Ms ROSOL (Bass) – Honourable Speaker, the Disability Rights Inclusion and Safeguarding Bill 2024 is a positive step in formally valuing and recognising Tasmanians who live with disability. The bill provides a framework to require and ensure government agencies and business enterprises do the work to include people with disability across the many services they provide. The bill also continues the regulation of restrictive practices and introduces additional measures to help safeguard and protect people with disability from the unnecessary and excessive application of restraint of any kind.
While the Greens are pleased to see the progress this bill makes in recognising the dignity and rights of people with disabilities, we also acknowledge that people with disabilities should not have to fight for their own inclusion. They have always been invaluable members of our community, deserving of dignity, respect and the same rights as every other individual. The Greens welcome the legislative changes included in this bill and believe they will help lift up people with disability to their rightful place in society, included amongst us, with every care taken to remove barriers to them participating when and where they need and wish to.
This bill was originally scheduled to be debated on the day when we had the first ever Auslan translator join us in the Chamber for a short period of time. Inclusion comes in many shapes and forms, and that brief provision of translation was an example of the work we can all do, and should do better at, in order to include people with disability.
Thank you to the Minister for Disability Services and to the Premier for bringing forward this bill, and thank you also to the advisers and DPAC staff who provided me with a briefing. I appreciated their time and their tolerance as I talked through the bill in great detail. Thank you also to people with disability who helped me and the Greens to understand what they needed in this bill.
The Greens support this bill. We also welcome the amendments made in the other place, as they have incorporated feedback from those who will be most impacted by this legislation, that is, people with disability, and they have strengthened the protections the legislation offers.
The amendments change the title of the bill to include the word ‘rights’, something disability advocates had raised with the Greens prior to the tabling of the original bill. Inclusion is fundamentally important, but even before that comes recognition of the human rights of people with disability. When their rights are recognised, we can do nothing other than also ensure inclusion. Including rights in the short title brings focused attention onto the essential building block of human rights that is foundational to respect and inclusion.
The Greens welcome amendments that will mean this legislation is reviewed within three years after its commencement. This is a significant piece of legislation that will lead to the appointment of a disability commissioner, the establishment of a disability inclusion advisory council and the development of disability inclusion plans by government services and government business enterprises. These are significant changes, and we need to know if they are working as envisioned or if further work is required to ensure recognition of human rights and the inclusion and safeguarding of people with disability.
In the other place, the Greens moved amendments to include coercion in this bill, and I thank the member for Hobart, Ms O’Connor, for doing this on our behalf. These amendments have strengthened the legislation by overtly naming up coercion alongside the safeguards against violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation in clauses 8, 28 and 36. This addition helps to cover the many different forms mistreatment can take, increasing the reach of this legislation and providing for a more comprehensive approach to protecting people with disabilities from harm.
Other amendments increase transparency and accountability across various aspects of the bill and are a positive addition to this legislation. I note here the comments made by Disability Voices Tasmania on 12 September in response to this bill and the amendments. They state that the proposed law and amendments make this the best and most rights-focused legislation in Australia.
The Greens want to make some further comments on the bill. During our consultations with stakeholders, we noted concerns raised by some about the inclusion of restrictive practices within this legislation. Restrictive practices by their very nature conflict with the principles of inclusion and respect for human rights, and we acknowledge that for many in the disability community, combining these two very different aspects of the legislation can feel like a contradiction.
For this reason, some stakeholders voiced to us a desire for restrictive practices to be addressed in separate legislation that reflects the full complexity and seriousness of this issue across all aspects of the community, not solely within the disability space, and I know that has been spoken of already here today. By including restrictive practices in this bill, it could send a message that such practices are a natural part of disability care, when in fact they should be a last resort, if used at all.
We acknowledge the explanations provided to us and understand the reasoning behind including safeguarding in this bill. These safeguard provisions are designed to protect the human rights of people living with disability, and as the bill is about advancing and safeguarding the rights of people with disability, it can appropriately be included here.
This bill requires that restrictive practices are only ever used in exceptional circumstances as a last resort and that, if deemed necessary, they are always accompanied by transparent oversight and accountability. The bill sets out the parameters for restrictive practices and provides for monitoring and protections of people with disability, and we would like to draw attention to and emphasise the importance of best practise in the use of restrictive practices.
We note that in Part 6, clause 44, subclause (1)(f), it states that guidelines and standards should be in accordance with best practice and the objects of the act. It can be easy to use the term ‘best practice’, but it needs to be backed up by real action to ensure best practice through seeking research and identifying the evidence base, and the Greens hope that restrictive practice, guidelines and standards will be grounded in an evidence base and will be in line with current research.
Moving through the bill chronologically, I want to comment on entities. In clause 6(1), where the meaning of defined entities is outlined, we outlined that we have a comment on local governments, which has already been raised here this evening. They are an authority that provides services to people with disability, and we note that they are not included in the definition of entity, but we would like to see action going forward that ensures that local governments are also part of the conversation about inclusion, and also ensures that they are committed to and acting on inclusion.
