The commission will hand its final report to the governor-general on September 28 and is expected to make recommendations across a swathe of areas including health services,education,employment pathways,criminal justice and the child protection system.
Counsel assisting the commission,Kate Eastman,said it had also been necessary to make some adverse findings.
Commissioner Barbara Bennett highlighted particular concern for Australians living in disability group homes.Credit:Rhett Wyman
Commissioner Barbara Bennett on Friday foreshadowed strong concern about the group home system that determines how many people with more severe disabilities live,noting the NDIS safety commission had detected thousands of incidents of serious injury as well as unlawful sexual conduct and death.
“[We’ve heard] group homes are in fact still mini institutions and fail on many accounts to deliver the quality of life that was expected,” she said.
“We were told some group homes develop punitive cultures towards residents. A witness described a punishment chart which recorded when her daughter had not behaved according to the rules. If her daughter didn’t behave in the morning,the staff on shift would apply a consequence.”
Another witness described having no choice over when to sleep,what to eat,nor when she could go out. “And if they didn’t do what they were told,they were locked up. She said it was like a prison. I believe we can do so much better than this.”
‘They seem to be everywhere ... Royal commissions are as Australian as bushrangers,meat pies and the Matildas.’
Disability Royal Commissioner Ronald Sackville KC
The education system will also be scrutinised over its inability to accommodate students with a disability. “A recurring theme... was the failure of the mainstream education system to include disabled children in their schools,” said commissioner Alastair McEwin.
“I lost count of the many practical and easy solutions these families tried to implement with their local school,and the structural and attitudinal barriers they continued to face.
“I saw and felt the pain of these children and their families who have tried so hard to be included in the mainstream system,only to be dismissed and excluded by that system that did not welcome them.”
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Sackville said Australians might feel as though they were living in an age of royal commissions. “They seem to be everywhere... Royal commissions are as Australian as bushrangers,meat pies and the Matildas.”
But he said the disability royal commission had been unique for its sheer length,broad remit,inclusive arrangements and hundreds of private hearings,let alone its contention with years of COVID disruptions.
“The time has come to wind up this royal commission... Every paper clip[will be] returned to its rightful place. And then the lights will be switched off. The final report will remain,and will provide a blueprint for long overdue reforms.”
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