Review of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth) | External submission

Submission: Review of the Disability Discrimination Act

1992 (Cth)

Date: October 2025

Location: Queensland, Australia

I consent to this submission being made public; however, I ask that my name is removed from any online publishing. I do consent for my details to be shared with the review panel in case they have any questions around my submission.

Note: This submission reflects my personal experiences and views as an individual with lived experience of disability and as a parent. It is not made on behalf of any organisation or employer.

Summary

This submission is informed by both my lived experience of disability and over 20 years of professional experience in the human services sector, spanning housing and homelessness,

harm  reduction  services,  domestic and  family  violence,  youth, and community

development.

I offer a dual perspective—personal and systemic—to highlight how current disability discrimination protections remain reactive and limited in scope. The submission focuses on employment, positive duty, intersectionality, and education, identifying key reforms that would align the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) with contemporary human rights frameworks and the intent of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), of which Australia is a signatory.

Drawing on my lived experience of navigating workplace discrimination and supporting neurodivergent children through education systems, this submission argues for a DDA that moves beyond compliance toward proactive accountability, prevention, and authentic inclusion.

Key recommendations include:

Embedding a positive duty on organisations to prevent discrimination and promote inclusion.
Introducing accountability mechanisms such as Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC)-endorsed Disability and Diversity Action Plans.

Removing employment exclusions and clarifying definitions of “reasonable adjustment” and “unjustifiable hardship.”

• Ensuring the DDA better reflects intersectionality and complements other anti-

discrimination and human rights legislation.

Strengthening protections and definitions within education, ensuring inclusive access and equitable learning environments for all children.
Ensuring the oversight and enforcement mechanisms, including the Australian Human Rights Commission, are adequately resourced and empowered to respond promptly and effectively to discrimination complaints.

My intention in providing this submission is to ensure that the DDA Review results in meaningful, measurable reform so that people like me, my children, and others with disability are protected, respected, and can fully participate in all aspects of Australian life.

Submission: Review of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth)……………………………. 1

Summary …………………………………………………………………………………………………… 1

Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………………………. 4 1.1. My Story: Navigating the Workplace ………………………………………………………… 4

1.2. My Story: Navigating the Education System……………………………………………….. 5

Current Barriers in Employment …………………………………………………………………… 6
The Need for Cultural and Systemic Change …………………………………………………… 7
Positive Duty: Shifting from Complaint to Prevention ………………………………………… 7
Addressing DDA Exclusions and Ambiguities in Employment ……………………………… 8
Intersectionality and Complementary Protections …………………………………………… 9
Education and Children’s Rights ………………………………………………………………… 10
Real-World Impact: What Meaningful Reform Would Look Like …………………………. 11
Employment: Creating Opportunity, Not Barriers …………………………………………… 12
Recommendations Summary ………………………………………………………………….. 12
Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………………………. 13 3

Introduction I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the Review of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA). I write from both a professional and lived experience perspective: as a person with disability, a parent to neurodivergent children, a member of the LGBTIQA+ community, and as someone with over 20 years’ experience in the human services sector.

Throughout my career, I have worked across a broad spectrum of the human services industry in areas focused on harm reduction, homelessness and housing vulnerability, community development, and youth. This includes leadership roles. I have also navigated complex systems as a person with an acquired disability and as a member of the LGBTIQA+ community.

Across all these roles, I have witnessed and experienced the shortcomings of the DDA, where the legislation has often failed to translate into practical and meaningful change and, crucially, protections, for people with disabilities. Whether intentional or not, this has led to harm and negative impacts for people in the disabled community, me included.

This dual lens allows me to see clearly how legislative gaps and systemic attitudes intersect to maintain barriers to inclusion and equity—particularly in employment and education systems.

My submission focuses on:

Employment discrimination and workplace inclusion.
The need for a Positive Duty and accountability mechanisms.
The removal of harmful exclusions and ambiguities in the DDA.
Strengthening intersectionality and alignment across human rights laws.
Education and the rights of children with disabilities.
Alignment with the Disability Royal Commission’s recommendations and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD).

1.1. My Story: Navigating the Workplace

Acquiring a disability changed the way I had to navigate work, not because I lost the skills or leadership qualities that I had built over two decades, but because the environment around me changed how it saw me.

Up until that point, I had always been recognised for what I brought to my role; my ability to lead, problem-solve, and support teams through complex human services work. When I acquired a disability, that same capability started to be viewed through a different lens. My capacity to work full-time was suddenly conflated with an assumption that I was no longer able to perform the “inherent requirements” of my role.

Rather than a meaningful conversation about what I could continue to do, and what reasonable adjustments could support me, decisions were made for me, not with me. I was moved into a lower-paid position with less responsibility, without genuine consultation or exploration of alternatives.

