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Royal commission into disability care sector still needed
The recent announcement to establish a Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety was necessary step, but the federal government must also launch a “long overdue” royal commission into abuse, violence and neglect in the disability care sector, according to a national legal advocacy group.
Jerome Doraisamy
Australian Lawyers for Human Rights president Kerry Weste said: “We congratulate the Prime Minister on his government’s initiative in announcing a Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety.”
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“This is an important first step towards addressing the very serious and disturbing issues that have recently come to light within the aged care sector,” she said.
The new inquiry will be looking primarily at the quality of care provided in residential and home-based aged care to senior Australians, but it is has also proposed to include young Australians with disabilities living in residential aged care settings.
“We are heartened to hear that this group is not being forgotten in the proposed royal commission but, unfortunately, it appears the treatment of all other people living with disability in taxpayer-funded group homes and disability accommodation is,” Ms Weste noted.
The government’s policy thus far has been to oppose calls for an expansion of the scope of the inquiry to encompass all people living with disabilities in residential or institutional care, she mused, on the basis that the establishment of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Quality and Safeguards Commission is sufficient to handle such matters.
ALHR is thus urging the Morrison government to establish, “as a matter of urgency”, a second new royal commission, examining the disability sector as a separate initiative.
“While ALHR supports the establishment of the NDIS Commission, we do not consider that it duplicates the role of, or in any way displaces, the urgent and long overdue need for, a royal commission in this sector.”
A Senate inquiry in November 2015 recommended such a royal commission “into the systemic abuse, violence and neglect” of people with disabilities in Australia; however, the Coalition governments in that time have “failed to respond”, Ms Weste said.
Now is the time for them to take responsibility for abuses occurring on its watch, she posited.
“Children with disabilities are three times more likely to experience abuse than children without disability. A Senate report has made it clear that there are ongoing systemic failures by government and service providers to notify families and report matters of violence and abuse to police,” Ms Weste explained.
“People living with disability have a right to feel safe and secure in their home environment and to be free from abuse, exploitation and violence. It’s clear that in many cases, this is simply not happening and their human rights are being violated repeatedly in the care and justice systems.”
