NDIA Accountability Project

Mobile phone bans in schools and their impact on children with disability

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Submission into Disability Discrimination Act Review ___________________________ 4

Based on Discrimination in the Victorian Education System ___________________________ 4

Part 1. Updating Understandings of disability and disability discrimination _______ 6

Definition of Disability _______________________________________________________________ 6

  1. How should disability be defined in the Disability Discrimination Act? _____________________ 6

  2. What factors should be considered in developing a new definition of disability? ____________ 6 Addressing Intersectionality _________________________________________________________ 7

  3. Would the Disability Discrimination Act be strengthened by expressly allowing claims to be brought for multiple or combined protected attributes? ________________________________________ 7

  4. Could any other changes be made to the Disability Discrimination Act to recognise and provide protection for people with disability who have intersecting identities, or addressing compounding discrimination? _______________________________________________________________ 7

Rec 4.23 – Amending the Definition of Direct Discrimination ___________________________ 8

  1. What test should be used to ensure that the definition of direct discrimination is easy to understand and implement for both duty holders and people with disability and why? ____________ 8

  2. How should the burden of proof be addressed in the Disability Discrimination Act? _________ 9 Rec 4.24 – Amending the Definition of Indirect Discrimination _________________________ 9

  3. How could the definition of indirect discrimination be amended to ensure that it is easy to understand and implement for people with disability and duty holders? _________________________ 9

  4. Should the reasonableness element in the definition of indirect discrimination be: _________ 10

  5. Should the language of ‘does not or would not comply, or is not able or would not be able to comply’ be removed from the definition of indirect discrimination? ____________________________ 10

Rec 4.33 & 4.34 – Interpreting the Disability Discrimination Act in line with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities ________________________________ 11

  1. Should the Disabilities Convention be included in the objects provision of the Disability Discrimination Act? _______________________________________________________________________ 11

  2. Should the Disability Discrimination Act be expressly required to be interpreted in a way that is beneficial to people with disability, in line with human rights treaties? ___________________ 11

Part 2. Positive Duty to Eliminate Discrimination _______________________________ 11

Recs 4.27 & 4.28 – Positive Duty for Duty Holders to Eliminate Discrimination _________ 11

  1.    If there was a positive duty in the Disability Discrimination Act, who should it apply to? __ 11

  2. Are there lessons from the operation of the positive duty in the Sex Discrimination Act that

could be incorporated into a positive duty in the Disability Discrimination Act? _________________ 12

  1. What costs, benefits and other impacts would duty holders experience in meeting a positive duty under the Disability Discrimination Act? ________________________________________ 13

  2. Should there be exceptions or limits to the application of a positive duty? ______________ 14 Part 3. Encouraging Inclusion of People with Disability in Employment, Education and Other Areas of Public Life _________________________________________________ 15

Recs 4.25 & 4.26 – Strengthening the Duty to Provide Adjustments ____________________ 15

  1. Would the creation of a stand-alone duty to provide adjustments better assist people with disability and duty holders to understand their rights and obligations? _________________________ 15

  1. Should the scope of the duty to provide adjustments apply only to the existing areas of public life covered by the DDA, or extend to other contexts? ___________________________________ 16

  2. Would removing the word ‘reasonable’ from the term ‘reasonable adjustments’ to align the language with the legal eTect create unintended consequences? _____________________________ 16

Rec 4.32 – Definition of and Considerations for Unjustifiable Hardship ________________ 17

  1. Preferred approach to achieving greater fairness and transparency in claims of unjustifiable

hardship _________________________________________________________________________________ 17

Rec 7.26 – Expanding the Factors Considered by Employers when Determining if an Employee can Carry out the Inherent Requirements of Particular Work _______________ 19

  1. Views on amending the DDA to consider the nature and extent of any adjustments made and encourage consultation between employers and employees before making employment decisions? ________________________________________________________________________________ 19

  2. Other amendments to the DDA that could support engagement between employers and

employees to better understand the inherent requirements of the job __________________________ 20

  1. Other amendments to the definition of inherent requirements including factors to be

considered when deciding whether a person could carry out the inherent requirements of a job? _ 20

Rec 7.2 – Exclusionary Discipline and Suspension ___________________________________ 20

  1. Should the concepts of exclusion and exclusionary discipline be defined in the DDA? ___ 20

  2. Should there be exceptions or limits on when exclusion is unlawful? ___________________ 21

  3. Should any of the state and territory provisions relating to exclusionary discipline be adopted in the DDA? ______________________________________________________________________ 21

  4. Would a diTerent approach to exclusionary discipline be more appropriate in the higher education and vocational education and training sectors? ____________________________________ 23

Part 4 – Improving Access to Justice ____________________________________________ 23

Recs 4.29 & 4.30 – OYensive Behaviour and Vilification Protections ___________________ 23

Harassment and OYensive Behaviour _______________________________________________ 23

  1. How could the DDA be amended to protect people with disability from oTensive behaviour and/or harassment? _______________________________________________________________________ 23

  2.    If the DDA were to prohibit oTensive behaviour and/or harassment, how should these terms

be defined? _______________________________________________________________________________ 23

  1. Should there be exemptions for any behaviour, similar to the Racial Discrimination Act? _ 23 Vilification _________________________________________________________________________ 24

  2. Further gaps in the legislative framework that could be addressed by amendments to the

DDA? 24

Department of Education Response to Privacy Concerns ___________________________________ 24

Rec 8.19 – Services Provided by Police OYicers ______________________________________ 25

  1. How could the DDA be amended to ensure that it covers policing? _____________________ 25
  2. Are there any specific circumstances or situations relating to policing or justice that should

be excluded from the application to the DDA? _______________________________________________ 25

Part 5 – Exemptions ___________________________________________________________ 26

  1. Permanent Exemptions that could be narrowed ______________________________________ 26
  2. AHRC power to grant special measures certificates __________________________________ 26
  3. Definition of special measures added to the DDA_____________________________________ 26

  4. Definition of temporary exemptions added to DDA ___________________________________ 26
  1. Changes to the legislative process of granting temporary exemptions __________________ 27 Part 6 – Modernising the DDA __________________________________________________ 27

Assistance Animals ________________________________________________________________ 27

  1. Clarification of protections for people and duty holders _______________________________ 27

  2. Legislative amendments, guidance materials or both _________________________________ 27

  3. Specific training organisations prescribed under DD Regs _____________________________ 27

Disability Action Plans ______________________________________________________________ 27

  1. Minimum requirements for action plans _____________________________________________ 27
  2. Rejection by AHRC for failure to meet requirements __________________________________ 28

  3. Set period of time for which action plan is valid ______________________________________ 28

  4. Other changes to the action plan process ___________________________________________ 28

Disability Standards ________________________________________________________________ 28

  1. Improving compliance with and enforcement of Disability Standards ___________________ 28

  2. Amendment to DDA to encourage duty holders to self-report on compliance with Disability Standards in action plans __________________________________________________________________ 29

  3. Guidance from AHRC on how to self-report __________________________________________ 29 Part 7 – Further Options for Reform _____________________________________________ 29

  4. Examples of legislative provisions in anti-discrimination law that can be drawn on to modernise or strengthen the DDA ___________________________________________________________ 29

  5. Additional guidance materials to be provided to the community including duty holders

about the operation of the DDA or amendments _____________________________________________ 30

  1. How to ensure the DDA remains fit for purpose into the future _________________________ 30
  2. Other issues to consider ___________________________________________________________ 30

Submission into Disability Discrimination Act Review

Based on Discrimination in the Victorian Education System This submission is written from the perspective of a white cis neurodivergent woman who is also the parent of a neurodivergent child and our family’s collective life experiences. Mostly within the Victorian education system as students at every level and through employment within that same system, but also systematically due to uneducated and outdated views held by many adults. People with disability who are also part of other marginalised groups face more barriers and worse treatment than us.

My family is like many neurodivergent (ND) families, made up of a history of varying forms of neurodivergence both diagnosed and undiagnosed. Neurodivergence is commonly misunderstood and the term neurodivergence itself simply refers to diDerence in thinking.1 It has become common to refer to people with ADHD, autism, AuDHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia etc as neurodivergent. This is not a correct definition but it will be used here for simplicity.

Our family has experience with AuDHD2 and PDA. In Australia this is called a PDA Profile. PDA itself is not yet recognised in the DSM VI; however, there is far more awareness around this than there was even a few years ago. Neurodivergent “conditions” are complex, overlapping and become more complex with trauma.3

The education system is broken. Neurodivergent students are currently being forced out through a combination of teacher rejection, a refusal to cater for the needs of neurodivergent students and implement eDective accommodations at a school level often leading to the student’s distress, peer rejection and bullying4.

Neurodivergent students who spend most of the school day in distress due to unmet needs are more likely to exhibit behaviours that won’t be tolerated by schools due to the exhaustion and burn out from constant masking and operating in survival mode. A child in autistic/ADHD/PDA burn out is a child who cannot access basic needs, let alone access learning.

1 Botha M, Chapman R, Giwa Onaiwu M, Kapp SK, Stannard Ashley A, Walker N. The neurodiversity concept was developed collectively: An overdue correction on the origins of neurodiversity theory. Autism. 2024 Jun;28(6):1591-1594. doi: 10.1177/13623613241237871. Epub 2024 Mar 12. PMID: 38470140. 2 Sokolova E, Oerlemans AM, Rommelse NN, Groot P, Hartman CA, Glennon JC, Claassen T, Heskes T, Buitelaar JK. A Causal and Mediation Analysis of the Comorbidity Between Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). J Autism Dev Disord. 2017 Jun;47(6):1595-1604. doi: 10.1007/s10803-017-3083-7. PMID: 28255761; PMCID: PMC5432632. 3 Lobregt-van Buuren E, Hoekert M, Sizoo B. Autism, Adverse Events, and Trauma. In: Grabrucker AM, editor. Autism Spectrum Disorders [Internet]. Brisbane (AU): Exon Publications; 2021 Aug 20. Chapter 3. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK573608/doi: 10.36255/exonpublications.autismspectrumdisorders.2021.trauma 4 Ewe, L. P. (2019). ADHD symptoms and the teacher–student relationship: a systematic literature review. Emotional and Behavioural Di2iculties, 24(2), 136–155. https://doi.org/10.1080/13632752.2019.1597562

This is the unrecognised but systematic gatekeeping and restrictive practices employed by schools to remove “unwanted” students.5 Many of these students have become part of the increasing number of home-educated students.

This exclusion from the same education that their peers receive impacts on neurodivergent students in multiple ways:

  • Opportunities for socialisation and to develop much needed social skills

  • Mental health comorbidities – depression, increased anxiety, undiagnosed comorbidities that may still develop from the trauma

  • Educational opportunities and experiences

  • Job and economic prospects

  • Future relationships

  • Introduction to the justice system Reforming the DDA is long overdue and more than necessary. However, this is not going to help any child who is being excluded from the education system right now.

The number of children being homeschooled has doubled in the last 5 years. A majority of these are considered to be accidental home schoolers. There is limited data collected or provided by government bodies to have a real understanding on how many of these students are neurodivergent or have been excluded from their education by restrictive school practices.

The number of ways schools can and do exclude ND students are many. Private schools in particular utilise ‘unproveable’ discriminatory practices to reject prospective students on the basis they ‘don’t have room’ or ‘religious grounds.’

  • Requesting medical information regarding any “disorders” to be provided with enrolment application (this also happens in govt schools but covertly – eg email questions or phone calls to “provide context”)

  • Requesting school reports to be provided with enrolment application – this allows discrimination on the basis of behaviour and learning ability

  • Requesting Naplan reports to be provided with enrolment application

  • Requesting a previous school contact to be provided with enrolment application also contacting previous schools without consent

The responses in this submission go outside the DDA. That is a reflection of the systemic discriminatory practices that are woven through every system and institution in this country.

5 Poed, S., Cologon, K., & Jackson, R. (2020). Gatekeeping and restrictive practices by Australian mainstream schools: results of a national survey. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 26(8), 766–779. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2020.1726512

Part 1. Updating Understandings of disability and disability discrimination

Definition of Disability

  1. How should disability be defined in the Disability Discrimination Act? The definition of disability in the DDA should be broad, inclusive and comprehensive. It should remove and update terms with negative undertones and where possible use the term “diDerence” to acknowledge that “not the same” is not “worse”.

In terms of defining neurodivergence the definition should use the words:

A cognitive neurological diQerence that results in the person learning, thinking, behaving or responding diQerently from a person without the neurological diQerence

However, it is important to acknowledge disability as variation in the human experience that is faced with challenges due to structural and societal disadvantages. People with disability should not be considered in terms of their worth to society through their ability or inability to participate in the workforce. Rather they should be identified for the worth they bring to society as being full and complex human beings who are deserving of love, support and happiness just like anyone else.

  1. What factors should be considered in developing a new definition of disability? Factors that should be considered should reflect the social constructs and societal practices that lead to diDerences becoming disabling for those people. For example, many ND students are unable to access the current education system due to the increase in standardised testing and the decrease in interest-based research learning that was incorporated in the 90s and early 2000s. This has made the system disabling to many students who may have had less trouble accessing the system 15 years ago.

It should also specifically include and protect people who have not had a formal diagnosis as the process to be diagnosed for ADHD and autism is costly, lengthy and discriminatory. It should also be recognised that children in particular may not have a diagnosis due to their age, gender, lack of awareness, lack of understanding in the medical system, lack of life experience and family circumstances. This includes a family history of neurodivergence that results in a lower recognition of the diDerence in comparison to others. These people still require protection if not more so. Currently many schools do not seem to be aware of their obligation to cater for students with an ‘imputed diagnosis’.

