Skip To Content
Victorian Government Website (Victoria, the Place to Be)
Department of Human Services, Victoria, Australia
Disability Services
Site Map |

Priority 3

Information on this page:

The Victorian Government is committed to promoting and protecting the rights of all Victorians, including people with a disability. Promoting and protecting people’s rights is about ensuring that support providers, and the Victorian community as a whole, respect, promote and safeguard the rights of people with a disability.

This includes people’s rights as they are written down in law. It also includes people’s rights to:

  • Be respected and valued for who they are
  • Have the same opportunities as all other members of the community
  • Have the same responsibilities as all other citizens of Victoria;
  • Exercise choice and have control over their lives
  • Have equal access to a range of services to support quality of life. End of peoples rights list

Promoting people’s rights means making sure that people with a disability have the same opportunities as all other Victorians to participate in the life of the community. The Victorian Government has already established the Disability Advisory Council of Victoria to help do this. The Disability Advisory Council of Victoria will continue to consult with people with a disability, their parents, families and carers and provide reports to Government about the issues that people face.

Strengthening advocacy

As part of its commitment to promoting and protecting people's rights, the Government will build a stronger, more accessible and more proactive advocacy sector. The Government will encourage self-advocacy programs, to assist people with a disability to be more independent and have maximum control over their own lives.

The Government will also continue to support and strengthen advocacy services in local communities across Victoria, for those people with a disability who need the support of advocacy organisations to help protect their rights.

The Government recognises that local advocacy organisations may also need support to provide effective advocacy services to people with a disability. This may involve specialist advice or support on particular issues, or support from other advocacy organisations in local communities. The Government will establish a statewide advocacy resource unit and will provide networking opportunities for local advocacy organisations.

Ensuring supports are more accountable to people with a disability

The Victorian Government believes that disability supports should be more accountable to people with a disability, as service users. To support this process, the Government will develop a complaints and dispute resolution mechanism that is independent of the disability support system and the Department of Human Services.

This mechanism will enable people with a disability and their families to make complaints about disability supports, and to be heard equally, objectively and without fear. Information on the number and type of complaints will be made public, so that people with a disability and their families can make informed choices about the supports they want and need.

top of page

Enhancing protections and safeguards

There are a number of practices that are designed to protect people’s safety, but which significantly restrict people’s rights. These include restraint, seclusion and imposing a service against a person's wishes, to name a few. The Government is committed to developing independent and transparent mechanisms to monitor and regulate these practices.

The Government will also work to ensure that people’s rights are not unreasonably restricted when they are unable to make their own decisions. The Government will do this by looking at the ways that decision-makers are appointed under the Guardianship and Administration Act 1986.

The Government also recognises that better protections and safeguards are needed for people with a disability who are experiencing, or who are at risk of experiencing, physical, emotional or sexual assault, or sexual harassment.

The Government will be enhancing community supports and services (such as Centres Against Sexual Assault and victim support services) so that they can better respond to the needs of people with a disability who have experienced violence.

This will involve building closer working relationships between the Department of Human Services and justice agencies, such as Victoria Police, the courts and other community services. These partnerships will also enable the criminal justice system to better respond to the needs of people with a disability.

What the Government will do

  • Continue to support the development of advocacy services for people with a disability in local communities across Victoria
  • Support the Victorian Electoral Commission to make sure that people with a disability can maximise their entitlement to participate in elections
  • Develop an independent complaints and dispute resolution mechanism for disability supports and services
  • Develop an independent, open and transparent means of authorising, reviewing and regulating practices that restrict people's rights
  • Ensure access to appropriate support for people with a disability who have experienced, or are at risk of experiencing, physical, emotional or sexual assault, or sexual harassment
  • Support the criminal justice system (police, courts, corrections and other organisations) to better respond to the needs of people with a disability. End of what the government will do list

What the Government has already achieved

  • Provided $209,000 for innovative advocacy initiatives in local communities across metropolitan and regional Victoria
  • Established the Disability Advisory Council of Victoria to promote people’s rights, to give a voice to people with a disability, and to provide advice to Government
  • Developed a Crime and Violence Prevention Strategy and the Women’s Safety Strategy which include outcomes and strategies for people with a disability
  • Begun a demonstration project to better support women with a disability who are experiencing violence
  • Asked the Victorian Law Reform Commission to examine compulsory care and treatment for people with an intellectual disability who are at risk to themselves and to the community
  • Ensured that all uses of restraint and seclusion by services funded under the Disability Services Act 1991 must now be reported to the Intellectual Disability Review Panel. End of what the government has already achieved list

Demonstrating future progress

  • Access for people with a disability to advocacy services in their local communities will improve
  • Access to community supports and services for people with a disability who have experienced violence will improve
  • Justice agencies’ (police, courts, corrections and other organisations) awareness of the needs of people with a disability and disability issues in general will improve. End of demonstrating future progress list

Next: Priority 4
Previous: Priority 2
Return to: Contents

top of page