Self Determination

To date, the Victorian disability community has not been given genuine agency over our lives. This spans education, housing, parenting, protection from discrimination, freedom from state sanctioned violence and abuse, and access to services. Laws, policies and systems continue to evolve without genuine co-design or meaningful engagement with us.

We are denied the right to communication. We are overrepresented in the prison system, caught in cycles of systemic failure that begin with the denial of our human rights from an early age.

The Victorian and Commonwealth Governments have largely failed to implement the recommendations of the Disability Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability. Years on, there has been little meaningful engagement with the disability community to enact even those recommendations that were formally accepted.

We assert our right to self-determination. 

We assert the rights articulated in General Comment No. 7 , which requires governments to closely consult with and actively involve persons with disability, through our representative organisations, in the implementation and monitoring of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in our state/country.

Patronising or tokenistic consultation must end.  Respect requires governments, service providers and institutions to recognise that decisions about our lives are not theirs to make.

Self-determination will not be realised until our rights under the Convention are embedded in clear, enforceable legislation, with government leading and modelling change, rather than resisting it.

We call on the Victorian Government to establish formal, ongoing structures for engagement with the disability community through our representative organisations, ensuring that we lead decision-making and participation in matters that affect our lives.

Updated March 2026