Addressing Intersectionality

  1. Would the Disability Discrimination Act be strengthened by expressly allowing claims to be brought for multiple or combined protected attributes? Yes.

It should also be recognised that often when a member of a family is discriminated against on the basis of disability, the entire family or carer/s are also discriminated against. This is particularly evident when looking at the treatment of mothers of autistic children.6

Also noting statistically7, mothers typically (85%), tend to take on the majority of the load when it comes to caring for children with a disability. Meaning they are more often advocates for children with a disability, blamed for their child’s disability or actions and in the case of neurodiversity, are often also ND. Resulting in the direct discrimination of a child on the basis of disability, as well as the discrimination of the mother based on gender and disability.

This becomes more complex when the person is a cultural minority, speaks a first language other than or additional to English or has another protected attribute.

Women who come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds and women who don’t have a university degree are also treated less favourably than more highly educated women when advocating for their children.8

  1. Could any other changes be made to the Disability Discrimination Act to recognise and provide protection for people with disability who have intersecting identities, or addressing compounding discrimination? The current provisions are reactive and place the burden on the people being discriminated against to stand up against their oppressors for some type of “justice”. This ignores the imbalance of power in these situations and the trauma this adds to people with disability.

6 Rabba, A. S., Smith, J., Hall, G., Alexander, V., Batty, K., Datta, P., Goodall, E., Heyworth, M., Lamb, S., Lawson, W., Lilley, R., Reid, K., Syeda, N., & Pellicano, E. (2024). ‘I’m sick of being the problem’: Autistic mothers’ experiences of interacting with schools for their autistic children. Autism, 29(4), 1034-1046. https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613241297223(Original work published 2025) 7 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2004) Children with disabilities in Australia, AIHW, Australian Government, accessed 24 August 2025. 8 Larsson Taghizadeh, J. (2022). Are more ahluent parents treated more favourably by elementary school principals? Socioeconomic discrimination among local Swedish public ohicials. Local Government Studies, 49(3), 590–622. https://doi.org/10.1080/03003930.2021.1986391

It should be recognised that advocating for oneself or others is traumatic, and not all people have the financial capacity, the mental capability or the privilege to do so. Advocacy requires understanding and being aware of your legal rights as well as the ability to advocate for those rights, often against an unequal power dynamic.

In the case of neurodivergent children and other hereditary diDerences, advocacy often places adults with a disability into situations where they are reliving their own past discrimination, through the discrimination of their child.

It is through these systems that trauma is repeated and ongoing, leading to further disabling symptoms.

Systems need to be designed to be inclusive and not reactive. Burdens need to be shifted and placed on the duty holders and not on the people who are being discriminated against to ‘prove’ and fight for some sort of non-existent justice after the fact. This goes far beyond disability discrimination. Inclusive systems allow access for all people regardless of their status and attributes.

Accessibility goes far beyond the physical environment. Access to information, access to education, access to flexible environments, access to justice, access to fair and transparent procedures and decisions. Complaints processes that don’t place the burden on the person being discriminated against to face their oppressor. Independent regulatory bodies with the power and the means to audit and enforce obligations.

If the focus of the obligations is on providing inclusive systems for all people and not on reactive, unworkable processes after the fact, it will have the ability to be intersectional.

Rec 4.23 – Amending the Definition of Direct Discrimination

  1. What test should be used to ensure that the definition of direct discrimination is easy to understand and implement for both duty holders and people with disability and why? The comparator test is unnecessarily burdensome on people with disability and is not only discriminatory against people with disability that results in diDerences in behaviour but is impossible for them to meet. The comparator test has been used against students in cases of clear discrimination because of the distinctly impossible idea that a person “who does not have the disability” would behave the same way in those circumstances.9 There is no comparator for a behavioural based response when it comes to disability.

The comparator test should be removed immediately. It should be removed retrospectively. The recommendation to amend this test has been ignored by

9 Purvis v New South Wales [2003] HCA 62; 217 CLR 92

successive Australian Federal Governments for “several decades”. This test has resulted in untold harm and trauma to countless people with disability who have never seen justice for discriminatory treatment from those in the systems who profit from it.

The test used should be the detriment test used in the Fair Work Act and NOT the UK version. The burden to prove discrimination should NOT be on the person with disability who faces the trauma of discrimination on a daily basis in systems that exclude and disable them.

  1. How should the burden of proof be addressed in the Disability Discrimination Act? The applicant should only need to establish the conduct occurred.

The burden of proof should be on the discriminator to prove the conduct was not discriminatory. Intent should be irrelevant. It is irrelevant whether the discriminator believed they were being discriminatory or intended to be discriminatory in their conduct. It is irrelevant if the discriminator was ignorant to the fact their conduct was discriminatory. Ignorance is not a defence to the harm that is caused by discrimination.

The only relevant factors are that the conduct occurred, and the conduct was discriminatory. In the sense that the discriminator treated a person with disability adversely because of their diDerence. The current laws allow for blatant discrimination that is impossible to do anything about and any attempt for people with disability to utilise the current systems are traumatic and unnecessarily adversarial.

We attempted to utilise conciliation at the AHRC when a health provider blatantly told me they would not treat my child because my child has ADHD. This was costly, the provider was covered by the industries legal representation who treated the conciliation like a criminal trial and as the mother I was blamed and demonised for calling out ableism.

Rec 4.24 – Amending the Definition of Indirect Discrimination

  1. How could the definition of indirect discrimination be amended to ensure that it is easy to understand and implement for people with disability and duty holders? Option 3: Avoiding discrimination would impose an unjustifiable hardship

The element of indirect discrimination should also be recognised in relation to those who are following discriminatory initiatives by the Federal Government:

  • For example, the govt response to the Inquiry on the Issue of Increasing

Disruption in Australian Classrooms. The AERO Discussion Paper with Advice for

Teachers further entrenches discrimination of ND students through punishment and the use of behaviourist theories that have been proven not to work in countless studies over multiple generations.10 The use of punishment on ND students causes trauma, is used more often and is less likely to result in compliance.

The government initiative itself is indirectly discriminating against many ND children and children with behaviour diDerences. Most states have some version of ‘rewards and consequences’ initiative which discriminates against many of these children and all schools implement punishments that have been proven not to work, particularly for ND children.

  1. Should the reasonableness element in the definition of indirect discrimination be:

Removed

Currently this element is utilised by discriminators to justify discrimination.

A recent written response from a private school outlined that “it is not a reasonable adjustment” to follow the schools own bullying policy in response to our child being bullied and consequently excluded from their education. Our only recourse is to: find thousands of dollars to hire a lawyer, waste our time in conciliation, place our child in the position of being further traumatised by legal proceedings and then argue this in a court of law while adding to our collective trauma.

