4. Discrimination law reform Text Box 1: Recommendations for reform of the Disability Discrimination Act by the Disability Royal Commission (2023) The Disability Royal Commission released its Final Report in September 2023. Volume 4 of the report extensively considered reform options to fully protect the rights of people with disability. This included consideration of the effectiveness of the protections in the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth) (Disability Discrimination Act). The Disability Royal Commission concluded that the Disability Discrimination Act is not meeting its purpose and that it ‘needs to be refreshed and reformed to more effectively promote equality and greater inclusion of people with disability’.6 The Disability Royal Commission summarised its concerns with the operation of the Disability Discrimination Act as follows: • The Disability Discrimination Act needs to be simple, clear and effective. The definitions of ‘direct discrimination’ and ‘indirect discrimination’ need to be simplified. • The Disability Discrimination Act needs to better protect and enhance the rights of people to live free from harassment and vilification. • The Disability Discrimination Act can do more to promote substantive equality with the introduction of a positive duty to eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation and a standalone duty to make adjustments for a person with disability. • Some defences and exemptions to the Disability Discrimination Act should be repealed or revised to align with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. • The mechanisms for enforcing rights under the Disability Discrimination Act need to be clear and more person-centred.7 It made recommendations to address these issues. There are 2 notable features to the recommendations made by the Disability Royal Commission: • They were made with explicit consideration of the Commission’s proposed reforms set out in this Free & Equal project, as set out in the Position Paper on federal discrimination law reform. That there is a high level of similarity between the Commission’s proposals for reform and those of the Disability Royal Commission is intentional by the Royal Commissioners. • The Disability Royal Commission’s recommendations were also made with full consideration of the recent amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act, which introduced the positive duty to prevent sexual harassment and related matters. The extensive consideration of how such a duty should also be implemented in the Disability Discrimination Act provides compelling reasons for why a positive duty should exist more broadly in the federal discrimination law model. Due to the crossover between the recommended actions by the Disability Royal Commission and the Commission’s recommended reforms across all federal discrimination laws, the Royal Commission’s recommendations are cross-referenced in the Commission’s proposed roadmap in section 4.3. FREE & EQUAL: Revitalising Australia’s Commitment to Human Rights 75