Australians with disabilities experiencing homelessness will be prioritised as the government commits to disability reforms, months after a scathing royal commission into the sector.
The Disability Strategy, which acts as a framework for policy commitments from state and federal governments, will include an additional homelessness priority area, commitment to a new community engagement plan and three fresh action plans.
The updated plan will be unveiled by Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth in Melbourne on Wednesday.
“These (plans) set out the specific steps governments will take to drive change,” Ms Rishworth said.
“For the first time, they also include a number of national actions that all governments will work on together, with the disability community, to ensure people with disability right across Australia experience the benefits.”
The review was led by an advisory council, chaired by Jane Spring, who says the peak bodies and disabled community are looking for better coordination of services.
“The previous strategy, there was a lot of goodwill, but it was lots of different activities from states and territories, and it wasn’t particularly coordinated,” she told AAP.
“They also want service co-design by people with disabilities in design, implementation and governance.”
Ms Spring said three new targeted action plans would include better housing services, a plan for safety, rights and justice of Australians with disabilities and a commitment to better data collection.
“People with disabilities have a lot of intersectional experience, they could be Aboriginal or LGBTQ, but all of those things compound disadvantage,” Ms Spring said.
“So we’re going to work hard on the data and reporting to get visibility because we need to understand the pattern of disadvantage so that we can do better to address it.”
The strategy review was one of 222 recommendations from the landmark disability royal commission.
Ten months after the report was released, the government committed to fully implementing just 13 of the recommendations.
Of the total recommendations, the government has full or joint responsibility for 172 and said 130 were accepted “in principle”.
Peak bodies and community leaders were disappointed in the government’s response to the commission, arguing it needed stronger action.
“People with disability have waited almost a year for the government to release its response and it unfortunately comes without a clear plan for action or road map for implementation,” disability discrimination commissioner Rosemary Kayess said in August.
“Australia needs to reframe how it thinks about disability.”
More than five million Australians live with a disability.
Neve Brissenden
(Australian Associated Press)
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