The discrimination my child was subjected to by the health provider used the argument that it was not reasonable to treat my child because the provider was “not a specialist paediatric provider”.

These are two clear examples of discrimination being justified by the use of this element.

  1. Should the language of ‘does not or would not comply, or is not able or would not be able to comply’ be removed from the definition of indirect discrimination?

Yes

10 Jones, R., Kreppner, J., Marsh, F., & Hartwell, B. (2023). Punitive behaviour management policies and practices in secondary schools: A systematic review of children and young people’s perceptions and experiences. Emotional and Behavioural Di2iculties, 28(2–3), 182–197. https://doi.org/10.1080/13632752.2023.2255403

Any condition that disadvantages people with disability should not come with the expectation that they comply.

Rec 4.33 & 4.34 – Interpreting the Disability Discrimination Act in line with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

  1. Should the Disabilities Convention be included in the objects

provision of the Disability Discrimination Act?

Yes

  1. Should the Disability Discrimination Act be expressly required

to be interpreted in a way that is beneficial to people with disability, in line with human rights treaties?

Yes

Part 2. Positive Duty to Eliminate Discrimination

Recs 4.27 & 4.28 – Positive Duty for Duty Holders to Eliminate

Discrimination

  1.     If there was a positive duty in the Disability Discrimination Act,

who should it apply to? It should apply to everyone. Every single organisation, business and service provider should be required to treat all people with humanity, dignity and respect. And this requires everyone to take actual steps to stop discriminating against others and to prevent it from happening in the first place.

There is no organisation that provides any form of public facing service or duty that should be exempt from disability discrimination legislation. Religions and religious schools should not be exempt, childcare centres, universities, sporting organisations including children’s sport, gyms, medical providers, dentists, local shops, service providers who enter private homes, online spaces etc should all be required to take measures that prevent discrimination on the basis of disability.

Examples:

There is no reason why schools cannot provide flexibility for learning styles. There is no reason why schools MUST do weekly testing (it’s also not working). There is no reason why schools cannot provide flexibility within the classroom for students who require movement or noise cancellation, or fidgets, or interest-based learning, or “cheat” sheets (rote learning and memorisation have no place in our modern society except for those who prefer it). There is no reason why schools should still be using rewards and punishments when decades of research demonstrate that it is harmful and there is now ample evidence from schools who do not use these approaches that student success is

still achievable. See Templestowe College, Berry Street, Alia College and Bundoora

Secondary.

None of this is dependent on a diagnosis and all children will benefit from a flexible learning design (also see UDL). There will also be less disruptions from students who are unable to access the current “rigid” approach.

There is no reason why universities cannot provide online access to classes and content, have universal regulations of the transparency of clear assessment expectations and marking criteria. There is no reason why they can’t be expected to provide accessible copies of textbooks online through the library rather than forcing students to purchase textbooks. Or grading students based on how often they speak up in class.

When these preventative “adjustments” are accepted and encouraged for ALL people regardless of disability, it becomes a truly inclusive space.

  1. Are there lessons from the operation of the positive duty in the

Sex Discrimination Act that could be incorporated into a positive duty in the Disability Discrimination Act? There should be an explicit requirement for duty holders to develop a positive culture. Autistic children in Australia experience bullying at rates amongst the highest in the world.11 This is both heartbreaking and unsurprising. Studies show that peer rejection of autistic and ADHD students are influenced by the treatment those same students receive from the teacher.12

Positive duty should come with guidelines and requirements that must be met by all levels of an organisation. The implementation of the positive duty requirement in the Sex Discrimination Act has found that the least action and compliance has been made

11 Roche, Gerald; Haschek, Alexandra; Armstrong, David; Flower, Rebecca; Hedley, Darren (2025). La Trobe University’s Department of Languages and Cultures, School of Education and School of Psychology and Public Health, and the Olga Tennison Autism

Research Centre: Anti-Bullying Rapid Review Submission. La Trobe. Report. https://doi.org/10.26181/29286686.v1

12 Ewe, L. P. (2019). ADHD symptoms and the teacher–student relationship: a systematic literature review. Emotional and Behavioural Di2iculties, 24(2), 136–155. https://doi.org/10.1080/13632752.2019.1597562

at the Board level of larger organisations. Therefore, the Act should specifically require proactive steps to be made from the top down in all organisations with the expectation of those lower down being reinforced by those at the top of the organisation.

The AHRC should have appropriate powers to enforce compliance. Particularly in cases where the power dynamic is weighted against the complainant. Complainants should not be expected to face a discriminator’s legal representation and members of a management team in a conciliation process that is unnecessarily adversarial.

Not only is this not the supposed goal of conciliation but it further embeds trauma and reduces public faith in the justice system.

  1. What costs, benefits and other impacts would duty holders experience in meeting a positive duty under the Disability Discrimination Act? The costs and impacts to duty holders will no doubt be a long list of complaints from a variety of organisations who profit from the discrimination of others.

Speaking from experience as someone who used to own a small service business, it was not costly to be educated on how I could provide for people with diDerent abilities. It was not costly to employ instructors with diDerent abilities or to accommodate them in ways that worked for them. It was not costly to write policies or to ask all clients and employees how they were best supported. These are things that a good business owner or manager does with all people anyway.

The benefits should not even be relevant. Treating people with the dignity and respect they deserve is the benefit.

Everyone in society benefits when we treat people with basic human dignity. Everyone in society benefits when all members of the community are educated about disability and what disability and disability discrimination look like. Everyone benefits when empathy and understanding are encouraged.

In terms of large profitable organisations. There is no argument where they have unlimited resources to fight a case against a single person through the court system but cannot aDord to fund the prevention of that fight in the first place. This includes and should be directly enforced in government education departments and independent school systems.

  1. Should there be exceptions or limits to the application of a

positive duty? No

Limits and exceptions will be utilised by discriminators to avoid taking proactive action to avoid discrimination, and to get away with continued discrimination.

The federal government can very easily provide free, simplified online education no diDerent to the online education that is provided for mandatory reporting, aimed at institutions, small businesses and other organisations on:

  • Understanding and recognising diDerent forms of disability

  • Understanding the impact that systematic disability discrimination has on the short and long-term outcomes of people with disability.

  • How to identify and prevent disability discrimination both as a provider and as an employer

  • Common misconceptions such as the belief that children with ADHD are violent, disruptive or naughty

  • Their obligations as a provider to prevent discrimination on the basis of disability

  • The consequences of not preventing discrimination on the basis of disability The biggest cost to businesses is ensuring the physical space is accommodating to all people. Many small businesses are not able to provide disabled facilities due to the size and age of the property. This requirement should be passed on to landlords. Landlords of commercial properties in Melbourne are currently enjoying sky high rents for small properties in the least profitable shopping strips.

There should be an expectation that all people can access a business or organisation if required and they should not be hindered because the physical space doesn’t allow it.

