COVID-19 Royal Commission Terms of Reference
18 January 2024
People with Disability Australia welcomes the opportunity to provide input into the appropriate terms of reference for a COVID-19 Royal Commission.
People with Disability Australia is Australia’s peak cross-disability Disability Representative Organisation and is funded by the Australian Government to represent the 1 in 6 Australians with disability nationally. Our organisation is made up of, and led by, people with disability.
The experiences of people with disability during the COVID-19 pandemic include anxiety over constantly changing messages, feeling confused and abandoned by governments, increased levels of violence and abuse, and feeling unsafe and forgotten as COVID-19 infection control measures reduced.
People with disability also raised issues with the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability (Disability Royal Commission), including reduced or no access to vital health, mental health, rehabilitation services and medications including COVID-19 related screening, masks, personal protective equipment, hand sanitizer, vaccination and treatment, as well as lifesaving treatment due to unconscious bias. In particular, Public Hearing 5, raised:
- the failure to consult with people with disability and their representative organisations early in the pandemic
- the lack of clarity about whether disability support services were ‘essential’
- the application of pandemic restrictions to people who did not understand them, or were unable to comply
- the impact restrictions had on reducing oversight by family, friends and formal mechanisms to safeguard against the risk of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation.