.

Service Area

  1. The Fitzroy Valley is located in the Central Kimberley region of Western Australia, 2,500km north of Perth and 400km east of Broome. Fitzroy Crossing is located in the centre of the Fitzroy Valley, at the crossing of the Martuwarra (Fitzroy River).

  2. The Fitzroy Valley encompasses more than 40 remote Aboriginal communities. Marnin services an area of approximately 300 square kilometres.

  3. Marnin’s location and service boundaries are shown in Figures 1 and 2 alongside the 5 language groups of the Fitzroy Valley - Bunuba, Gooniyandi, Walmajarri, Wangkatjungka and Nyikina peoples.

Figure 1: Marninwarntikura location

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Figure 2: Language groups across the Fitzroy Valley

Organisational Structure

  1. Marnin encompasses a number of different teams and programmes working together to support families in the Fitzroy Valley.

  2. The Shelter provides crisis accommodation for women and children escaping family violence.

  3. Through community art groups and individual casework support, the specialist Family Violence Outreach team work to provide ongoing support for women leaving the Shelter to build safety in their homes, families and communities.

  4. The FSLU provides legal and social support services for Aboriginal women experiencing family and sexual violence, with practice areas including family law, family violence restraining orders, child protection, criminal injuries compensation and redress applications. The FSLU also employs a social worker, art therapist, family support worker and family violence caseworker, to provide wrap around support for legal clients.

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  1. The Marulu team at Marnin focuses on prevention, support, capacity building and timely and sustainable community response to Fetal alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) and Early Life Trauma (ELT). This primarily manifests through:

    • In relation to FASD and ELT, building knowledge and understanding, advocating for improved services and building evidence through research;
    • Bigiswun, a youth social and emotional wellbeing programme supporting young people aged 15 to 25.
    • Jandi Yani U, a positive parenting program focused on upskilling families by building parenting capacity through culturally grounded positive parenting strategies.
    • Enhancing services through partnerships with Kimberley Aboriginal Medical services (KAMS), delivering Remote Early Childhood allied health supports to children aged 0 – 7 and partnering with Royal Far West to build capacity of families and provide specialist therapeutic supports directly to children using telehealth and face to face therapy sessions.

  2. Marnin Studio is a therapeutic healing space for art-based activities, inspired by the creative interests of Bunuba, Gooniyandi, Wangkatjungka, Walmajarri and Nyikina women who found healing in sharing their stories through art.

Our context

  1. To contextualise our recommendations, it is essential to understand the realities we observe in our community, where the challenges people face are closely and often inseparably connected to disability.

  2. In all cases discussed below, disability-related barriers are created or exacerbated by systems or organisations, which treat trauma-related impacts as ‘non-engagement’, ‘non- compliance’, ‘poor decision-making’ or ‘lack of capacity’. This inevitably leads to discriminatory outcomes, including refusal of services, withdrawal of supports, escalated child protection involvement, or adverse legal consequences.

Family Violence and trauma histories

  1. Family violence can cause disability, exacerbate existing challenges and create situational barriers that affect a person’s ability to access services, participate in decision-making, or exercise their rights.

  2. There is a growing body of research regarding the link between family violence and traumatic brain injury. Beyond physical disability, family violence can also:

  3. People with trauma histories, including experiences of family violence, institutional abuse, state intervention, racism or child removal, can experience:

    • Traumatic brain injury.

    • Signs of psychosocial disability, including chronic anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.

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  • Impacted cognitive and executive functioning including dissociation, memory loss, difficulty concentrating and hypervigilance. - Increased communication barriers, where fear, stress or trauma responses affect a person’s ability to explain their situation or process information.

  1. In practice, this can look like: forgetting appointment times, misplacing personal items (including keycards and identification), experiencing emotional disregulation and requiring repetition, additional time and visual aids to process information. Survivors may present as forgetful, fearful or inconsistent. These behaviours are normal in contexts of trauma and coercive control, though are often misinterpreted as incapacity or unreliability.