The same requirement should be implemented in terms of providing clean air. All buildings should be updated so that the air and ventilation is the same standard as the air in Parliament House in Canberra. Currently those with certain illness and health conditions are discriminated against on a daily basis from entering the majority of buildings in Australia.

These are costs that will unfairly impact on smaller sized businesses and organisations. This does not mean they should be ignored. Instead, these costs should be met through other means: eg landlords, and the government who currently enjoys the benefit of clean air that they have not passed on to the people who voted for them.

Part 3. Encouraging Inclusion of People with Disability in

Employment, Education and Other Areas of Public Life

Recs 4.25 & 4.26 – Strengthening the Duty to Provide Adjustments

  1. Would the creation of a stand-alone duty to provide adjustments better assist people with disability and duty holders to understand their rights and obligations?

Yes

It should be made clear that a refusal to implement adjustments that are specific to the individual and NOT a “one size fits all” approach to accommodations, is discrimination. Many schools use the argument that they have provided a child with adjustments and therefore have not discriminated against them. However, one child with ADHD is one child with ADHD. Or any other disability. All children have individual needs. Placing a child in a room where everyone can see them and calling it the ‘special room’ where they can complete their test ‘away from distractions’ is not an adjustment. Giving out toilet passes is not an adjustment. It’s a basic human right. Adjustments should be catered to the individual and refusing to provide that is discrimination.

It is also important to note that both of these “adjustments” are things that should be accessible to all students and a common part of an inclusive environment. The more inclusive an environment is, the less ‘adjustments’ will be required. When classrooms are filling up with students who require ‘adjustments’ it is time to recognise the problem is the inaccessible system, and not the number of children with disabilities.

It is also irrelevant if a person chooses to disclose their disability or if a person is unaware of their disability or yet to receive a diagnosis. A truly inclusive society would allow for flexibility amongst people and would not discriminate against someone because of a particular trait or belief about a person. It is irrelevant if the person has a medically diagnosed disability or not.

The problem is not that duty holders do not understand their obligations. The problem is that duty holders do not want to have these obligations. They want to continue to provide only for the majority because they are used to the segregation and they also benefit from this. However, the majority would also benefit and be far happier if they all had access to working conditions that worked the best for them.

  1. Should the scope of the duty to provide adjustments apply only

to the existing areas of public life covered by the DDA, or extend to other contexts? The scope of duty should extend to as many areas as possible. An inclusive society will never exist while there are parts of society that are exempt from discrimination laws.

While it is diDicult to expect private homeowners to comply with certain obligations, for example homeowners cannot be expected to provide accessible toilets. it is reasonable however, to expect that inclusivity is governed in other ways. Eg, government building regulations.

It is also reasonable to expect private homeowners and interactions that happen within the private sphere including online, to be free of discriminatory behaviour. This includes the type of discriminatory and abusive language that is used towards people with disability as well as exclusionary practices that are used to ensure children with disability are forced out of friendships and then excluded from social spaces.

These types of socially acceptable exclusionary practices are amongst the most distressing for people with disability. Where these behaviours are ongoing and consistent and lead to persistent exclusion, there should be an avenue for people with disability to access support and a requirement for those responsible to participate in education.

In terms of the impact on private freedoms. Defamation exists purely to protect the reputation of those who can aDord it. In what world is it possible to take action against someone for making untrue statements, but not possible to take action for using exclusionary practices or derogatory language to humiliate and demean someone based on their diDerences?

Outside of this, the defence force has restrictions based on certain disabilities which should be covered by discrimination laws. These restrictions should be decided on each case’s own facts. People should be considered as individuals and not as a homogenous group who are identified and excluded according to their diDerences.

  1. Would removing the word ‘reasonable’ from the term ‘reasonable adjustments’ to align the language with the legal eSect create unintended consequences? Unintended consequences are called “unintended” for a reason. It is impossible to answer this without knowing how the legislation will be written and how the courts will interpret it.

Currently the term “reasonable” is used as an excuse by discriminators to suggest that an adjustment or request cannot be provided.

As mentioned above, a recent letter from a principal at a private school in Melbourne states that a request to follow the schools own bullying policy by educating students about the impact of their behaviour is “not a reasonable adjustment”.

The term ‘reasonable’ should be removed, the term ‘adjustment’ and what this obligation entails should be made abundantly clear.

Adjustments should be catered to the individual, should be both preventative and reactive as knowledge grows, should be implemented as soon as practicably possible and another adjustment should be utilised in the meantime if the preferred adjustment isn’t available immediately.

Students should be provided with adjustments as soon as they arrive at a new school and there is knowledge it will be required. There should not be an expectation to “wait and see” how badly the student goes before deciding if they “deserve” to be provided with an adjustment.

Consultation with students is important and necessary when it is applicable. Some students are not capable of this consultation or not capable yet.

Parents/caregivers/advocates should be listened to and accepted that they know what best helps their child. Discrimination extends to the family/advocate of the child and this should be made explicit.

Rec 4.32 – Definition of and Considerations for Unjustifiable Hardship

  1.  Preferred approach to achieving greater fairness and

transparency in claims of unjustifiable hardship

Other

In preference, a new definition of unjustifiable hardship is probably the better option. I question the ethics of a test that essentially weighs up whether the benefit of allowing a person with disability to be included in society is more or less important than the financial concerns of someone else (most likely a business or organisation).

Consultation with the person with disability should always be obligated. There should also be an obligation to provide alternatives to the preferred adjustment that is considered an unjustifiable hardship. These alternatives should not cause some other discrimination against the person.

  • For example, if a school refuses an adjustment to the way a student learns on the basis of unjustifiable hardship but provides an alternative that they can provide the requested adjustment it just won’t be provided with a grade or school report for the students work when using the adjustment, that would be a further discriminatory act.

There should be clear guiding factors on what unjustifiable hardship entails. The burden should be on the discriminator to provide evidence to the person with disability at the time they make the decision, that there is a hardship and that it is not justifiable in order to avoid discriminating against people with disability. This should be regulated. Currently schools are able to just tell a family the adjustment is not reasonable and there is nothing the family can do that will not lead to a break down in the relationship, making it impossible to work as a team for the benefit of the student. This burden should not be placed on the family/caregivers of the student with disability.

Guiding factors should be provided that are limited in scope so as not to be utilised in place of the reasonableness element:

The cost of avoiding discrimination should outweigh other factors significantly:

  • For example, schools should not be able to refuse placing a student with ADHD on an IEP because “it’s just ADHD” and “we don’t have the funds for that” (Vice Principal at a govt secondary school in Melbourne). There should be real evidence provided that the actual financial cost to the school to write the IEP outweighs the benefits that might be achieved by providing the student an IEP

  • This factor should be provided with guidance as to what actually constitutes a cost that would be considered unjustifiable so that it cannot be used as an excuse to avoid providing adjustments.