In clause 21, subclause (1)(b), the legislation states that the commissioner may take action following non-compliance by an entity with a compliance notice issued by the commissioner, and may send a report to the minister. I wonder if it is possible to have some clarity about this reporting process. What might be the threshold for reporting non-compliance with an order? Will incidences of non-compliance be included in an annual report and what steps will be taken to ensure transparency in instances of non-compliance with the legislation?
In relation to clause 23, currently, the minister’s disability consultative group and the Premier’s disability advisory council provide an opportunity for feedback to the Premier and ministers. With the introduction of the disability inclusion advisory council, what will happen to these other groups? Will there still be mechanisms or communication channels that will allow information and advice to flow from people with disability to all ministers and not just the Minister for Disability Services?
Clause 23 (3) legislates for the appointment of members to the Disability Inclusion Advisory Council. How will it be ensured that people with all types of disabilities will be included on the advisory council? Also, relating to Part 5, clause 42, Disability Services Regulations, is there a timeline for the review of regulations and the introduction of new regulations?
Part 9 of this bill relates to independent persons, the Greens support and appreciate the purpose of the independent person and their role in assisting a person with disability, to understand restrictive practices and changes to behaviour support plans, with the goal of helping keep people with disabilities safe in these situations. We do have one concern in relation to independent persons. There may be times when an independent person might not be sufficiently independent to provide objective support to a person with disability. It is possible that an appointed independent person and an appointed program officer may not have the best interests of a person with disability in mind. One would hope this is unlikely, but I wonder if this has been considered and how it might be prevented and what processes could be used to address the situation if it occurs.
Turning to funding aspects of this bill, we recognise that the disability sector is currently in a fluid state with ongoing changes and restructuring happening at both the federal and state level. In that broader context, it is important that this legislation is properly funded and supported, and the Greens welcome the inclusion of funding for the disability inclusion commission in the state budget. This is a positive step and the Greens acknowledge the government’s commitment to this, however, we share concerns raised by disability groups about the need to fully fund not just the commissioner’s office itself, but all the support structures that surround it.
Disability groups have expressed to us a need for people appointed to the disability inclusion advisory council to be properly remunerated for their time and expertise, and that has also been referred to already this evening.
Schedule 1, Part 2, clause 4 (1) states that members are entitled to be paid such remuneration and allowances as the minister determines. This was, as the member for Clark mentioned earlier, talked about during the budget Estimates hearing. Is any update available on the process for determining the remuneration and allowances that will be paid to members of the advisory council?
Clause 76 of the bill provides for external review of senior practitioner decisions once an internal review has been completed, with the tribunal being the legislated authority to conduct this review. This raises another funding issue, not directly related to this bill, but connected, because right now there is no funded specialist legal disability service in Tasmania, despite this legislation being likely to increase demand for legal services. The Greens have concerns about the impact of this on the capacity of legal services to meet the increased demand that could arise from this legislation.
We have reached this point because Tasmania’s only specialist disability legal service was forced to stop providing services when their funding ran out in June of this year. The ‘Your Story’ national disability legal support program was set up in 2020 with Commonwealth funding for all legal‑aid services around Australia to support people to access legal assistance for the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability.
When the Royal Commission’s submission period closed in December 2022, Tasmanian Legal Aid’s ‘Your Story’ program was permitted to use the remaining funds to continue providing legal support to people with disability. Now, with the closure of the ‘Your Story’ service, people with disabilities in Tasmania have lost a critical source of specialised legal aid, leaving a significant gap. Without funding for this service, many people will struggle to access legal assistance should they need to seek an external review. The cost to keep this invaluable service is small in the context of a whole state budget, $269,000, but it did not receive funding in the budget. This is despite Tasmania Legal Aid receiving several ministerial and departmental requests to assist people with disability with discrimination matters. The full funding required by Tasmanian Legal Aid to provide legal services to people with disabilities was included in the Greens’ alternative budget.
In order to fully safeguard the rights of people with disabilities, it is important to properly fund legal services that are designed to protect and uphold them, and, committing to the spirit of this bill, could include including funding for Tasmania Legal Aid for a disability service in the budget. This brings me to another important aspect of funding.
Clause 69 (3)(b) legislates that the minister may grant financial assistance to ‘a disability advocacy organisation, disability peak body or disability representative organisation’. We welcome the inclusion of this clause in this bill. Tasmania has a disability advocacy organisation that lost all funding in June this year. Disability Voices Tasmania was established over 10 years ago and during that time they received a federal government grant and just this month they received another federal grant. However, they have not received state funding since the initial pilot funding. I note that during the development of this legislation and right up until the bill was tabled in the other place that Disability Voices Tasmania collaborated with the minister and her office and provided feedback that resulted in a number of amendments.
Despite not receiving state funding prior to their funding running out in June, their services and advice and expertise were accessed for the development of this bill. This is an inconsistency that could be corrected and the Greens urge the Government to also provide state funding to Disability Voices Tasmania, particularly when the powers to do that are provided within this bill.
In conclusion, the Greens support this bill and the protections it enshrines. It is an important step towards ensuring a more inclusive and equitable society for people with disabilities, but it is also a reminder that our work is not done. We must continue to listen to the voices of those directly affected by this legislation and be willing to make adjustments as needed to ensure their safety, dignity, and inclusion in all aspects of life.
