Page 2354 - Week 07 - Thursday, 4 August 2016
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and exercise the right to equality. It sends a signal to all members of the community that they are entitled to be treated equally and with respect.
The bill is about promoting inclusion and equal opportunity for all members of our society. This recognises that the ACT will be all the stronger by fostering social settings for people who are not held back by stereotype, stigmatisation or unfair and unreasonable treatment.
These reforms clarify the objects of the discrimination framework and improve the application of existing protections and processes. They update our discrimination law in line with developments in other jurisdictions whilst also taking the ACT forward in the recognition of employment and accommodation status as attributes for which the law should offer protection against discrimination.
The bill amends the objects of the act to explicitly refer to the right to equality and non-discrimination in the Human Rights Act. This clearly links two key rights protection statutes. The objects no longer refer to specifically overcoming gender inequality and sexual harassment, as there should be an equal focus on the general aims of the legislation in eliminating all forms of discrimination to the greatest extent possible and in all areas of public life.
The objects will also recognise that substantive equality and equity must be progressively realised through the making of reasonable adjustments, reasonable accommodations and taking special measures to overcome existing social and economic disadvantage.
The bill expressly requires that the act be interpreted in a way that is beneficial to people who have protected attributes.
The bill contains several amendments to recognise that discrimination is often complex and multifaceted, that it can occur on more than one ground or over a series of acts which may be impossible to isolate or to clearly characterise as either direct or indirect discrimination. This is not intended to change the distinction between direct or indirect discrimination but provides that complainants need not specify exactly which type of discrimination they are complaining about.
One of the main aims of these amendments is to make the complaints process simpler for people who have multiple protected attributes. A key refinement among changes to the protected attributes is changes to the definition of disability. The bill amends the definition of disability in order to make it consistent with the commonwealth Disability Discrimination Act. The commonwealth act also applies to ACT agencies providing education services.
Disability protections under the ACT act will now cover disorders or malfunctions which result in a person learning differently from a person without the disorder or malfunction. This will clearly cover conditions such as dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, which may not have been covered by the existing law.
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