  2. Survivors with disability are faced with:

    • Complex forms and bureaucratic processes they cannot navigate
    • Inaccessible communication options (e.g. digital only, English only, legalistic language)
    • Requirements that ignore safety risks (e.g. attending appointments with or close to the perpetrator, or in one example from our team, having a Department of Child Protection caseworker suggest a survivor travel 2 hours to enable a perpetrator to have contact with their newborn child from prison).
    • Environments that are frightening, triggering or unsafe (e.g. requiring meetings to be held in buildings of government Departments that have perpetrated abuse and are a source of trauma for many Aboriginal people, such as the Department of Child Protection)

  3. These are forms of indirect disability discrimination.

Addiction

  1. Tobacco, alcohol and drug use are major health issues in Australia, and are associated with a number of physical and social harms. Social, political, economic and environmental factors also influence the use of drugs and alcohol. People living in very remote areas tend to have worse health outcomes than those living in Metropolitan regions,1 often due to limited access to services. 2 These health disparities are further concentrated in Indigenous communities in rural and remote areas of Australia.3

  2. The use of alcohol and drugs among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples occurs within the context of colonisation, the dispossession of land and culture, economic exclusion and systemic racism.4 Colonisation has had an enduring impact on the physical, mental, social and emotional health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

1 National Drug Strategy Household Survey 2022–2023: Use of alcohol and other drugs in Major cities, regional areas, and remote areas - Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2 NRHA-FactSheet-Alcohol Smoking Vaping and other drug use in Rural Australia.pdf 3 Reviewing Publicly Available Reports on Child Health Disparities in Indigenous and Remote Communities of Australia - PMC 4 Determinants of health for First Nations people - Australian Institute of Health and Welfare

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Compared with non-Indigenous people, Aboriginal people are at least 1.2 times more likely to consume alcohol at levels that pose a risk to their health.5

  1. Despite this, there is a chronic underinvestment in supports to rural, remote and very remote communities. Since 2013, the national number of alcohol and other drug treatment agencies has increased by from 796 to 1,280. However, only 66 remote or very remote alcohol and other drug treatment agencies exist, and major cities and inner regional areas continue to dominate service provision.6 In Fitzroy Crossing, the nearest alcohol rehabilitation facilities are based in Broome (396km away) and Wyndham (659km away). The nearest drug rehabilitation facility is in Perth, more than 2,500km away from country.

  2. In Fitzroy Crossing, we have seen an increase in the use of ‘Ngarbi’, or ‘ice’ (crystal methamphetamine) since the 2022/23 floods. During the construction of the Fitzroy Crossing Bridge in 2023, ice was introduced to the community by large numbers of construction and road workers. Ice use has flow on effects (most notably, an increase in the severity of family violence incidents).

  3. Addiction can affect how a person engages in decision-making processes and creates environmental and health-related barriers, including:

  • Withdrawal symptoms
  • Difficulty concentrating
  • A preoccupation with meeting immediate physiological needs

  1. It is not realistic or safe to expect a person with a drug or alcohol addiction to achieve healing without clinical support. In the absence of these services, individuals impacted by addiction are disabled by processes that do not meet their needs.

  2. Trauma-informed supports for individuals impacted by addiction might be:

  • Ensuring the person is not in withdrawal
  • Providing a calm and private environment
  • Using clear non-judgmental communication and visual aids
  • Allowing additional time to process information
  • Avoiding questions or assessment when in acute crisis
  • Clarifying information in plain language

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders

  1. Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) is a lifelong disability caused by alcohol exposure before birth. FASD is the most common non-genetic cause of developmental disability in Australia.

  2. People with FASD may experience a range of challenges with physical activities, communication, memory, executive function, learning and behaviour, which can have follow

5 NRHA-FactSheet-Alcohol Smoking Vaping and other drug use in Rural Australia.pdf p 3. 6NRHA-FactSheet-Alcohol_Smoking_Vaping_and_other_drug_use_in_Rural_Australia.pdf p 3-4.

