In the lead up to the 2022 Federal Election, JFA Purple Orange is calling on all political parties and candidates to commit to reforms regarding some of the major issues impacting people with disability.
At the bottom of this page, you will find a summary of each political party’s commitments for the 2025 Federal Election.
Click on the headings below to learn more about our election asks.
Will you commit to directly investing in accessible and affordable social housing that complies with the minimum accessibility standards set out in the updated National Construction Code 2022?
Every person has the right to an adequate standard of living, which includes the right to appropriate housing. (1) Article 19 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities sets out the rights of people living with disability to live independently and to “have the opportunity to choose their place of residence and where and with whom they live on an equal basis with others and are not obliged to live in a particular living arrangement.”
According to the Australian Urban Housing & Research Institute, adults living with disability “experience more housing disadvantage than their non-disabled counterparts, including homelessness, poor-quality housing, and housing unaffordability.”(2) Social housing is an important mechanism through which many people, including people living with disability, find a home. However, research conducted by the Grattan Institute in 2021 found that Australia’s accessible housing stock has barely grown over the last 30 years, and that the current 430,000 dwellings considered accessible housing now represent only 4 percent of all housing in Australia. (3)
The time for providing longer-term and cheaper finance options for community and affordable housing providers to build accessible social housing has proven to be completely ineffective in addressing our accessible and affordable housing crisis. So, too has the Federal Government’s stance that housing policies fall solely to the responsibility of the State. Furthermore, the South Australian Government’s detrimental decision to so far decline to implement minimum mandatory accessible requirements for all new residential builds as outlined in the updated National Construction Code 2022, further exacerbates the issue; severely reducing the availability of suitable housing options for people living with disability, fails to prepare South Australia for the needs of our ageing population and continues to present significant barriers for people living with disability from participating in mainstream community life to the benefit of us all.
JFA Purple Orange acknowledges the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) introduction of Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA) in July 2016, which in theory, was aimed at creating more accessible and affordable living options for people living with disability (giving them choice and control), as well as strengthening the housing sector. However, so far we are yet to see the desired outcomes transpire in South Australia for reasons including (but not limited to) administration burdens on NDIS participants, significant budget approval delays by the NDIA, uncertainty and associated risks from housing providers, and a lack of communication and information sharing between the NDIA, State Government and housing providers. Also, current trends in SDA development create the risk of building a new generation of group homes, a model entirely unsuited to Australia’s ambitions for its disabled citizens, and SDA does not serve the 94% of the disability community who are ineligible for it.
It is time for us to all work together to address the increasing prevalence of inaccessible, unaffordable and neglected housing options for people living with disability and give them back the power to live in housing options of their choice, free from group homes and institutional settings.
In the lead up to the federal election, JFA Purple Orange is calling on all political parties and candidates to commit to:
References
Do you commit to each of the three tenets to strengthen the NDIS: personalised supports, grassroots LACs, and a simple participant pathway?
When the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) started, it was rightfully hailed as a step forward in how Australia supports people living with disability to live active and valued lives in our communities. Although the NDIS has delivered benefits for many people, over time the positive sentiment has begun to erode, and the scheme has become mired in controversy and political contention. There is a lot of discussion about ‘getting the NDIS back on track’, ‘fixing the NDIS’, or ‘returning the NDIS to its origins’ – all vague notions that mean different things to different people.
JFA Purple Orange believes three specific things can help to ensure that the NDIS achieves its promise to genuinely improve the life chances of people living with disability. In the lead up to the federal election, JFA Purple Orange is calling on all political parties and candidates to commit to:
Personalised supports
Recent discussions about the financial sustainability of the NDIS have become detached from the purpose and values of the scheme. Many neglect to acknowledge that the original assumptions underpinning the 2011 Productivity Commission report did not (and perhaps could not) fully account for the significant levels of unfunded and unmet need that existed across Australia at that time, or a cost model based on providing personalised supports rather than the block-funded, shared group services that had traditionally dominated the sector. Yet, individual choice and control are at the centre of the NDIS for very good reasons because this is the approach that presents the greatest prospect of achieving the best outcomes for participants. We are already seeing a shift back to a group consumption model particularly for people with higher support needs on what appears to be an unspoken basis of reducing costs in line with a misinformed sustainability narrative.
JFA Purple Orange believes that the cost model for the NDIS must be based on providing authentic personalised supports. In this context, we question the usefulness of the 2011 financial predictions as an ongoing benchmark against which to continue to compare NDIS costs or future financial sustainability. We urge all parties and candidates in this election to commit to reframing how costs and sustainability are considered to ensure that personalised supports and individual choice remain at the core of the NDIS. Doing so will allow for a more realistic and nuanced cost model to be developed that stays true to the values of the NDIS while guaranteeing the scheme’s future.
Grassroots LACs
Partners in the Community (PITC) are providers that deliver Local Area Coordination (LAC) and Early Childhood Early Intervention (ECEI) services under the NDIS. However, ‘local’ has proved to be something of a misnomer, with the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) undertaking largescale commissioning of relatively few providers and giving each a substantial geographic area or demographic to serve. NDIS participants tell us that their LACs are distant and offer little genuine local knowledge or connections to mainstream services and community supports. The sub-optimal outcomes that result from this model add to costs because they lower engagement with mainstream community supports and increase reliance on NDIS-funded options.
The NDIA has recently released a tender invitation that would lock in this model for another five to seven years. JFA Purple Orange strongly urges whoever forms government after the election to urgently intervene and refocus the PITC approach to one that harnesses the genuine local knowledge and community connections of grassroots organisations in delivering PITC services.
Simple participant pathway
The NDIS participant pathway is too complex and routinely produces inconsistent outcomes leading to costly reviews and appeals. A simple pathway based on a conceptual framework of ‘Indicate – Calibrate – Evaluate’ would improve the participant experience and lower the administrative burden. Via a simple, non-clinical, upfront assessment process that maps the consequences of the disability, a participant would receive an indicative budget considered reasonable and necessary to change those consequences. The participant builds a draft plan that focuses on what’s important for them. An NDIS delegate then works with the participant to calibrate the plan so its components are relevant and reasonable and fit within the Scheme’s parameters, and the plan is then signed off. At the end of the plan’s term, the NDIS delegate and participant evaluate how it went, to look at what worked, how well, and what this means for the participant’s next budget. This data also helps the NDIS evolve, by identifying what types of investment produce the best outcomes for example in terms of mainstream employment, inclusive housing, and authentic membership in community and economy.
We urge all parties and candidates to commit to applying the principle of simplicity to how the NDIA implements the NDIS and actively avoiding unnecessary complexity and duplication while maintaining important participant safeguards.
The NDIS is an essential component of ensuring that Australians living with disability have a fair go at what life has to offer. It must be strengthened and sustained to ensure it delivers on its promise.
Will you commit to reinvigorating the Transport Standards; providing strong national leadership that prioritises accessibility; implementing a comprehensive auditing, reporting, and accountability framework; and investing in projects that address non-compliance?
Accessible transport is essential for people living with disability to attend essential appointments, work, education, and other ordinary activities of daily life. Without suitable transport options, people are cut off from vital services, such as healthcare, and become increasingly isolated from their communities. Yet Australian governments are failing to deliver on the roadmap for making public transport services fully accessible, as was promised in 2002.
The Disability Standards for Accessible Public Transport 2002 are formulated under the federal Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and aim to eliminate discrimination and segregation on the grounds of disability from transport services. The Transport Standards cover conveyances (for example, the buses and trains), equipment (for example, boarding ramps), infrastructure (that is, the structures that are required to enable travel, such as station platforms), and premises (that is, the buildings, and facilities associated with travel, like public toilets), as well as the operators and providers of transport services including governments.