At the time, I contacted the Human Rights Commission to understand my rights. I was told that if I lodged a complaint, the process could take six to twelve months before conciliation even began. As someone on a short-term contract, I couldn’t risk my employment or wellbeing in such a lengthy process. The burden of proof sat entirely with me.

The message was clear — the system was built to respond after harm occurred, not to prevent it. There was no accountability on employers to build inclusion into everyday practice.

This experience reinforced for me how the DDA falls short in protecting people with disabilities in real workplace contexts. It allows exclusions under “inherent requirements” and leaves terms like “reasonable adjustments” so undefined they can be interpreted away.

What I experienced isn’t unique. It reflects what the Disability Royal Commission (Volume 11: Employment) found — that people with disability are often seen through a deficit lens rather than being supported to succeed.

1.2. My Story: Navigating the Education System

As a parent of neurodivergent children, I’ve seen how the education system still struggles to provide inclusive learning environments. Both my children were identified as having an implied disability, and while plans were developed, these were done without meaningful consultation with me or my children.

Instead of proactive support, we entered a cycle of misunderstanding, short-term suspensions, and exclusion. One of my children was removed from his classroom and isolated from his peers. He spent much of his time sitting alone, disengaged and unsupported.

Both children were often pathologised, labelled as “naughty” or “defiant”, when what was really happening was dysregulation and unmet support needs. The issue wasn’t their behaviour; it was the schooling environment’s inability to accommodate them.

It took years of advocacy before adjustments were implemented that supported their social, emotional, and academic goals. Even now, I still receive emails that place blame on my child for being unable to control himself, without recognising that executive dysfunction, social issues and sensory overload are part of his disability.

It’s like expecting a child who uses a wheelchair to walk up a staircase and then suspending them when they can’t. Neurodivergent children still experience disability based on the limitations and lack of inclusion across our learning environments. Their disability, while not always obvious, is still just as valid as the person who requires the use of a wheelchair.

These experiences highlight how the DDA does not go far enough to ensure schools are inclusive or accountable. Definitions of “reasonable adjustments” are vague, and children’s rights to learn alongside their peers are too easily sidelined. Until the DDA moves from reactive to proactive, children like mine will continue to face barriers that prevent them from thriving.

Current Barriers in Employment Despite the existing protections under the DDA, discrimination in employment remains both widespread and often subtle. Many people with disabilities, including myself, experience being sidelined, underestimated, or “accommodated” in ways that diminish rather than empower.

Even in sectors that champion inclusion, there continues to be a lack of understanding about disability, neurodiversity, and the social model of disability. Too often, employers approach disability through a lens of liability and risk management rather than capacity, adaptability, and human rights.

My own experience of acquiring a disability required me to navigate the workplace in a way I had never needed to prioritise before. My capability was confused with my reduced capacity to sustain a full-time role. Despite receiving ongoing positive feedback for my work performance, I was moved into a lower-paid role without any meaningful discussion about modifying my original position or providing reasonable adjustments that would have enabled me to continue to contribute at the same level.

I felt discriminated against, not because I could not do the job, but because my workplace did not meaningfully explore how I could continue to do it with appropriate support. At the

time,  I contacted the Human Rights Commission. However,  I was advised that,  if my

complaint was accepted, it could take between six and twelve months before conciliation processes would begin. As I was on a short-term contract, I did not feel I could risk pursuing it further.

The DDA, as it currently stands, places too much of the burden on individuals to prove discrimination and lacks proactive enforcement mechanisms. This creates a culture of risk aversion and defensiveness rather than inclusion and accountability.

These experiences reflect the findings of the Disability Royal Commission (Volume 11: Employment), which highlighted that people with disability are too often treated as incapable rather than supported to succeed.

The Need for Cultural and Systemic Change Legislative change must be accompanied by cultural transformation. Laws alone cannot create inclusion; they can only set the standard and expectation for it. Legislation is often seen as the bare minimum for compliance.

A reformed DDA must therefore:

Centre the voices and experiences of people with disability.
Require employers and systems to anticipate inclusion rather than react to complaints.
Build accountability mechanisms that encourage self-assessment, transparency, and continuous improvement.
The current DDA framework acts as a safety net only after harm has occurred, rather than a framework for prevention.

Positive Duty: Shifting from Complaint to Prevention The introduction of a positive duty under the DDA is essential for meaningful progress. This reform aligns with the Disability Royal Commission Recommendations 4.27 and 4.28, which call for proactive obligations on organisations to eliminate disability discrimination.