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on impacts to education, relationships and work opportunities. Early diagnosis and intervention reduces the likelihood of these secondary disabilities.”

The MWRC Lililwan Project was a community-led study in the Fitzroy Valley to determine the prevalence of FASD and improve health outcomes for Aboriginal children and families living inthe region. It was the first population-based study to estimate the prevaence of FASD in the region, which helped inform the level of services required. The study revealed the prevalence of FASD in remote Aboriginal communities in the Fitzroy Valley is among the highest in the world.‐ Specifically, the research revealed that 55% of children were affected by alcohol in utero, and that 20% met the criteria for FASD.

Despite the need being well-documented, significant barriers to obtain a formal FASD diagnosis — which requires an assessment by multidisciplinary clinicians — remain. Children in the justice system can obtain a court-ordered assessment and diagnosis. However, all reports and their associated diagnoses remain confidential to the court and cannot be accessed by the individual outside of proceedings. This makes future applications for certain welfare payments or disability supports a costly exercise and adds unnecessary delays and complexities for a person navigating these systems.

89% of the children who participated in the Lililwan Project also participated in the Bigiswun Project from 2020 to 2022. In this project, the cohort of young people with FASD identified the supports and services they need to thrive in adulthood: a social and emotional wellbeing service, supported work programs, housing, mental health services, help to access birth certifications, Medicare cards and NDIS, and ongoing opportunities to spend time on Country.

Many young people with a diagnosis reported they did not receive crucial supports growing up due to missing referrals and other system failures. The follow up Bigiswun research was initiated when these individuals, now teenagers aged 17-19, began experiencing significant difficulties, including involvement with the Police and youth justice.

More specifically, the team identified the following:

  • Record-keeping failures: one client needed to be reassessed as previous diagnostic records were lost, delaying access to much needed supports.

  • Legal system navigation: clients struggle to understand legal requirements like restraining orders and their consequences, leading to higher levels of non-compliance.

  • Cognitive barriers: FASD-related memory issues prevent retention of important information, requiring consistent repetition of the same instructions. This significantly impacts this cohort in terms of education, employment, and youth justice involvement.

  • Impulse control problems: issues with financial management and following rules, leading to legal consequences like increased incidences of crime and repeated breaches of restraining orders.

7 What is FASD? - FASD Hub Australia | FASD Hub

8 Prevalence of fetal alcohol syndrome in a population based sample of children living in remote Australia: The Lililwan Project.

Case study — Barriers to applying for housing

Kelly is an 18-year-old Walmajarri woman who attends the FSLU seeking a restraining order. Kelly is in a relationship with an older man and is a victim-survivor of Intimate Partner Violence, including physical abuse and coercive control. Kelly is five months pregnant.

Kelly grew up in a remote community within the Fitzroy Valley and speaks English as a third language. She does not feel confident reading or writing in English.

The FSLU lawyer helps Kelly with a restraining order application. The FSLU caseworker helps Kelly to develop a safety plan. Kelly identifies that her biggest stressor is housing — she currently lives with her partner in his house and worries that separating from him during this time will leave her and her unborn child homeless.

The caseworker agrees to help Kelly with a housing application. The below is a representation of what this process entails, and the associated assumed characteristics of a housing applicant.