When the Transport Standards were introduced in 2002, they were supposed to ensure that all public transport networks and associated infrastructure, except for the trains and trams, would be fully accessible by the end of 2022 (train and tram conveyances have until 2032 to comply). JFA Purple Orange believes that the 20-year transition timeline was reasonable and deliverable, but with only a few months to go until the end of 2022, it is clear that many of the promised outcomes will not be achieved on time. While some welcome progress has been made, we share the disability community’s disappointment at the failure of governments to deliver all that was promised.
People living with disability regularly share with us the widespread barriers they still experience in accessing transport. The most recent Australian Infrastructure Audit conducted in 2019 by Infrastructure Australia concluded: “Despite inconsistent data, available information shows it is unlikely that services and infrastructure in most jurisdictions will be fully compliant with legislated requirements within the mandated timeframe … Progress against the Standards is possibly even worse than the data suggest” (p.320). There is little doubt that the situation in many rural, regional, and remote locations is considerably worse than the metro-orientated data indicates.
The Transport Standards require that they be reviewed every five years, but the current version has been in place since 1 May 2011 and only reflects matters raised by the first review that commenced in 2007. All the reviews undertaken so far have lagged behind the timeline set under Part 34 of the Transport Standards. The third review covers the five years to December 2017 but was only completed in November 2021. A project to modernise the Transport Standards has been underway since 2019 (an earlier project that started in 2015 was aborted). Unfortunately, the lax approach to the reviews and keeping the Transport Standards up to date has been indicative of inaction on implementation and compliance shown by successive governments over many years.
Transport accessibility is the responsibility of all three levels of government, but the Transport Standards are a Commonwealth instrument that requires strong federal leadership. In the lead up to the federal election, JFA Purple Orange is calling on all political parties and candidates to commit to reinvigorating the Transport Standards and finally delivering on the 2002 promise of fully accessible public transport in Australia, including by:
The lack of accessible transport options is a major barrier to inclusion; participation in social, cultural, and economic life; and personal independence for Australians living with disability, as well as for our aging population, parents with prams, and many others. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities states that people living with disability should have access to transport services “on an equal basis with others”. Governments in Australia are failing to meet this obligation and need to take urgent action to get the Transport Standards back on track.
Do you commit to updating the Disability Support Pension (DSP) arrangements to eliminate barriers, disincentives, and penalties for people to earn more income from employment?
Australia’s Disability Strategy 2021-2031 launched late last year highlights the importance of employment, career opportunities, and financial security to improving the life chances of people living with disability. Yet current arrangements for the Disability Support Pension (DSP) create barriers to this outcome by disincentivising a person from taking up these opportunities and penalising them if they work too much.
JFA Purple Orange welcomes the stronger focus on Employment and Financial Security as a priority area in the new Strategy. Under ‘Policy Priority 3: Strengthen Financial Independence of People with Disability’, federal and state governments committed to avoiding barriers and disincentives that discourage people living with disability from gaining employment and increasing the number of hours they work. We believe that acting on this commitment in relation to DSP arrangements is straight-forward, can be implemented immediately, and will make a difference to employment outcomes while having a minimal impact on the budget. We call on all parties and candidates in the federal election to commit to taking this action as a priority when parliament reconvenes.
Currently, a single person can earn up to $180 per fortnight of work income without affecting their DSP payment, while the threshold for couples is $320. Once these income levels are reached, the DSP payment reduces by 50 cents for each dollar earnt. According to the Department of Social Services Annual Report for 2018-19 (last full year before pandemic), 7.8 per cent of people on DSP reported employment income during that financial year. That percentage had declined slightly in the preceding years and fell significantly with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. As we emerge from the height of the pandemic and the employment market tightens, there is an opportunity to encourage people on the DSP to take advantage of suitable work opportunities that become available to them by removing disincentives.
