STEWART HAY: Good evening, everybody.
Welcome today,
in this wonderful venue here at UNSW,
as we have a bit of a conversation
around legislation, policy and governance.
So, to get us going,
what I'm going to do is I'm going to ask each of
Alastair McEwin, Lainey Feingold and Rosemary Kayess
to introduce themselves to you and provide you a bit of background
of who they are and maybe why they are on this panel with us.
So with that in mind, I'm going to pass to Alastair to start.
Thank you, Stewart. And good evening, everyone.
It's a great honour and privilege to be here.
I'd like to acknowledge that we are meeting
on the land of the Gadigal people.
I pay my respects to their Elders past and present,
and I pay my respects to Aboriginal people who are present here today.
My role as Australia's Disability Discrimination Commissioner
is to ensure that people with disability,
no matter where they live in Australia,
have their human rights completely fulfilled
on an equal basis to anyone else in the community.
And given the rapid development of technology
to the point where many in the community
take technology for granted,
we are also seeing, in my view, a widening divide
between the technical haves and the technical don't-haves.
And by that, I mean people with disabilities are being excluded
from often the most basic forms of technology
that so many others take for granted.
In Australia, we have a framework of discrimination laws
and the human rights framework, particularly through
the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
So we have a framework.
However, what we are seeing
is a lack of practical implementation and uptake
by government, service providers and the wider community in ensuring
that any form of technology is accessible for anyone to use.
What I hear every day
from my colleagues and friends with disabilities
is that they are frustrated.
They are particularly frustrated at the lack of not being consulted
and being included at the beginning of the design process for technology.
To me, that says we have much to improve.
We need to ensure that developers and organisations
don't just assume they know what's best.
For years, we've had what I would call
a charity model for people with disability
where they are just expected to be able to use what they are given
rather than being at the centre of the design.
So we do have much to do.
We do also have many opportunities.
Technology has enabled many people with disability
to lead very independent and meaningful lives.
The challenge for us here in Australia
is to make sure that anyone, irrespective of their disability,
can use any form of technology.
Thank you.
STEWART: Thank you very much, Alastair.
Lainey, who's come all this way from San Francisco in the United States,
so she's been here for a few days now.
Lainey, why don't you introduce yourself?
I'm not sure everyone knows who you are.
There are obviously some people here who definitely know who you are,
but give us a bit of your background.
OK, well, first of all, thank you so much for having me
and for coming, and it's really great to be here.
I'm Lainey Feingold.
Stewart said, you know, "Why are you here?"
And I think I'm here 'cause accessibility is global
and the disability community is global
and we have so much to learn from each other and share with each other.
One little thing is that when I was here last year in Sydney
and you did the welcome to country,
I said, "Wow, that's a good idea. We don't do that in the US."
And I've started - I do it in every presentation that I do
and I even do it in the webinars
and it's gotten such a great response,
and I say, "I learned that in Australia."
You know, we have native people in America too
that don't get acknowledged,
so I want to thank you for teaching that.
I'm a disability rights lawyer
and I've worked with the blind community in the United States
since 1995
on various technology issues.
I started with talking ATMs
and I've worked on accessible websites and mobile app,
accessible pedestrian signals, talking prescription labels,
and I do all that in a collaborative process
that I've developed
along with the members of the blind community I work with.
We call it structured negotiation.
And basically, for the short version of it,
is that it's just a way
to bring people into the room and solve problems
using a strong legal foundation.
There's really two parts, like Alastair said -
there's the framework and there's implementation.
And in the US, we have a strong foundation,
we have a strong framework
and I've been really lucky to be able to work with disabled people
based on that foundation, in a collaborative way
which puts disabled people front and centre,
which many law processes don't.
So that's what I do.
And I wrote a book about it
and it's just been great being able to share it with people in the US
and people around the globe.
And I feel very welcomed and friendly with Australia,
so thank you all.
STEWART: Thank you very much, Lainey.
Now, I just want to hold it there before I go to Rosemary.
So Lainey does have a few of her books here with her today as well.
So if anyone is actually interested in picking up one of those books,
she'd be happy to sell you one at cost after the session
when you can...
You're supposed to say that at the end - people don't even know me yet.
I'm getting it out there now because
hopefully by the time we get to the end,
these people will just be having a mad dash up to the stage
to want to grab a book off you.
So just getting it out there before I forget as well.
-Thank you. -Now, thank you very much, Lainey.
Rosemary, I'm going to pass across to you.
Thank you, Stewart.
I'm the current Interim Director
of the Disability Innovation Institute at the University of NSW.
So in lots of respects, I'm focused on the future.
I'm not focused so much on
what we have in terms of technology now,
but I'm focused on what the technology will be that is coming.