Process Assumptions
First, the caseworker downloads and prints a ‘Housing Options Assessment’ form from the Department of Housing website. - Applicant is digitally literate, with access to resources including a computer, printer and wi-fi.
This is a ‘pre-application’ form that does not constitute a housing application. Once the Housing Options Assessment form is processed, an ‘Application’ form is sent to the applicant by email or post. - Applicant understands from the information sheet cover page that the ‘Housing Options Assessment’ form is not a final application form and that further documentation is required.
The caseworker and Kelly complete the Housing Options Assessment form together, with the caseworker reading the questions to Kelly and writing Kelly’s answers. - Applicant is literate and has good comprehension.
- Applicant can complete forms unassisted.
The caseworker emails the form to the Housing office in Broome.
The Housing office responds after several days advising that the form requires identification and cannot be processed. This is despite the Housing website stating “No evidence of current circumstances, income or identification is needed when completing the assessment. Evidence only needs to be provided once a decision on a product has been made and a formal application is submitted.” - Applicant has sufficient understanding of the relevant process and procedure to confidently self-advocate when provided with incorrect information.

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Process Assumptions
The caseworker advocates for the form to be accepted, noting Kelly does not have any identification at this time and it is not necessary at this stage. After several weeks and follow ups later, the caseworker receives a copy of the formal application form for Kelly. - Applicant has the memory to recall and follow up on their application to ensure progression to the next stage.
The caseworker begins helping Kelly obtain a Birth Certificate. It is discovered Kelly’s birth was not registered and Derby Hospital have no record of Kelly’s birth. Kelly’s mother will need to sign the registration paperwork herself. Kelly’s mother resides in a remote community 2 hours’ drive from Fitzroy Crossing. An FSLU staff member visiting the community meets with Kelly’s mother to have her sign the relevant documentation. The paperwork is sent to the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, who return a Birth Certificate for Kelly within 3 weeks by post. - Applicant can navigate multiple systems at once.
- Applicant has sufficient identification readily available.
The FSLU lawyer certifies Kelly’s Birth Certificate. The caseworker assists Kelly to complete the formal housing application and sends the application with Kelly’s certified Birth Certificate by email. - There is a lawyer or a JP available in Applicant’s region to certify identification where there is no Housing office available.
The caseworker reaches out to several supporting agencies, including the school and hospital midwife, requesting priority support letters – a minimum of two support letters is needed for Kelly to be accepted onto the Priority Support housing list. This waitlist is currently 10 years long. - Applicant has multiple services available / sources of support
- Applicant is comfortable sharing their personal story with multiple agencies for the purpose of obtaining support letters.
The initial response from the Broome housing office is that Kelly will need to attend the office in person with the original Birth Certificate to be sighted. This email is forwarded to the FSLU lawyer, who advises that Kelly resides 400km away from the Broome office, and that the copy they sent was certified. - Applicant can easily travel to nearest housing office.
- Local government workers are well trained to provide Applicant with prompt and appropriate support and correct information.
The matter is escalated within the Broome housing office and after some time, a response is received confirming a certified Birth Certificate can be accepted.
Kelly’s housing application is processed, 9 weeks after starting the process and with significant advocacy support. Kelly’s caseworker reminds her that to remain on the housing waitlist, Kelly must - In 12 months, long after Applicant’s engagement with support service has ended, Applicant will recall the need to review their housing application.

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complete a ‘renewal’ form annually, which is sent by post.

  • Applicant understands housing application will lapse without renewal.
  • Applicant’s contact details will remain the same.

If Kelly fails to complete this form within the requisite time period, she needs to complete the application process from the beginning and she will be moved to the start of the waitlist.

Figure 3: Visual representation of housing application timeline

  1. Requiring people with disability to depend on this level of advocacy support is indicative of disability discrimination. Further, it is not a reasonable expectation for other services to fill the gap that is inevitably created when reasonable adjustments are refused, especially in remote areas where services are underfunded, limited or simply unavailable.

Updating understandings of disability and disability

discrimination

  1. There is a need to actively shift our definition of disability from an impairment-based to social or rights-based model. As demonstrated in the above discussion and case example, ‘impairments’ alone do not create exclusion or impact capacity; a person with cognitive disability is excluded by language and process-heavy systems, and not cognitive function. It is when an individual characteristic interacts with a systemic barrier that a person’s ability to participate is impacted and they become vulnerable to discrimination.

