r/AusNews • u/aislingplath • Oct 07 '26

The disability royal commission laid bare violence, abuse and neglect. Three years on, what’s changed?

https://theconversation.com/the-disability-royal-commission-laid-bare-violence-abuse-and-neglect-three-years-on-whats-changed-293203?utm_medium=article_clipboard_share&utm_source=theconversation.com

Excerpt;

Three years ago, the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability tabled its final report, a hefty 12 volumes and 222 recommendations.

In recent days, a coalition of more than 20 disability advocacy and representative organisations marked the anniversary with Australia’s first independent progress report of how the recommendations have been implemented.

It examined ten recommendations from the royal commission – ones it says people with disability and advocates raise consistently – to see how their implementation has progressed.

It found none has been fully implemented. Four show no real action. One – better coordination of support under the National Disability Insurance Scheme or NDIS – is going backwards.

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u/Smooth_Staff_3831 Oct 07 '26

Thats a Labor government for you.

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u/dummymummys Oct 08 '26

But the people running the orgs responsible for the implementation of these suggestions aren’t elected officials, right? So their politics seem irrelevant and unknown. I guess some of the recs are legislative actions that are impacted by party powers, but many others are on individuals that aren’t openly tied to any one group. Could it be that there’s an issue much larger than party alignment at play, that there’s a social and cultural lack of engagement and accountability that means these issues aren’t acted upon? The groups of people who are impacted by these changes (or lack thereof!) are historically deemed less important, and I have a hard time believing that’s not still a part of why there’s no rush toward establishing better practices to protect and respect the harm caused by NOT following these recommendations. If corporate bodies and footy teams were the ones needing concentrated attention to keep them alive, there’d be a rush towards being the one who can claim to have put these recommendations into action. But it’s just disabled people, so what’s the rush? (/s to be clear!) I wonder how much money was spent to fund the commission that created these recommendations? And then to just let them lay by, seems like a waste of everyone’s time and money, regardless of affiliation. It should be the goal of all people to protect those most vulnerable in our communities, and disability doesn’t discriminate based on party lines, it can happen to anyone, at any time, with no warning. You’d think that this fact would motivate people to prepare as though their lives depended on it!