The recent report of the Senate Community Affairs Committee’s ‘Inquiry into the Purpose, Intent and Adequacy of the DSP’ underscores the importance of removing the barriers, disincentives, and penalties within the current DSP arrangements. The Committee concluded that employment supports independence, enhances quality of life, improves mental health outcomes, and protects against various forms of vulnerability. People living with disability already face alarming levels of workforce discrimination and are often in precarious employment arrangements; yet these challenges can be exacerbated by additional unnecessary barriers created by DSP arrangements. Both the Committee and the Disability Royal Commission have recently noted that the employment rates for people living with disability in Australia have historically lagged behind other OECD countries.
Further, undertaking a Program of Support (POS) is an eligibility requirement to access the DSP for some people living with disability depending on the result of their assessment against the Impairment Tables. The POS is supposed to assist a person to prepare for, find, and keep employment, thereby diverting them from a potential lifetime of reliance on the DSP. But, in evidence to the Senate Inquiry, the Department acknowledged that the POS has not been evaluated to determine its effectiveness in achieving genuine employment outcomes since its implementation in 2011. Anecdotal evidence suggests that participants gain little benefit from completing a POS and it may act as a barrier to undertaking more worthwhile employment capacity building activities.
In summary, JFA Purple Orange is calling on all political parties and candidates to commit to urgently updating DSP arrangements, including by:
Removing barriers, disincentivises, and penalties for people on the DSP who undertake employment by:
The DSP provides vital financial support to people living with disability who are unable to work. But it should not create barriers, disincentives, and penalties for those people living with disability who can and want to undertake some suitable work or to transition off the DSP into appropriate authentic mainstream waged employment.
Will you commit to investing in the co-design and implementation of a targeted, properly resourced, five-year Action Plan to address the prevalence of violence against women and girls living with disability?
Women and girls living with disability experience higher rates of sexual, physical and emotional abuse than women living without disability. They experience the same violence as those without disability as well as disability-related violence (such as violence from a care giver, violence from within a residential or institutional setting, or restrictive practice). Despite this, current support services are unequipped to provide the assistance so desperately needed. This must change.
Recent studies continue to find consistently higher rates of violence among women and girls with disability. (1) Those with intellectual disability or high care needs are even more likely to experience harm. (2)
However, historically the prevalence of violence against women and girls living with disability has been undocumented, unrecognised, and therefore unaddressed. The failure to document and record data, and therefore lack of statistical analysis, has resulted in policy makers and consecutive Federal Governments failing to produce targeted and effective policy responses. It is time we gave the voice back to women and girls living with disability and include them in the planning, decision-making, and design of services, to prevent violence against women and girls living with disability.
JFA Purple Orange hears too often that mainstream services are not equipped to assist women and girls living with disability who are experiencing violence and as a result are often ‘passed around’ various services as result of not ‘fitting’ nicely within the guidelines of one particular service (ie. the NDIS, homelessness services, domestic violence services, sexual assault services, the justice system etc.), until they eventually fall out of the system. (3)
Briefly, some of the barriers preventing women and girls living with disability from accessing appropriate services include (but are certainly not limited to):
JFA Purple Orange acknowledges the commitment from all levels of government to the National Disability Insurance Scheme Quality and Safeguard Commission. This work is vital to ensure the quality and safety of NDIS participants. However, it is not a response to violence against women and girls living with disability, and under no circumstance can be the only policy response taken by the government.
The recent Federal Government (2022-23 Budget) commitment of $1.3 billion (over six years) to improve outcomes for women and girls’ safety is most welcome (although none has been specifically dedicated to women and girls living with disability). We also acknowledge the draft ten-year National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-2032 (developed by the Department of Social Services) and the subsequent development of five-year action plans that will detail Federal and State governments priority focus areas for implementation. Of particular significance is the announcement of a targeted five year Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Action Plan. However, JFA Purple Orange strongly advocates for the same commitment be afforded to women and girls living with disability through a genuine co-design process.
