Australia's Disability and Age Discrimination Commissioners have called out the governments of NSW and Western Australia for failing older people and people with disability by not requiring new homes in their jurisdictions to meet the minimum national accessibility standards in the National Construction Code (NCC).
All other Australian states and territories have committed to the NCC's minimum accessibility standards such as a step-free entrance, wider doorways, accessible bathrooms and corridors that allow for easy movement with mobility aids, ensuring a safe and continuous path of travel throughout a dwelling.
However, the NSW and WA governments have refused to adopt the NCC standards which advocates say is creating significant problems for older people and people with disability now and into the future.
Age Discrimination Commissioner Robert Fitzgerald AM: "Accessibility and affordability are central elements of the human right to adequate housing and it's shameful that the NSW and WA governments are refusing to sign up to the same accessibility standards that all other states agreed to years ago.
"Confoundingly, their resistance is in spite of all the evidence of the benefits these standards provide for older people and people with disability specifically, as well as our community and economy more broadly."
"Right now, older people and people with disability are at greater risk of housing stress because of a lack of accessible and affordable dwellings in the private rental market, and this situation will only get worse in the future as Australia's population ages.
"We need more accessible dwellings now and we'll need a lot more in the future, so it's perplexing that the NSW and WA governments continue to block such a simple and straightforward reform that will deliver the kind of housing stock our country desperately needs."
Disability Discrimination Commissioner Rosemary Kayess: "NSW and WA can't keep ignoring the need for accessible housing because the cost of retrofitting dwellings in those states to meet the accessibility needs of residents is much more costly than making new homes align with minimum accessibility standards now.
"The lack of affordable and accessible housing contributes to the segregation of people with disability into 'specialised' housing, contributes to bed blockages within the health system, contributes to homelessness of people with disability, and contributes to people with disability living in inappropriate and inaccessible housing, generating a range of significant social, health and economic problems."