Detrimental eDect on others as a consideration is incredibly ableist and entrenches the view that people with disability don’t belong in society because they are “an inconvenience”. The use, if at all should be very limited and specific to events that can be identified with evidence:

  • The adjustment would put others safety at risk is valid but should be written in such a way that it cannot be utilised as an excuse to discriminate

  • Providing the adjustment would require other employees to take on a higher workload should be very limited in use and in particular large, highly profitable organisations should not be able to use this as a defence as they have the means to employ the appropriate number of people.

The eDect of students on other students at school should also be limited in use.

  • For example, schools should not be able to suggest that providing an adjustment such as a “cheat sheet” to a student with ADHD is an “unjustifiable hardship”

because it would put that student “at an advantage” in comparison to the other students (Wellbeing teacher in a private secondary school in Melbourne).

  • This element should not be used to suggest that the behaviour of a child with disability is “distracting” to others. These are problems within the education system that should be addressed as part of that system. Children with disability, particularly ND children, should not be the scapegoats and victims of an inadequate system.

The same can be said for most adjustments that come under the claim of unjustifiable hardship. Most adjustments should be able to be provided with the exception of high cost changes or renovations to the physical environment. Which can be governed through other governmental measures such as new building regulations that aim to create buildings that are more accessible for all people.

If the obligation on businesses and organisations is to be inclusive by design and accessible by default, the future requirement for adjustments would become less necessary.

Rec 7.26 – Expanding the Factors Considered by Employers when Determining if an Employee can Carry out the Inherent Requirements

of Particular Work

  1. Views on amending the DDA to consider the nature and extent

of any adjustments made and encourage consultation between employers and employees before making employment decisions? There should be an obligation on employers to consult with all employees to ensure they are supported to carry out inherent requirements.

Employees should not be expected to disclose personal information about their disability unless they feel safe to do so. Discrimination is rife and most people do not understand nor attempt to understand the diDerences in others. They are used to living in a country where they do not need to interact with people with disability due to the forced segregation in Australia.

If an employee is open about their disability, there should always be consultation. The culture in the organisation should be to consult and support all employees on how they can be best supported as an individual. This is just basic good management.

  1. Other amendments to the DDA that could support engagement

between employers and employees to better understand the inherent requirements of the job An obligation to be transparent with guiding factors.

Obligations for workplaces to provide complaints procedures that do not require the person who is being discriminated against to complain/speak directly to their discriminator as a first step. This is ableist and short sighted as to what actually happens to people who complain. Particularly people who are historically already disadvantaged.

If employees are too scared to speak up about issues in their workplace, employers cannot be obligated to fix them.

This requirement should be across all institutions for all forms of discrimination.

  1. Other amendments to the definition of inherent requirements

including factors to be considered when deciding whether a person could carry out the inherent requirements of a job? An obligation to be educated about the disability being considered and the requirement that making a decision on whether a person can carry out the requirements of a job based on biased misconceptions or without consultation with the actual person is discriminatory.

Rec 7.2 – Exclusionary Discipline and Suspension

  1. Should the concepts of exclusion and exclusionary discipline

be defined in the DDA? Yes, and both concepts should be explicitly defined as discriminatory and archaic practices that should not be used on any children. Why is it acceptable to punish children in this way and not adults? We do not give an adult detention for using their phone at work. We do not send an adult home for a week because they were rude to a co-worker. We deal with adults through discussions, and we should do the same with children.

The comparison to being fired or going to prison is not appropriate when discussing children with developing brains who are still learning. Particularly when the majority of children being given these types of punishments have a disability. School is not a workplace and should not be compared to one. Children do not have the choice or capability to “apply for a new job” if the one they are in is toxic or causing undue stress. Children in the vast majority of cases are being punished for actions that are not

‘crimes’ that lead to prison time. This is not a comparison. However, the school to prison pipeline is not unique to countries like the US and is alive and well in Australia with a large proportion of the prison population also displaying ND traits both diagnosed and undiagnosed.13

  1. Should there be exceptions or limits on when exclusion is

unlawful? It should always be unlawful when used as a punishment.

Children should not be held against their will just as we do not force adults to sit in a room against their will as a punishment.

If every child has a right to an education, then how are exclusionary practices justified? How is it justified to send a child home for a week as a punishment while at the same time punishing parents whose children can’t attend school?

Exclusion, suspension, expulsion, detention are discriminatory practices that have been proven not to work. The more often a student is excluded the worse their educational outcomes become.14

The exclusionary and punitive practices of schools are discriminatory and archaic and should be recognised as such.

In circumstances where a practice considered exclusionary is implemented as a special measure because it is beneficial for the student, the student consents to it because they prefer the benefit and is NOT used as a punishment, it should simply be called a special measure and defined separately.

  1. Should any of the state and territory provisions relating to

exclusionary discipline be adopted in the DDA? No. It should be explicitly defined as a discriminatory practice that schools cannot use.

There should be no grounds for detention, suspension, exclusion or expulsion. Children should not be punished by adults for their distress in a system that is designed to fail them. This should not be left with a “loophole” for “principal discretion” AND this should be made explicit.

13 https://adhdguideline.aadpa.com.au/subgroups/correctional-system/ 14 Valdebenito S, Eisner M, Farrington DP, Ttofi MM, Sutherland A. School-based interventions for reducing disciplinary school exclusion: a systematic review. Campbell Syst Rev. 2018 Jan 9;14(1):i-216. doi: 10.4073/csr.2018.1. PMID: 37131379; PMCID: PMC8533648.

Fix the education system. Fix the systems that do not support families and children in distress. It is a fallacy to pretend the federal government has no influence on state education and funding for state schools.

Educate and pay teachers better and fund the government system. Provide an actual university degree that prepares teachers appropriately and includes child psychology. Make the government system an actual alternative to private schools so they are not used as modern-day segregation. Upgrade buildings and reduce class sizes. Put preventative procedures in place. Reduce standardised testing. Allow for teacher autonomy and flexibility in learning styles. Get rid of punishments and rewards as a management system and focus on treating students as autonomous humans who are learning and still developing.

Place obligations on all schools and education and training sectors to implement a trauma informed approach. Fund school psychologists and wellbeing services that can actually cater for the number of distressed students in schools. Look at the reasons the numbers of “school can’t” has risen. In all states. Neurodivergent children are not an anomaly. They are the canary in the coalmine. They are more sensitive to the problems, and they are telling you the system is broken. Not just for ND students but for ALL students.

Place obligations on private schools and enforce them. Look at the enrolment policies of private schools. Clauses stating that students can lose their enrolment in cases “where the families views are in misalignment to the schools”. Blatantly outlining that they can exclude students for diDerent views. Are the intentions of the exemptions for religious organisations for students to be kicked out of religious schools because the family ‘expected’ a safe environment and that was a ‘misalignment of views’?

Recognise and regulate the multiple ways schools exclude students without ever suspending or expelling them.15 Create avenues that can be taken by parents that don’t require them to be placed in adversarial conciliation with an education department or private schools’ legal team. Recognise the blame that is placed on caregivers, particularly mothers and also very likely caregivers from other minority groups, by schools and that this is also a form of discrimination and recognise that these practices utilised by schools have created further segregation in the education system.

The segregation in Australia should embarrass all governments and all those who champion it. It is the segregation that should be targeted. Currently we have an unprecedented amount of ND school students being quietly forced out of schools and into new ‘alternative’ schools that are being created to accommodate them. This is segregation on a massive scale. I live in the electorate of the State Education Minister,

15 Poed, S., Cologon, K., & Jackson, R. (2020). Gatekeeping and restrictive practices by Australian mainstream schools: results of a national survey. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 26(8), 766–779. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2020.1726512

and my child is not able to attend a school in this electorate due to discriminatory practices. That should embarrass both the state and federal government.

  1. Would a diSerent approach to exclusionary discipline be more appropriate in the higher education and vocational education and training sectors? It is completely wild that a higher education or vocational education and training organisation would use exclusionary discipline with young adults who are there out of their own free will.

Yes. A diDerent approach is necessary. One that recognises the autonomy of the human beings they are dealing with and one that recognises that teaching staD are not inherently superior to their students just because they are getting paid to be there.

Part 4 – Improving Access to Justice

Recs 4.29 & 4.30 – OWensive Behaviour and Vilification Protections

Harassment and OWensive Behaviour

  1. How could the DDA be amended to protect people with disability from oSensive behaviour and/or harassment? Amend the DDA in line with the Disability Royal Commission recommendations.

  2.     If the DDA were to prohibit oSensive behaviour and/or

harassment, how should these terms be defined? The terms should be defined in a uniform manner across the discrimination framework so that it is simple for discriminators to understand.

  1. Should there be exemptions for any behaviour, similar to the

Racial Discrimination Act? In order to respond to this there should be consultation with people within those groups to ascertain whether those exemptions have been harmful.

Vilification

  1.  Further gaps in the legislative framework that could be

addressed by amendments to the DDA? There needs to be recognition that not all vilification is made by using oDensive words. Multiple studies from numerous countries show very similar treatment of autistic and ADHD children16 and their parents (aka mothers).17

This vilification works in two ways.

Firstly, students are demonised for their behaviour and diDerences. They are excessively punished. This leads to escalation of behaviours and therefore justifies the school’s position. Many of these students will be then “unoDicially” forced out. Exclusion from education has a direct impact on the child’s ability to make and maintain friendships or to participate in social activities.

Secondly, parents who advocate for their children are often vilified by being labelled as “diDicult”, “hysterical” or “dishonest”. These labels are far more commonly placed on the mother than the father even when the father is just as involved in the advocacy as the mother is.

Within the Victorian government education system, all schools and the department of education are considered to be one entity. This is used as a justification for the sharing of private family information amongst schools and the department.

FOI provides evidence that this includes written defamatory notices about parents and teachers “opinions” about parents that have been shared across departments and likely across schools.

Department of Education Response to Privacy Concerns

Therefore, families can never be assured that information pertaining to themselves, or their children is not being forwarded on without their knowledge or consent. Particularly

16 Disability Royal Commission: Public Hearing 7 https://disability.royalcommission.gov.au/publications/report-public-hearing-7 barriers-experienced-students-disability-accessing-and-obtaining-safe-quality-and-inclusive-school-education-and-consequent life-course-impacts 17 Oliver, C., Vincent, C., & Pavlopoulou, G. (2025). Cautious Capitals: Parenting Autistic Children at Mainstream School. Sociology, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/00380385251349131

if that information is considered under a breach of legal obligations as many complaints made by parents may be in relation to disability discrimination.

None of these things use ‘oDensive language’. But it certainly meets the definition of being vilified.

People with disability should be protected from “professionals” and “government oDicers” who use their positions to vilify and cause untold trauma on families who are already struggling. It is important to note, this vilification can happen quietly or “confidentially” and is not necessarily going to happen in public. However, it can be even more detrimental particularly if it is preventing a child from a fair and just education.

The definition of vilification should include –

Conduct that is either written or spoken and shared with another, that seeks to enforce a negative or detrimental view of a person based on their disability or their advocacy of a person with disability to discredit, humiliate, intimidate or distress the person.

Rec 8.19 – Services Provided by Police OWicers

  1. How could the DDA be amended to ensure that it covers policing? Include a new provision that provides clarity to cover the police force and the justice system.

It should be telling that many families I know within the neurodivergent community, including my own family, are very clear with our children that they are never to speak to police on their own.

If the most vulnerable people in society need to protect themselves from police, that should be a very large red flag.

  1. Are there any specific circumstances or situations relating to

policing or justice that should be excluded from the application to the DDA? No.

Part 5 – Exemptions

  1. Permanent Exemptions that could be narrowed

Superannuation and Insurance

Superannuation and insurance as an exemption is discriminatory and shows the complete acceptance and justification of ableism in modern society.

Because someone may “die earlier” they are refused cover. Superannuation and Insurance Companies collectively make billions in profits every year.

The fact that people with disability are a minority group means that there are plenty of people who will be paying insurance premiums for many years before requiring a payout to ensure profits don’t disappear.

There are also plenty of loopholes in the terms and conditions section meaning this can be balanced in the payments somewhat.

Migration

Migration and the long justification in the reason for the exemption box is just more of Australia’s racism. If people entering Australia were treated with dignity to begin with (in particular asylum seekers who are likely not even covered under this as they are dehumanised) then this exemption wouldn’t be required to protect government oDicials.

Combat Duties, Peacekeeping Services and Police

Addressed previously in Part 3, Question 17.

People should not be treated as one homogenous group. Not all people with disability are the same person, have the same traits or respond the same in certain situations. All people should be treated and assessed on a case-by-case basis.

  1. AHRC power to grant special measures certificates

Yes

  1. Definition of special measures added to the DDA

Yes

  1. Definition of temporary exemptions added to DDA

Yes

As per AHRC recommendations

  1. Changes to the legislative process of granting temporary

exemptions

Yes

As per AHRC recommendations

Part 6 – Modernising the DDA

Assistance Animals

  1.  Clarification of protections for people and duty holders

Provide a digital certificate or other option that can be presented. This could be applied for online or over the phone or other communication service with whatever evidence is required of the animals training

  1.  Legislative amendments, guidance materials or both

Mixture of both

  1. Specific training organisations prescribed under DD Regs

NO

This will end up creating monopolies by large organisations who make profits oJ people with disability

Disability Action Plans

  1. Minimum requirements for action plans

Yes

Guidelines should be created for diDerent industries. Not all industries will be the same and general guidelines will allow many industries to slip through the cracks. Schools and children are rarely considered in laws like this. Education should have guidelines that are completely diDerent to a large corporation.

Requirements should include:

  • Mandatory education of obligations for ALL staD and employees
  • Action plan to be written WITH people with disability AND lived experience
  • Hiring people with lived experience and consultation with people with disability
  • Audits of physical spaces, products, services, communication, adjustments,

  • Celebration of diversity and inclusion through education, positive language, positive representation, inclusive environments, open discussion

  • Transparency of monitoring and preventing discrimination processes

  • Compliance with legislation

  • Transparency of regular review and how targets are being met

  1.  Rejection by AHRC for failure to meet requirements

Yes

  1. Set period of time for which action plan is valid

Yes

No longer than 5 years. It should be a 3–5-year plan that is updated to reflect current knowledge and understandings. The understandings and knowledge of what it means to be neurodivergent has grown greatly in just a few years. This should be reflected.

  1. Other changes to the action plan process

It should be a legal requirement to have an action plan for any workplace over a certain number of people. Similar to the very recent changes Australia has introduced for gender equality.

It should be considered as part of a review process or in annual reporting processes.

Disability Standards

  1. Improving compliance with and enforcement of Disability

Standards

Introduce positive duty and remove the burden on complainants to sit through adversarial conciliation processes against industry legal teams.

Create a process where a person with disability is able to make a complaint that will be investigated by the AHRC. This should be a simple process where the duty holder is required to provide evidence of their compliance by uploading documents online so as not to lead to massive backlogs by the huge number of duty holders who currently refuse to comply on a daily basis.

Compliance notices should be administered to duty holders who don’t comply and should face more severe penalties for continued non-compliance.

The issuing of compliance notices should be reviewed regularly as there will be many industries who will not be phased by these.

  1. Amendment to DDA to encourage duty holders to self-report on compliance with Disability Standards in action plans This should be a legal requirement

  2. Guidance from AHRC on how to self-report

Sure

Part 7 – Further Options for Reform

  1. Examples of legislative provisions in anti-discrimination law

that can be drawn on to modernise or strengthen the DDA The recent changes to the Workplace Gender Equality Amendment (Setting Gender

Equality Targets) Act 2025

Targets and actions should be required by organisations over a certain size. Including the hiring of people with disability and the representation of people with disability at all levels. People with disability should be part of all policy writing processes that aDect people with disability.

Actions should also be required to be taken by organisations that are smaller but who work with children. Regardless of the size of the school, there should be legislated actions that are required to improve the conditions in the education system that are currently traumatising students with disability. Including:

  • Actions to help students with disability experience success (looks diDerent for everyone) and stay engaged and connected at school in ways that support their wellbeing and not at the cost of their wellbeing

  • Actions to support students with disability who have social diDiculties to make and maintain friendships

  • Actions to support teachers and staD implement trauma informed approaches and the expectation that this is used with all students with disability and will work best if used across the school

Currently no state is attempting to resolve the crisis that is occurring in terms of the segregation of ND students and their forced exclusion from mainstream schools.

  1.  Additional guidance materials to be provided to the community

including duty holders about the operation of the DDA or amendments Addressed in Part 2, question 15.

The government can easily provide workshops, short education courses, advice for small businesses, education and representation of people with disability all online.

  1. How to ensure the DDA remains fit for purpose into the future Create provisions that are intended to be interpreted broadly. Create provisions that place the responsibility on the duty holder to ensure they are compliant. Remove the barriers that exist for complainants including making it explicitly prohibited to engage in the “confidential” and secretive vilification and exclusion processes that take place.

Complaints processes should not place the burden on the person who has been discriminated against to speak directly to their discriminator to resolve the issue. If one person is in a position where they are able to legally punish the other, that expectation is discriminatory.

Provisions should be written as preventative as possible without placing the burden on the person with the least amount of power.

  1. Other issues to consider

Government implemented and forced discrimination should be reviewed. People with disability should be consulted on how particular laws aDect them and it should be considered whether these laws are necessary at the expense of the trauma it causes. Including:

  • Government initiatives that indirectly discriminate against ND students such as the Inquiry on the Issue of Increasing Disruption in Australian Classrooms addressed in Part 1, question 7.

  • The social media ban which directly discriminates against children and in particular discriminates against ND children, LGBTQIA+ children and other socially isolated children who have been excluded from their schools, have no representation in their schools, are being bullied in their schools, children who live in domestic violence or other unsafe home environments. Social media for many of these children is their only access to socialisation, support and acceptance.18 It also goes against the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and there is evidence that shows that screens and gaming have more benefits than negatives for many children.

18 van Schalkwyk GI, Marin CE, Ortiz M, Rolison M, Qayyum Z, McPartland JC, Lebowitz ER, Volkmar FR, Silverman WK. Social Media Use, Friendship Quality, and the Moderating Role of Anxiety in Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder. J Autism Dev Disord. 2017 Sep;47(9):2805-2813. doi: 10.1007/s10803-017-3201-6. PMID: 28616856; PMCID: PMC6688174.

  • The mobile phone bans in schools across the country that indirectly discriminate against ND children, children with trauma, children with severe anxiety. For these children the ability to know they can call a trusted person throughout the day if they need to can be the diDerence between attending school and not. Punishing those children for then using their phone in distressing situations is abusive.

Australia continues to choose to place blanket bans on the people who will least be able to fight against it rather than investing in actual research and placing the responsibility for problems on the big businesses and organisations that profit. The social media ban is not based on evidence, is going to be impossible to police and will lead to adults having to hand over private personal information for big companies to data harvest and share with online scammers.

Banning mobile phones in schools leading to unnecessary punishments rather than investing in schools and creating engaging learning environments where students are happy and thriving instead of constantly being punished for not following one of the continuous, unrelenting flow of instructions they were expected to comply with that day.

The problem is Governments who invest in initiatives that tell teachers to do exactly what they have always done – punish students, instead of allowing for flexibility and autonomy in classrooms and then wondering why children won’t listen to teachers. This generation has lived through a pandemic, multiple climate change charged summers and catastrophic events. They have photos and videos taken of them BY ADULTS and posted on neighbourhood whinge groups on Facebook with thousands of members accusing them of all sorts of petty crimes every time they go outside. Only a few years ago they were told communicating online was the only option they were allowed. Now the same adults are going to ban them from that without providing any support or funding any alternatives while simultaneously complaining that kids should be ‘playing footy’.

Not all children enjoy sports OR CAN PARTICIPATE IN SPORTS! Simply placing another ban on their lives will not fix anything. It will disproportionately eDect children with disability and children who are already discriminated against and isolated. Can you explain why a 14-year-old wheel-chair user is expected to ‘play footy’ instead of being online? Can you fix all the soccer clubs who discriminate against any kid they don’t want on their team? Can you fix all the sporting teams who now discriminate against trans kids because they’ve been emboldened by the ideology politics that is rife and encouraged in this country?

To be a child is a disability. To be a child with disability is hell because of the adults in this country.