Anti Discrimination Laws in Australia

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Anti-discrimination laws in Australia

If you’re a person with disability and you’re treated unfairly because of your disability, this is discrimination.
The Australian Disability Discrimination Act protects people with disability from discrimination. The states and territories also have anti-discrimination laws.

If you or your child with disability has experienced discrimination, you can complain to the Australian Human Rights Commission or the relevant state or territory authority.

On this page:
What is discrimination?
What is disability?
Australian Government law: Disability Discrimination Act 1992
State and territory anti-discrimination laws
Which anti-discrimination law to use
Making a complaint about discrimination

What is discrimination?
Discrimination is when you’re treated unfairly or less fairly because you’re a person with disability. It’s also when you’re treated unfairly or less fairly because you’re a relative, friend, carer or coworker of a person with disability. Discrimination might also happen because of something else about you – for example, your sex, religion or race.

There are two types of discrimination.

Direct discrimination is when someone treats a person with disability unfairly or less fairly because of their disability. An example might be someone telling you that your child can’t take part in a playgroup because his appearance would upset the other parents and children.

Indirect discrimination is when a person with disability is prevented from doing something a person without that disability can do. In this case, no-one sets out to be deliberately unfair, but the end result is unfair. An example might be your child not being able to use the local swimming pool because it has no ramp for wheelchairs.

Lawful and unlawful discrimination
People with disability can’t be discriminated against in:

education
access to goods, services and facilities
access to public places
accommodation
clubs and associations
sport
employment and work.
Sometimes discrimination might be lawful, in circumstances like:

court orders
insurance and superannuation
visa applications and other migration matters
public health
charities
pensions.
People or organisations accused of discrimination against someone might argue that if they hadn’t discriminated, it would have caused ‘unjustifiable hardship’. This means it would have been unreasonably difficult for them to make the adjustments necessary to accommodate a person’s disability.

What is disability?
The Australian Disability Discrimination Act 1992 defines disability very broadly. It includes a very long list of possible conditions, including those that a person has now, has had in the past, might have in the future, or is believed to have. It also includes some conditions that you might not think of as disability.

Under the Act, disability includes:

intellectual disability
physical disability
mental illness
diseases or illnesses
acquired brain injury
developmental disability
learning disability
physical disfigurement.
Australian Government law: Disability Discrimination Act 1992
The Australian Disability Discrimination Act 1992 is an Australia-wide law that says that people can’t be treated unfairly because they have past, existing or future disability. The Act defines disability, as well as lawful and unlawful discrimination.

The Australian Human Rights Commission administers the Act and decides what to do if there’s a complaint about disability discrimination covered by Australian Government law.

Further information about disability discrimination at the Australian Government level

Australian Human Rights Commission – About disability rights
Australian Human Rights Commission – A brief guide to the Disability Discrimination Act
Australian Human Rights Commission – Know your rights: Disability discrimination
State and territory anti-discrimination laws
The Australian states and territories have anti-discrimination laws and bodies that deal with complaints about discrimination.

Australian Capital Territory: ACT Discrimination Act 1991
For information or help, contact the ACT Human Rights Commission:

Phone: [phone]
SMS: 0466 169 997
TTY: [phone]
Email: [e-mail]
You can also contact the ACT Children and Young People Commissioner by emailing [e-mail] or phoning [phone].

New South Wales: NSW Anti-Discrimination Act 1977
For information or help, contact the Anti-Discrimination Board of NSW:

Phone: [phone] or 1800 670 812
Email enquiries: [e-mail]
Email complaints: [e-mail]
Northern Territory: Northern Territory of Australia Anti-Discrimination Act 2014
For information or help, contact the Northern Territory Anti-Discrimination Commission:

Phone: [phone] or 1800 813 846
Fax: [phone]
Email: [e-mail]
Queensland: Queensland Anti-Discrimination Act 1991
For information or help, contact the Anti-Discrimination Commission Queensland:

Phone: [phone]
Email: [e-mail]
South Australia: South Australian Equal Opportunity Act 1984
For information or help, contact the South Australian Equal Opportunity Commission:

Phone: [phone] or 1800 188 163
Fax: [phone]
TTY: [phone]
Email: [e-mail]
Tasmania: Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Act 1998
For information or help, contact Equal Opportunity Tasmania:

Phone: [phone] or 1300 305 062
SMS: 0409 401 083
Translating and Interpreting Service: 131 450
Email: [e-mail]
Victoria: Victorian Equal Opportunity Act 2010
For information or help, contact the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission:

Phone: [phone]
TTY: 1300 289 621
Email: [e-mail]
Western Australia: Western Australian Equal Opportunity Act 1984
For information or help, contact the WA Equal Opportunity Commission:

Phone: [phone] or 1800 198 149
Fax: [phone]
TTY: [phone]
Email: [e-mail]
Which anti-discrimination law to use
You can’t have your disability discrimination complaint heard at the same time under both the Australian Disability Discrimination Act and an equivalent state or territory law. All the Acts have advantages and disadvantages, and the best one for you to use depends on your case.

Some of the things to think about are:

whether your complaint is covered by the Australian Act or a state or territory act
what outcomes you want – for example, if you want financial compensation, you might choose to use the Australian Act because the courts that administer this Act have no maximum limit on the amount of compensation they can give
how much it might cost you to make complaints under different acts
whether there are exemptions that apply under one act but not another.
The Human Rights Commission, the relevant state or territory authority or a community legal centre can look at your circumstances and help you decide which law to use.

Making a complaint about discrimination
If you’re thinking about making a complaint about disability discrimination, you should think about things like:

what you want to get out of the complaint process
how much making a complaint will cost you
whether you’ll need an advocate or a lawyer to help you make the complaint.
Here’s some information that can help you get started on a complaint about disability discrimination.

Who can make a complaint about discrimination?
Under the Australian Disability Discrimination Act and corresponding state or territory laws, you can complain of disability discrimination if you:

are a person with disability and believe you’ve been unlawfully discriminated against because of it
are a parent, spouse/partner, friend or carer of someone with disability and believe that you’ve been discriminated against
are acting on behalf of a person with disability (or that person’s partner, friend or carer) who is experiencing unlawful disability discrimination. This covers parents acting on behalf of their children with disability.
How do you make a complaint about discrimination?
You must make a complaint in writing and send it to either the Human Rights Commission or the relevant state or territory agency. The Commission and the state and territory agencies all have standard online complaint forms that might help, but you don’t need to use those forms if you don’t want to.

When you make a complaint, make sure you include the following details:

contact details for all parties involved
a report of what happened and who was involved
an explanation of what you would like to happen.
Be sure to keep a copy of your complaint.

Time limits on complaints
You have to make a complaint within 12 months of the discrimination happening unless you have a very good reason for the time to be extended.

How are complaints assessed?
When the Human Rights Commission gets a written complaint, it works out whether the circumstances of the complaint are covered by the law. If it believes they’re not, or that they fall under some other area of the law, the Commission lets you know that it can’t accept the complaint.

When the Commission accepts a complaint, it investigates it and tries to resolve it through conciliation. Conciliation is when you and the person or organisation you’ve made the complaint about meet to talk about the complaint and try to agree on how best to sort out the issue.

If this doesn’t work, you can take your complaint to the Federal Court of Australia or the Federal Circuit Court.

If you’re making a complaint under the Australian Disability Discrimination Act you can send it by mail, fax or via the Human Rights Commission’s complaints page. The Commission’s complaint-handling process is free.

Warning: This website and the information it contains is not intended as a substitute for professional consultation with a qualified practitioner.

raisingchildren.net.au/disability/disability-rights-the-law/law/anti-discrimination-laws

[nomadic]

I have complained to them a number of times and the results were zero every time. Mine was against politicians and the media and they will not touch them. They are above the laws for certain in this regard. Would not even consider it. Toothless tiger unless it's against private individuals. GROWL!

[tallgirl]

What I have learned the hard way is that there's zero practical/everyday enforcement of disability laws in Australia. Basically, there is no enforceable oversight over disability matters.

Ombudsmen's offices can't enforce diability complaints, and neither can the state or federal human rights comissions.

The human rights comissions and ombudsmen's offices can make "recommendations" but the agencies/services discriminating don't have to follow those recommendations. Also, with both types of agencies these are treated as complaints that have to be 'proven'. The burden of proof shifts to you as a disabled person: you effectively have to 'prove' you've been discriminated against and disadvantaged in order to have the complaint taken seriously, instead of the agency/service having to 'prove' that it would be an unjustifable harship to provide the accomodation. The DDA says the burden on the agency/service to explain why they can't provide the accomodation.

When dealing with the various ombudsmen's offices, it's a coinflip whether the ombudsman assigned will understand your disability enough to make a fair recommendation.

When dealing with the human rights commissions all they can do is set up mediation. So a disability accomodation becomes something you have to trade for.

The only enforcement is sueing through the federal courts. They are the only ones who can decide if discrimiation occured.

There are no fines or legal penalties for agencies that discriminate before getting to the stage of a lawsuit. There are no legal costs to the agencies unless the complaint goes to court.

[tasjo]

Taking a matter through Federal Court is difficult but (having done so personally and self represented), I found it less difficult than I expected.

However, as with Centrelink, what was missing for me at the beginning was anyone providing free/low cost assistance on whether it would be best to go via Fairwork or Anti Discrimination. Given one can exclude the other, it would be good to be provided this info before deciding what to do.