Without this, the 2021-22 Federal Government Budget commitment of $9.3 million (over three years) to “develop resources that aim to reduce violence against women and girls with disability and improve service responses when violence occurs” is completely inadequate in addressing the systemic and cultural issues that have allowed audism, ableism and gender inequality to exist in our society.
We can only change this if we are led and guided by those who are living and breathing these barriers every single day; those who have experienced violence at the hands of someone else and know all too well how current policy decisions are failing women and girls living with disability.
In the lead up to the federal election, JFA Purple Orange is calling on all political parties and candidates to commit to:
References
(1) Our Watch, & Women with Disabilities Victoria. (2022). Changing the landscape: A national resource to prevent violence against women and girls with disabilities. Melbourne, Australia: Our Watch.
(2) Krnjacki, L., Emerson, E., Llewellyn, G. and Kavanagh, M. (2016), “Prevalence and risk of violence against people with and without disabilities: findings from an Australian-based study”, Australia New Zealand Journal of Public Health, Vol. 40 No. 1, pp. 16-21, doi: 10.1111/1753-6405.12498.
Dowse, L., Soldatic, K., Spangaro, J. and van Toom, G. (2016), “Mind the gap: the extent of violence against women with disabilities in Australia”, Australian Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 51 No. 3, pp. 341-59, 383-85
(3) Fraser-Barbour, E. Crocker, R. Walker, R. (2018) “Barriers and facilitators in supporting people with intellectual disability to report sexual violence: perspectives of Australian and mainstream support providers”, The Journal of Adult Protection, Vol20. No. 1 pp5-16
Do you commit to setting national targets and funding regular robust measurement of employment outcomes for Australians living with disability, reforming the Disability Employment Service (DES) in a way that will genuinely support people living with disability into meaningful sustainable mainstream employment, cancelling the Supported Employment Services Award within five years and transitioning Australian Disability Enterprises (ADEs) out of the ’sheltered workshop’ approach, and investing in the promotion of the Employment Assistance Fund (EAF) to employers?
Australia’s unemployment rate sits at four per cent, the equal lowest since 1974. It is a welcome overall result for the nation, but one that hides a very different story for people living with disability who still experience significantly higher rates of unemployment and underemployment, as well as unacceptable barriers and discrimination in the labour market.
Disability is not considered within the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) monthly Labour Force Survey that underpins the official unemployment rate. Instead, we must rely on data from the Survey of Disability, Ageing, and Carers (SDAC) conducted every few years. The most recent data is from 2018 and indicates that 47.8 per cent of people living with disability of working age living in households (not closed systems etc) were employed compared to 80.3 per cent of non-disabled people.
The unemployment rate among people living with disability who were regarded as part of the labour force (either employed or available to work) was 10.3 per cent in 2018 compared to 4.6 per cent for non-disabled people at that time. However, it is likely that the size of the labour force continues to be understated given the enduring tendency to assign deficits and low expectations to people living with disability rather than focusing on their skills, strengths, and capacity.
For those who were employed, the 2018 data also shows that people living with disability experience high levels of unfair treatment and discrimination at work, with 45.2 per cent reporting being targeted by an employer and 42 per cent by their work colleagues. The median gross personal income of a person living with disability was $505 per week in 2018, less than half that of a non-disabled person at $1016 per week at that time.
A recent hearing of the Disability Royal Commission highlighted the experiences of people living with disability working in Australian Disability Enterprises (ADEs), which are currently allowed to operate outside the mainstream employment standards and protections. The Royal Commission heard that 17,232 people worked for an ADE during the 2020-21 financial year and that the Supported Employment Services Award permits an hourly rate of pay as low as $2.54 per hour for these workers. This type of segregated and exploitative employment very rarely provides a pathway to mainstream employment and traps workers in welfare dependency and poverty for life.
