Kelly Vincent MLC

Dignity for Disability MLC Kelly Vincent is supporting Senate inquiry calls for a Royal Commission into violence, abuse and neglect of people with disabilities, along with other key measures aimed at reducing violence against the disability community.

“The number one recommendation of the Senate Committee’s Inquiry is to establish a Royal Commission. This speaks volumes about the severity of the evidence they heard,” says Kelly Vincent.

“Dignity for Disability support the call for a Royal Commission and most of the other recommendations.”

“The second recommendation calls on the Australian Government to establish a mandatory incident reporting scheme and we strongly endorse this initiative. I introduced a bill for South Australia to have a mandatory reporting scheme, and as the State Government won’t support this, we might as well have a Commonwealth-coordinated system.”

“The Inquiry also highlighted the need for the disability workforce to have mandatory rights based training and nationally consistent pre-employment screening which is certainly a necessity given the challenges we currently face with support workers and personal attendants in the disability sector.”

“Dignity for Disability led the charge for SA’s Disability Justice Plan, and the Senate Committee has called for a Disability Justice Plan in every state – including the South Australian model for providing evidence in court,” concluded Ms Vincent.

The Senate committee was established to investigate:
Violence, abuse and neglect against people with disability in institutional and residential settings, including the gender and age related dimensions, and the particular situation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with disability, and culturally and linguistically diverse people with disability.

You can access the Senate’s Inquiry and recommendations here:
http://www.aph.gov.au/…/Commu…/Violence_abuse_neglect/Report