A positive duty would:

Shift responsibility from individuals to organisations and systems. 7

Require employers to actively identify, prevent, and address discrimination before it occurs.
Establish clear expectations for inclusive policies, practices, and culture.
Allow the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) to educate, monitor, and — where necessary — enforce compliance.

To ensure this duty is not symbolic but practical and measurable, there must be clear

accountability  for compliance. One way to achieve this  is through the mandatory

implementation of Disability and Diversity Action Plans, formally endorsed or registered with the AHRC.

Similar to the Child Safe Act rollout in Queensland, these plans should include measurable standards and reporting requirements to ensure that workplaces and organisations are not only compliant but actively and continuously working toward preventing discrimination against people with disability.

To mitigate burden, the AHRC could develop and distribute Business Audit Kits and provide scaled implementation requirements based on organisational size and capacity. This would ensure proportionality while still setting a universal expectation that every workplace has a role in creating safe, accessible, and inclusive environments.

This approach transforms the DDA from a reactive framework, which only responds once harm has occurred, to a preventative model that aims to build capacity, be accountable, and increase overall community confidence.

Ultimately, embedding positive duty in this way shifts the responsibility for inclusion from individuals to society, where it rightly belongs.

If a positive duty had existed, my employer would have been required to have an endorsed Diversity and Disability Action Plan that was actively building inclusion across multiple focus areas in the organisation rather than being reactive when things went wrong.

Addressing DDA Exclusions and Ambiguities in Employment The current DDA allows for significant exclusions, particularly within employment

provisions. These exclusions undermine the intent of the Act and perpetuate discrimination under the guise of legality.

In my own experience, rather than engaging in a meaningful conversation about what parts of my role I could continue to perform — with or without reasonable adjustments — I was moved into a lower-paid position with reduced authority.

While no real reason was provided, it was implied that I had been deemed “unable to perform the inherent requirements” of my previous role. The DDA, as it stands, allowed this outcome to occur, whether it was ethical or not. There was no real protection available to challenge this type of discrimination.

Although my workplace has since offered to retrospectively investigate the issue, this relies entirely on my initiative — not on a system designed to prevent or rectify such harm that occurred at the time, and it has the potential to perpetuate further harm if not done well.

If a positive duty had been in place, and these exclusions did not exist, this situation could have been avoided altogether.

Furthermore, the Act must include clearer definitions of key terms that currently allow for misuse or misunderstanding:

“Reasonable adjustments” should be defined with concrete examples and guidance to ensure consistency and to prevent them from being restricted or denied based on managerial discretion.
“Unjustifiable hardship” needs precise criteria and accountability measures to prevent it being used as an excuse to avoid inclusion.
“Inherent requirements of the role” should be clearly framed within a social model of disability — meaning an employer must demonstrate that all possible adjustments and supports have been considered with the employee before declaring a role unviable.

The DDA should also explicitly recognise that disability includes neurodivergence, chronic illness, mental health conditions, and fluctuating disabilities, to ensure full alignment with the UNCRPD Article 1 and the Disability Royal Commission’s recommendations (4.23 and 4.24).

Ultimately, all facets of the DDA must move beyond minimum compliance toward a rights based approach, ensuring both protection and prevention for people with disability.

This experience has had a significant impact on my confidence and overall sense of professional value. Even though several years have passed since this occurred, the personal stress and financial strain have been long lasting.

Intersectionality and Complementary Protections While the DDA focuses specifically on disability, true equality cannot exist without recognising intersectionality — the interconnected nature of people’s identities and the multiple forms of discrimination they may face.

People with disability who are also LGBTIQA+, First Nations, or from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds experience compounded barriers in employment, education, and access to justice.

Although this review does not extend to the Anti-Discrimination Act or other human rights frameworks, it is remiss not to acknowledge the critical need for alignment across these legislative instruments.

The DDA must operate  in complement  with, not  in  isolation from, broader  anti-

discrimination and human rights laws. This means:

Ensuring no legislation overrides, negates, or diminishes protections afforded under another.
Embedding a human rights-based framework as an overarching principle.
Strengthening intersectional analysis within DDA implementation and enforcement.
Supporting the AHRC to develop intersectional guidance for employers and institutions to better understand and respond to overlapping discrimination.

By aligning the DDA with the Human Rights Act (Qld) and other anti-discrimination legislation, we move toward a coherent, unified framework that protects all people — in all their diversity.

As a queer person with  disability,  I have experienced how systems often overlook

intersectional impacts.

Education and Children’s Rights As a parent of children who are neurodivergent, I have witnessed firsthand the barriers that exist within the education system for students with disability.

While the DDA provides a framework for preventing discrimination in education, in practice it lacks clarity, enforceability, and genuine inclusion. Children’s right to learn and participate fully is too often undermined by poor understanding, inadequate support, and systemic bias.

My children have experienced short-term suspensions and exclusionary practices that were responses to moments of dysregulation, rather than reflections of their capacity or willingness to learn. Segregation, isolation, and exclusion, under the guise of “behaviour management”, have caused lasting harm and interrupted their education.

After years of advocating, I was able to secure appropriate accommodations, but it took far longer than it should have. This experience reflects a broader systemic issue rather than an isolated incident.

The DDA should:

Define “reasonable adjustments” in education to include proactive, inclusive teaching and sensory supports.
Prohibit exclusionary discipline where behaviour is linked to disability.
Require schools to develop Disability Inclusion Action Plans (aligned with the positive duty framework).
Establish mechanisms for early intervention, mediation, and accountability in schools. This aligns with the UNCRPD Article 24 (Right to Education) and Disability Royal Commission Recommendations 7.1–7.9, which call for inclusive education systems that support all children to learn together.

Real-World Impact: What Meaningful Reform Would Look Like If the DDA were strengthened through the inclusion of a positive duty, removal of harmful exclusions, and establishment of measurable accountability standards, people like me — and many others — would experience tangible improvements in employment and inclusion.

Workplaces would be required to:

Engage in open, solution-focused discussions with employees about capacity and adjustments.
Actively monitor inclusion outcomes, not just policies.
Be accountable for measurable progress rather than relying on individual advocacy.
Normalise the diversity of disability — including invisible and neurodivergent conditions. Such change would not only benefit people with disability, but also foster innovation, loyalty, and diversity of thought across Australia’s workforce.

For me, this would mean having my strengths recognised, not my limitations emphasised.

Employment: Creating Opportunity, Not Barriers Beyond exclusions, the DDA must address systemic underemployment and the structural barriers that prevent people with disability from achieving meaningful work and leadership roles.

People with disability make up over 20% of Australia’s population yet remain

underrepresented in leadership and management positions and overrepresented in

insecure or part-time roles — not by choice, but by lack of opportunity.

Many people with disabilities are unable to work full-time for health or access reasons — yet this reality is rarely accommodated. The DDA should:

Encourage and support employers to design flexible, job-share, and part-time leadership roles.
Remove any exclusions or employer defences that discourage hiring people unable to work full-time.

• Require government-funded programs and employers to demonstrate inclusive

recruitment and career development strategies.

Recognise and reward innovative employers who model inclusive employment practices. By reframing employment around flexibility, capacity, and creativity, Australia can unlock the potential of thousands of skilled people who are currently excluded.

This would mean employers would see potential, not limitations, and essentially unlock the real strength and value of 20% of the population through innovative and diversifying workplaces.

Recommendations Summary

Introduce a positive duty requiring all employers and service providers to proactively eliminate disability discrimination.
Mandate Disability and Diversity Action Plans, endorsed by the AHRC, with measurable inclusion standards.
Develop scaled implementation tools and audit kits to support compliance across different business sizes.
Remove exclusions related to “inherent requirements” that enable discriminatory demotion or exclusion.
Clarify definitions of reasonable adjustment and unjustifiable hardship to promote consistent, rights-based practice.

Modernise the definition of disability to explicitly include neurodivergence, chronic illness, and fluctuating conditions.
Embed intersectionality and ensure legislative alignment across anti-discrimination and human rights frameworks.

• Grant the AHRC education, monitoring, and enforcement powers to support

implementation.

Ensure the AHRC and oversight mechanisms are adequately resourced and accountable for timely responses.
Require inclusive, rights-based approaches in education and prohibit exclusionary practices.
Promote flexible, innovative employment models that support people with disability in leadership and part-time roles.
Align all reforms with the UNCRPD and Disability Royal Commission Recommendations 4.23–4.28, 4.33–4.34, and 7.1–7.9.

Conclusion The Disability Discrimination Act has provided a foundation for equality, but it no longer meets the reality of how discrimination manifests today. The Act needs to evolve from a complaints-based, reactive system to one that is preventative, accountable, and grounded in rights.

For people like me, and many others who navigate workplaces with disability, the DDA in its current form offers protection, but not prevention. It allows discrimination to occur repeatedly before change is enforced.

Inclusion should not depend on an individual’s capacity to fight for it. It should be embedded as a societal responsibility, supported by clear definitions, measurable standards, and properly resourced oversight.

This review presents a crucial opportunity to modernise the DDA so that people with disabilities are not just protected from harm, but actively supported to thrive—in workplaces, in schools, and in every part of community life.

This is the shift from reactive compliance to proactive care — from individual burden to collective responsibility.

I hope this Review delivers a DDA that reflects the rights, capacities, and dignity of all people with disability, including my children and future generations.