Additionally, Disability Employment Services (DES) are achieving poor outcomes for people living with disability seeking employment. DES currently cost the Commonwealth more than $1.4 billion a year with about 310,000 participants accessing services each month. However, a review of DES by Boston Consulting Group in August 2020 found that between July 2014 and March 2020 the number of unique participants was about 560,000, meaning the monthly participation rate reflects high rates of re-entry. About a third of participants in March 2020 had exited and re-entered DES at least once, with 52 per cent of re-entries occurring less than three months after exit.
In 2020, Boston Consulting Group also suggested that the average government expenditure per 26-week employment outcome achieved was about $38,400, although if a generous estimate of outcomes actually attributable to DES providers of 75 per cent were applied, then the average expenditure would increase to about $51,200 per 26-week placement. According to the Department of Social Service’s Annual Report for 2020-21, only 36 per cent of placements were sustained for 26 weeks while just 21 per cent reached 52 weeks. By these and many other measures, the quantity and quality of DES outcomes are not commensurate with the outlay of funding.
Although the Department has begun consultations about reforming the DES when the current model ends next year, the situation described above has continued for many years. This is despite employment being a key priority area under the National Disability Strategy since 2010. The new Australia’s Disability Strategy 2021-2031 again commits governments to improving employment outcomes and we hope that the accompanying Employment Targeted Action Plan will be strengthened to ensure that it delivers results, including by establishing greater accountability through more measurable targets. JFA Purple Orange is calling on all political parties and candidates in the federal election to set out clear policies that will turn the words and sentiments in these documents into meaningful actions and results.
We believe that national targets and regular data measurement are essential components of any plan that will be capable of driving genuine change and ensuring that there is accountability for results. Currently, there are some targets in some jurisdictions, but the approach is too ad hoc, and the ABS collects data too infrequently. Concerningly, the Outcomes Framework for the new Strategy states that employment outcomes will be measured according to the SDAC despite the most recent data being from 2018, as mentioned above. The ABS website indicates that the timing of the next data release is “unknown” (as of mid-April 2022). This approach is inadequate to monitor progress or deliver genuine change.
Addressing employment inequalities and discrimination for people living with disability deserves the same attention as that given to the gender pay gap, which is also a long-standing and unacceptable feature of Australia’s employment landscape. The Workplace Gender Equality Agency established in 2012 works to promote and improve workplace gender equality including by producing a national Scorecard every year and requiring non-public sector employers with 100 or more employees to submit an annual report.
Given the synergies between the Agency’s current role and what is required to drive employment outcomes for people living with disability, we believe that the Agency is best placed to expand its responsibilities as a renamed Workplace Equality Agency that is appropriately funded to achieve results more broadly. Indeed, many people experience more than one form of employment inequality or discrimination. Increasing diversity in all its forms will deliver significant benefits for workplaces and for our national economic prosperity.
The Agency currently receives about $7 million in funding per year and is the responsibility of the Minister for Women. We argue that the Agency’s funding should be significantly increased in line with expanding its scope of work and that it should sit within the portfolio responsibilities of the Department of Employment, Skills, and Education, as a mainstream policy focus rather than being treated as a special interest area only relevant to a portion of the Australian population per the current arrangement. The Agency should be responsible for investing in programs that support employers to build capacity, confidence, and awareness in employing people living with disability, which has been one of the major barriers to improving employment outcomes.
It should also be responsible for reinvigorating the Employment Assistance Fund (EAF) that provides financial help for work-related supports, modifications, and equipment. Many employers are currently unaware that they can access this support therefore the Agency could play a central role in promoting and building awareness of what is available. Additionally, the cap that applies to supports such as Auslan and captioning services needs to be reviewed to ensure that it provides a reasonable level of access for a full-time worker. This could form part of a larger review aimed at ensuring that the EAF is fit-for-purpose and keeping pace with changing work needs and the development of new technologies.
In summary, JFA Purple Orange is calling on all political parties and candidates in this election to commit to: