Australia — THE
Federal Government has accepted laws need to be changed
to stamp out disability discrimination but says it must
be done without imposing hardships on companies.
The first major review of the
12-year-old Disability Discrimination Act (DDA)
recommended laws be beefed up to make it a duty for
employers, educators and other service providers to make
reasonable adjustments to cater for disabled people. The
change would enable disabled people to make a formal
complaint of discrimination if, for example, an employer
failed to make a reasonable adjustment.
Attorney-General Philip Ruddock
said the Government accepted most of the Productivity
Commission's recommendations but it did not want to make
the laws unrealistic.
"The Government accepts that it is
necessary to clarify that the DDA does require
organisations to make reasonable adjustments to eliminate
discriminatory barriers," he said.
"However, explicit recognition of
this duty is balanced by expanding the operation of the
unjustifiable hardship defence.
"We must ensure that adjustments
will produce net benefits for the community without
imposing undue hardship on the organisations required to
make them."
Mr Ruddock said the Government had
rejected some recommendations which would not have
improved disability discrimination laws.