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  1. Barriers to inclusion we frequently see in Fitzroy Crossing include language, remoteness, the way information is communicated, the presence or lack thereof of cultural safety measures, or the presence of stress, trauma or coercion, as in family violence relationships.

  2. Adopting a social model when defining disability becomes particularly important in the context of capacity assessments where the result of such an assessment is to restrict a person’s rights and substitute decision making – such as in guardianship, mental health, child protection and tenancy matters. An individual’s ‘capacity’ or lack thereof can only be assessed after reasonable supports for these barriers have been provided. It is important we do not assume a person’s difficulty in understanding information or a decision reflects incapacity when it could reflect a systemic or other barrier.

  3. The below case example demonstrates what happens when we equate a barrier to lack of capacity. In this case, formal enquiries of Ashley’s disability status were only made by the relevant decision makers after her daughter had been taken into care. This forced Ashley to engage in a lengthy court process, exposing her and her family to further and unnecessary systems trauma.

Case study: Removing barriers before making capacity assessments

Ashley is a 21-year-old Gooniyandi woman who attends the FSLU for assistance with a Care and Protection matter. Ashley’s daughter has been taken into care. The Department’s application states Ashley’s cognitive disability is so severe as to impact her ability to care for her newborn daughter. In Ashley’s medical records, there is a long history of notes by medical professionals referring to a possible or actual cognitive impairment. However, Ashley has never been formally assessed or diagnosed.

During proceedings, the Department tells the Court Ashley’s cognitive disability is so extreme that there are questions raised around her capacity to give instructions or participate in proceedings. To determine whether Ashley requires a guardian, the court orders she undertakes a cognitive assessment by a relevant medical professional. Ashley is assessed by a neuropsychologist. The neuropsychologist’s report not only states Ashley has capacity to provide instructions and participate in proceedings, but also that she suffers Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, requires a translator and due to her personal trauma history, experiences severe emotional disregulation and shuts down around government and authority figures.

Recommendation 1: The definition of disability in the Act should remove reference to deficit- based wording (including ‘malfunction’, ‘malformation’ and ‘disfigurement’).

Recommendation 2: The legislative definition of disability in the Act should be expanded to better consider and include people experiencing: a. trauma, including trauma resulting from domestic and family violence; and b. addiction, including alcohol related harms.

The definition of disability should be broadened to include reference to individual characteristics (including those arising from trauma histories, addiction or family violence) that,

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when interacting with a barrier (including but not limited to physical or information barriers) hinder a person’s full and equal participation in society.

Recommendation 3: Implement a positive obligation on organisations and employers to recognise and remove trauma-related barriers to access.

Recommendation 4: Trauma-informed practice should be a mandated ‘reasonable adjustment’ to ensure services understand and respond appropriately to trauma behaviours without penalising survivors.

Recommendation 5: The DDA should be amended to ensure that policies and procedures that disproportionately disadvantage people affected by trauma, addiction or family violence are recognised as discriminatory unless the organisation can demonstrate necessity and proportionality.

Definition of ‘direct discrimination’

  1. We agree with the recommendation that the burden of proof should shift to the Respondent to prove they did not discriminate against the Applicant on the basis of their disability.

  2. Putting the onus on a person with a disability to prove the discrimination against them occurred is discriminatory in and of itself, particularly considering many people with disability experience memory loss, speak English as a second language or face other barriers to understanding.

  3. If this recommendation is to be viewed in the context of intersectionality, we note:

  • Aboriginal people have the additional hurdle of engagement with a system that is new and disproportionately discriminates against them on the basis of race.
  • The collection of documentation relevant to a discrimination claim is made more difficult by housing instability and disengagement with institutions and services, which are common factors in family violence situations.
  • Accessing basic systems (for example housing, banking and services providing identification documents) is also more difficult in remote areas.

