Review of the Disability Discrimination Act: Recommendations for Improvement | External submission

Mornington
Peninsula Shire

6 November 2025

Disability Discrimination Act Review
Attorney-General’s Department

Preamble: Mornington Peninsula Disability Context

The Mornington Peninsula has a notably high proportion of residents with disability—an estimated 23% of our population, significantly above the national rate of 17%. Mornington Peninsula Shire has progressed strategic initiatives such as the We All Belong Strategy 2024-2029, demonstrating our strong commitment to universal design principles. Universal design ensures products, environments, programs, and services are accessible to all people without the need for adaptation or specialised design. Following direct consultation with the Mornington Peninsula Disability Advisory Committee (DAC), this submission reflects local perspectives and lived experience to help inform national policy reform. Despite positive progress, both locally and nationally, people with disability continue to face significant barriers. Stronger, more proactive federal legislation is urgently needed to drive real and measurable change.

Why We Support the DDA Review

Mornington Peninsula Shire fully endorses and recommends this review, informed by direct input from the Disability Advisory committee. The current Disability Discrimination Act, while vital, is now over 30 years old and increasingly out of sync with contemporary understandings of disability and human rights. People with disability remain among the most marginalised groups in Australia, facing persistent barriers across employment, education, housing, justice, and public life. A modernised DDA is necessary for meaningful inclusion and equal participation for all Australians with disability.

Part 1: Updating Understandings of disability and disability discrimination

The Act should adopt the definition of disability used in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), reflecting disability as a dynamic interaction between individuals and external barriers that follows the social model of disability rather than the medical or impairment-based model.
The Act’s language should be inclusive, accurately encompassing both visible and invisible disabilities, including psychosocial, neurological, and chronic conditions, as well as temporary, episodic, or evolving disabilities.
The primary and central focus of the Act must remain totally on disability, given the longstanding lack of significant progress in this area. We believe by the Act trying to address intersectional discrimination as well, has the potential to muddle and detract from the essential disability focus.
The definition of discrimination should align with the CRPD: any distinction, exclusion, or restriction that limits human rights or equal participation, including systemic, indirect, and denial of reasonable accommodation/disability adjustments.
Obligations for individuals, services, and organisations should be simplified and made binding to strengthen consistency with Australia’s international human rights commitments.

Part 2: Stronger Protections to Prevent Discrimination

The Act should introduce a positive duty, modelled on successful gender equality legislation, requiring organisations and institutions to actively prevent discrimination before it occurs. Duty holders (e.g., employers, schools, councils, service providers) should have clear requirements to conduct discrimination risk assessments, implement inclusion actions, and regularly report compliance.

The Australian Human Rights Commission should be empowered and resourced to proactively monitor, assess, and enforce compliance, issue notices, and require improvements where necessary.

Universal design should be made mandatory and embedded in the Act, with obligatory consideration across all aspects of public life—including buildings, services, and public spaces—to move from complaint-based to systemic prevention of discrimination.

Part 3: Encouraging inclusion of people with disability in employment, education and other areas of public life

Mornington Peninsula Shire, informed by the Disability Advisory Committee, supports making universal design policy mandatory, with reporting modelled on existing gender impact assessment frameworks.

The Act should require meaningful consultation: employers and employees must engage to identify what is needed for people with disability to do their jobs, with clear, transparent processes for making prescribed and compliant adjustments or accommodations.

Guidance clarification is needed regarding prescribed and compliant adjustments, inherent requirements, and unjustifiable hardship, so all parties understand their rights and obligations.

Schools and universities should be explicitly prevented from excluding students due to disability.

The Act should be supported by practical and easy to read guidelines for liaison officers and disability advocates, providing frameworks for inclusive practices and accountability measures.

Part 4: Improving Access to Justice

Current legal tests such as causation and comparative analysis place an unfair burden on complainants. These should be removed so the focus is on whether discrimination has taken place, assessed from the individual’s experience—not on theoretical comparisons.

The complaints process must be streamlined to reduce trauma, with a focus on outcomes and practical remedies rather than legal technicalities.

Comprehensive guidelines for liaison officers and advocates should be formally attached to the Act, ensuring people with disability can access justice and support across all government and justice sector organisations, including police.

Part 5: Exemptions

All existing and future exemptions under the Act must be critically evaluated, strictly limited, and regularly reviewed, as exemptions have previously been a source of delay or avoidance of compliance with disability rights.

Part 6: Modernising the DDA and the Commissioner Role

The Commissioner’s powers should be strengthened and expanded to allow own-motion investigations, audit and monitoring of compliance with action plans across all sectors and require robust data reporting on inclusion and compliance.
A national, measurable disability standard should be mandated, with federal oversight and clear, tangible outcome measures.
Disability action plans should require concrete assessment criteria, robust evaluation mechanisms, and mandatory reporting.
The Commissioner and relevant oversight bodies must be adequately funded to undertake proactive compliance monitoring, moving towards a more preventative, accountable national system following international best practice (UNCRPD).

Conclusion

We strongly endorse and recommend the DDA review and its recommendations in full. People with disability across the Mornington Peninsula and nationwide deserve:

An updated legal definition aligned with the CRPD;
Embedded positive duties for all organisations;
Simplified complaint and justice pathways;
An empowered, well-resourced Disability Discrimination Commissioner with robust enforcement powers;
Adequate, continuous funding and clear regulatory accountability;
Implement five-year national reviews to measure the impact of the legislative changes on levels of discrimination against people with a disability.

We look forward to outcomes that deliver real, accountable, and inclusive change for all Australians with disability.

Kind regards,
redacted
Team Leader Community Inclusion & Wellbeing