Seventh Progress Report

Seventh Progress Report

Background

The Disability Royal Commission has published its seventh progress report. It covers our activities from 1 July to 31 December 2022.

Public hearings

In this period we held seven public hearings. The hearings looked at:

• how the NDIS operated for First Nations people with disability in remote communities

• homelessness

• conditions in prisons

• violence and abuse of people with disability in public places

• the experience of culturally and linguistically diverse communities

• guardianship and supported decision-making

• a vision for an inclusive Australia.

Publications

In this period, we published:

• a summary report of two policy roundtables that we held on supported decision-making and guardianship

• two research reports, including one on violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation of LGBTQA+ people with disability

• a summary report of responses to the impact of the Omicron wave of the COVID-19 pandemic on people with disability.

Community engagement

Key engagements focused on the experiences of people with disability who participated in accessible sport, and the impacts of domestic air travel systems.

We also worked with advocates to capture the experiences of people in group homes across the country.

And we partnered with filmmakers who shared their experience of disability and hopes for the future.

Submissions and private sessions

In this period we received 3,104 submissions about people’s experiences of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation. This was more than double the number of submissions we received in the previous six months.

Between July and December 2022 we held 441 private sessions.

Some of the themes raised in submissions and private sessions included:

• abuse and neglect of children with disability at school, challenges in accessing appropriate education and the lack of support available to children and parents

• negative experiences of employment. These included discriminatory hiring practices, bullying and exclusion, failure to provide reasonable adjustments and financial exploitation of employees with disability.

• Deaf children being deprived language, which continues to cause developmental neglect. During this reporting period, the Royal Commission received our highest number of submissions in Auslan.

Many people provided recommendations in their submissions. These included:

• greater disability-specific training for workers across all services

• more access to legal and advocacy services

• community education to improve awareness of the rights and experiences of people with disability.

Our impact

The Royal Commission has already brought about changes that will improve the lives of people with disability. Further progress has been made during this period including:

• On 21 August 2022, the Australian Government announced that 52 Disability Employment Service (DES) providers would no longer provide some services, and eight of these providers would have all their services discontinued due to poor performance. The Government reviewed the DES program following evidence provided to this Royal Commission.

• On 18 October 2022 the Australian Government announced a review into the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). The NDIS Review will examine the design, operation and sustainability of the scheme. It will investigate ways to make the scheme more responsive, supportive and sustainable. The NDIS Review will consider the findings of the Royal Commission in this review.

More information

The full seventh progress report is available on our website.

It contains more details about our activities, as well as some personal stories people have shared with us.

www.disability.royalcommission.gov.au