Intersectionality in Disability Discrimination legislation

  1. Many people with disability simultaneously experience discrimination on the basis of other aspects of their identity, including race, culture, gender, sexuality, age, socioeconomic status, trauma history, mental health or experiences of addiction. When systemic barriers intersect with racism, gendered violence, poverty or colonisation, distinct and compounded forms of discrimination are produced that are not adequately addressed under current legislation.

  2. It is imperative intersectional discrimination is recognised within the DDA to enable claims based on compounding grounds.

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  1. The table below outlines some common intersectional factors and how these can exacerbate a person with disability’s experience.

Table 2 – Intersectionality & Disability

Intersectional Factor How this exacerbates disability and risk of discrimination Possible response
Experience of Family Violence / Trauma - Trauma responses can be misinterpreted as non-compliance, lack of capacity, or behavioural issues.
- Fear of system escalation (e.g., child protection involvement) limits access to supports.		 Need to recognise trauma-related disability and implement protections against discriminatory interpretations of trauma-related disability.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People - Cultural obligations and community structures are often not recognised.
- Ongoing experience of colonisation and discrimination increases avoidance of government systems.
- Disability may be under-identified due to culturally unsafe assessments.		 Need for explicit recognition of indirect discrimination arising from culturally unsafe processes.
Obligation to provide cultural or community navigator or translator.
Remoteness - Limited or no access to diagnostic services or allied health.
- Extreme weather events impacting mobility.
- Digital-only communication excludes people with cognitive or communication challenges.
- High travel and cost barriers create practical discrimination.		 Need for positive duties to ensure reasonable access regardless of geography or digital literacy.
Homelessness / Housing Insecurity - Difficulty storing documents, engaging consistently, or meeting service requirements.
- complex housing systems inaccessible and difficult to understand
- Systems interpret logistical		 Service systems to remove bureaucratic barriers that disproportionately impact people with disability experiencing homelessness.

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barriers as ‘non-engagement’. | | | Education Level / Literacy | - Low literacy causes reliance on verbal information or Easy English supports.
- Difficulty understanding complex legal, financial, or system information.
- Increased risk of signing documents without informed consent. | Need for strengthened accessible communication duties and mandatory Easy English for forms and application processes. |

Case Study: Intersection of Aboriginality, remoteness, family violence and physical disability

Amanda is a Bunuba woman and a wheelchair user. She previously owned both a manual and electric wheelchair, though usually operated the electric wheelchair. During the Fitzroy Crossing floods in 2022/23, Amanda’s electric wheelchair was destroyed.

Due to her condition and experience of family violence, Amanda regularly attends the Fitzroy Crossing hospital. This involves a 1.4km journey at an incline. Fitzroy Crossing experiences heat of up to 40 degrees and has limited public transport and rideshare services.

Allied health professionals advised the FSLU that Amanda is losing strength in her upper body and cannot lift items more than 2 kilograms. This means Amanda is increasingly reliant on care from her mother and her partner, and support from her family to leave the house and engage in social activities.

Amanda requested a replacement electric wheelchair through the NDIS. To date, this request has been denied. Amanda has limited access to NDIS advocacy support in Fitzroy Crossing. She does not understand why she cannot get a new electric wheelchair and does not have any help to navigate to the Fitzroy Crossing Hospital.

Amanda has become increasingly reliant on her NDIS support workers to take her shopping, or to social events. This significantly impacts her mobility, independence, and overall quality of life. It also impacts Amanda’s access to community and Country, a consideration the NDIS has not accounted for.

Recommendation 6: The DDA should provide explicit protection against discrimination occurring at the intersection of disability, gender, Aboriginality, remoteness, socio-economic disadvantage and experience of trauma, addiction or family violence, and enable claims based on combined and compounding grounds.

Recommendation 7: Disability discrimination legislation should enable systemic and group- based complaints.

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Positive duty to eliminate discrimination

  1. In the first case example, we see a series of assumptions made about the capabilities of a public housing applicant that work to discriminate against people with disability. Notably, public housing applications are only submitted by vulnerable people, which should attract a higher standard to prevent direct or indirect discrimination.

  2. Our teams see similar types of discrimination at work in other areas, including:

  • Young people who cannot read or do not understand an arrest warrant.
  • Women who express confusion about a witness summons.
  • Service users who ask for help to navigate systems from schooling applications to banking correspondence.
  • Support systems like the Leaving Violence Program and Criminal Injuries Compensation scheme requiring victims to recall exact dates and details of traumatic events, provide comprehensive documentation (for example, medical records and police reports), and describe injuries with a high level of specificity.

  1. These requirements act as deterrents as they retraumatise survivors while failing to make reasonable adjustments for the impact of trauma on an individual’s cognitive capacity. These barriers mean that clients often disengage from vital support systems.

  2. There is a lack of diagnostic pathways available in remote communities. Once an individual has a diagnosis, there are additional hurdles to face to obtain support.

  3. The NDIS application process involves extensive paperwork that is challenging for a person with disability to compile and engage with. There are long waiting periods for NDIS approval, which leaves people without crucial supports. In remote areas, there is a lack of accessible early intervention services and the absence of specialized schools and programs that are available in metropolitan areas.

  4. Once individuals have obtained an NDIS plan, the process of accessing the required supports is complex. Service providers often lack the appropriate training for working with people with disabilities in a culturally safe way and sustainability and viability of transient service providers adds to costs.

  5. We have seen women with disabilities being ‘handballed’ between service providers, leading and inconsistency to delays in delivery of supports. There is a lack of accountability and transparency, particularly where NDIS coordinators and providers fall within the same organisation. There are limited incentives for warm referrals and poor information sharing between agencies.

Recommendation 8: Government and other organisations should be required to review and streamline their processes to remove unnecessary administrative barriers, such as multi- levelled application forms or excessive identification requirements, that prevent people with disability accessing services.

Recommendation 9: The DDA should create a positive obligation for Government and non- government organisations to assist applicants impacted by barriers to understanding, to

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navigate and complete internal application processes, including the provision of community navigators or translators for cultural support.

Recommendation 10: All public information, forms and correspondence should be available in Easy English as a standard accessibility measure, noting accessible communication is essential for people with disability to exercise their rights and engage with public systems. As a priority, this should include all systems likely to interact with vulnerable populations – including Services Australia, housing bodies, and Court / Police documents including court and police orders.

Disability Advocate/Coordinator roles

  1. Disability advocates and programs work to protect, promote, uphold and defend the human rights and wellbeing of people with disability, their families and carers. Disability advocates can assist people with disabilities to navigate the sector, reducing barriers to service access by:
  • helping to streamline services to meet their specific needs;
  • encouraging their active participation in the community; and
  • assisting them to exercise their rights where an issue arises.

  1. From a review of disability services in WA, we understand the majority of publicly funded disabled advocate services and organisations are available to people residing in Perth. The Department of Communities (WA) website lists independent advocacy organisations and services as funded by state government, which includes four organisations based in Perth that do not offer regional and/or remote service provision, and one organisation based in the Kimberley Region, the ‘Wunan Foundation’, which operates in the East Kimberley and does not service Fitzroy Crossing.

  2. This is a clear indicator that regional and remote areas in Western Australia requiring disability advocacy services remain under resourced and underfunded, which further discriminates against people with disabilities living remotely.

  3. We note there are private NDIS coordination and provision services within the Kimberley region. We consider the potential for disability discrimination is heightened where independent, privatised services for Community are not subject to any public oversight or accountability mechanism. Marnin clients report that disability service providers present to their homes without a scheduled appointment and leave without completing a client visit. Despite this, the client is charged for this service through their plan in addition to a substantial service callout fee for ‘travel costs’.

Recommendation 11: Government funded disability advocate services should be established in rural and remote areas of WA to assist people living remotely to access and navigate the disability discrimination claim process.

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