And the reason I'm focused on that
is because the institute and the institute's role at the university
is to ensure that disability is part of that research paradigm,
that the research that is being done for what's to come
is inclusive and accessible.
That doesn't mean that I don't have a focus on what is happening now.
I'm a human rights lawyer, I have other hats.
I'm the chairperson of the Australian Centre for Disability Law,
and as of January, I will be a member
of the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
So, yes, I do have a focus on what's happening now
and where our policies, our programs and our legislation
is effective and not effective
in ensuring access to digital technology.
But, for me, I think one of the really important bits
is ensuring that our student bodies are given the skills from the word go
to understand human diversity in its broadest sense.
And so when researchers are doing research,
they include people with disability
and the concepts around disability in that framework of thinking.
And so what their research comes up with,
what that then leads into in terms of design and production
and ultimately something -
a widget of some description -
is inclusive and recognises the full continuum of the human condition.
And so accessibility doesn't become something that's secondary,
that's add-on, that's other.
It becomes an integral part of.
We've been doing this for a while.
And because we've been doing this for a while,
there's been some pretty good milestones we've had over the years.
Can you maybe give us from your perspective,
what do you think some of the big milestones we've had
over the last several, or longer, years
towards achieving this goal of a more inclusive society?
Thank you, Stewart.
One of the big milestones is that we are celebrating
or, rather, recognising the 25th anniversary
of the Disability Discrimination Act here in Australia.
For the first time, 25 years ago,
people with disability had a uniform national law
which was designed to ensure that they would be able to access
things in the community that other people, people without disabilities,
were able to access, so premises, education, employment –
nearly most things that we take for granted in everyday life.
It's fair to say, I suppose, in the last 25 years,
we've seen some progress
mostly around what I would say what people can see,
so such as the built environment, accessible transport.
What we haven't seen, though, is a lot, or a significant progress,
around the things that you can't really see,
or best just described as abstract or intangible.
So we still have a big issue of lack of education
for people with disabilities, in particular, children,
but also, relevant for tonight,
we're not seeing a great take-up
of digital development with people with disabilities in mind.
So a milestone certainly, 25 years of the Disability Discrimination Act.
Another milestone
is the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
And for the first time, this was a convention
that was developed with people with disabilities
as part of the development,
and it had them in mind, first and foremost at the centre,
rather than making...
Or, rather, for people with disabilities
to have to fit in with the environment,
it recognised that the environment needed to accommodate their needs.
So, for example, people with disability
accessing education in a way that best meets their needs.
So you can see some of these milestones.
That said, another milestone is a recognition
through the National Disability Insurance Scheme
that we need a person-centred approach
to ensuring that people with disability
can live independent lives in the community.
That all said, as I said, we still have a long way to go
for our government and for our service providers and companies
to recognise that if you don't include people with disabilities
at the beginning of the design process,
we will have many challenges.
STEWART: Thank you for that, Alastair.
I'm going to jump to Rosemary.
So, Alastair obviously touched on a few there
from the Australian perspective.
Any additional ones that you could add to that,
or think of from a milestone perspective for you as well?
Well, I mean, obviously, but I won't jump on Lainey's parade,
but the ADA had a significant global influence,
though in a very, you know, Western kind of way, I should say.
-But... -She rolls her eyes.
(ROSEMARY CHUCKLES)
The ADA was, you know, definitely the blueprint
for our Disability Discrimination Act.
It had a huge influence on the EU directive back in 2000 -
the Equality Directive back in 2000 -
so it influenced...also it influenced
a lot of the disability discrimination acts -
the UK act was heavily influenced by the Americans.
Sorry, by the US.
The Irish were more sensible
and they went with our construction of their DDA.
And all of those acts have had their problems.
The ADA got itself caught up in its definition of disability...
..to the point where, you know, so much of the litigation
was about whether a person was a person with a disability
under the terms of the act.
That also caused problems in the UK.
The EU, their directive was only around employment.
So there are milestones but there's also been...
You know, we've taken steps forwards
but those steps have been disabled in some way.
(CHUCKLING)
I think the EU signing up to the convention
is a significant milestone.
Though how stable the EU is raises another question.
But it still gives a very strong framework
for which...that to operate in many countries,
for the convention to have much more power in many countries
because of the European Court of Human Rights.
So there are other milestones that you could probably point to
in terms of human rights that are very similar to the EU
but haven't got the same strength.
So the African charter,
the American...the Inter-American charter of human rights...
..the Marrakesh Treaty.
The Marrakesh Treaty doesn't give you
anything that the CRPD doesn't give you
apart from multilateral engagement.
But you can't dis multilateral engagement.
Government-to-government engagement
can be a strong driving force for change,
but you must remember that the Marrakesh Treaty
really doesn't give anything that the CRPD gives.
So, yes, there are milestones
but it's how we implement those milestones that are important.
The framework is definitely there.
But as we see with our own DDA,
it's actually quite a good piece of legislation.
I wouldn't have constructed it with a comparator.
I would have kept to the RDA framework.
But other than that, it's a very strong piece of legislation.
The problem is the judiciary has been very narrow
in trying to enforce a distinction
between direct discrimination and indirect discrimination,
and they've been highly, highly technical in their judgements
as opposed to being broad and purposive.
And any lawyer in the room will know that beneficial legislation
should be interpreted as broad and purposive.
Now, Lainey, coming from an American perspective,
obviously Rosemary has touched on a few of that,
I guess from that view of the American perspective
and the history of the US sort of things,
is there anything else to maybe add to that?
Or from your perspective, your thoughts?
Well, one part is this whole question of milestone.
And it's easy to talk about laws,
but for every milestone - I'll mention a few more -
it's activism and organising in the disability community
that led to the milestone.
So, like, we talk about the ADA,
as you know, the disability community was fighting for the ADA
for over a decade.
And before the ADA, we have this law called Section 504
which has to do with the government, the federal government,
spending money
and the disability community
had the biggest takeover of a federal building for 30 days in 1977
to get those regulations,
which, really, when you talk about framework,
you know, the framework is very strong.
It's about participation and inclusion,
and the courts now are saying,
"It's not ideal, we'll talk about it later,"
but that the ADA, which was, you know, signed in 1990,
covers websites and covers mobile.
So I think when we talk about milestones,
we have to remember the day-to-day advocacy work
that many of you in the room are probably doing,
that will lead to the next milestones.
In terms of digital specifically in the US,
I and my clients negotiated the first web accessibility agreement in the US
in 2000.
So that's, like, 18 years ago.
That was with one of our largest banks, Bank of America.
And again, you know, I get the credit -
oh, I was the lawyer, I structured negotiation.
That never would have happened
if there weren't blind early adopters saying...
I mean, I remember the call saying...
We were working on talking ATMs and one of the blind clients called me
and said, you know, there's this thing, online banking,
and if we don't make that accessible...
There was a time before online banking,
or in 2008, when Apple opened its App Store for the iPhone,
the blind community was right on it.
Like, "There's a thing called apps, we need to make that accessible."
So those are some of the other milestones.
We have some court milestones - in 2008,
there was the first judge who said websites should be accessible.
Last year, we had the first trial
that said websites should be accessible.
But, again, like Rosemary said, the law's so technical.
Like, we need a strong foundation,
but technology and accessibility
has such a potential for creativity and inclusion.
And the law is, like...
We're all talking about AI and VR and all this stuff
and the law's still talking about webpages
and whether there's a connection to a business.
So we need the law, we need the strong foundation,
we need the milestones,
but we have to do the work on the ground
to make sure we keep up with the technology.
STEWART: Thanks for that.
Now, I'm conscious of time.
We've probably got another 10 minutes amongst yourselves
before we throw it open to the audience.
But with that in mind,
Alastair, with maybe just a couple of minutes,
some of these points that have flagged do come back to
where are we at today
in the sense of the legal sort of landscape
and what's happening currently in Australia.
Can you maybe give a bit of a picture on that?
Because my impression is that we're not a very litigious society,
but there's obviously stuff happening
and that stuff that comes to the Australian Human Rights Commission.
So could you give us maybe a bit of understanding what's happening there?
Yes.
Firstly, as Rosemary pointed out,
we've had many challenges here in Australia through judges
and how they've interpreted the DDA.
At the Australian Human Rights Commission,
we run a complaints process where people can complain
if they feel that they have been discriminated against
under various forms of discrimination, including disability.
The challenge with the complaints process or the conciliation process
is that it relies on the individual,
so the individual with disability, to bring a complaint
and often they are met with a wall of resistance through the respondent.
So we try to conciliate in a non-legal process
in the sense that we say, "This is the law,"
and we try to get the parties to come to an agreement
on how the particular situation will fit under the law.
And we often strive, where possible, for practical solutions.
Some of the complaints that we've had about technology over the years
have related to ATMs not being accessible,
we still get many complaints about websites not being accessible.
And it's really interesting to note the number of government departments
that are respondents -
both Commonwealth and States and Territories -
to complaints about inaccessible websites.
So we've still got a long way to go, as I indicated earlier,
and so the challenge is to ensure that we have a system in Australia
where my role is to focus on the systemic issues
and try and get, you know, outcomes there.
And we shouldn't have to just rely on a system
where it's based on the individual to have to raise complaints.
As Lainey has also pointed out,
there's been a great deal of advocacy in the States,
and we've had that too in Australia, some, you know, fantastic milestones
of where the disability community has worked very hard together
to achieve outcomes,
such as advocating for the National Disability Insurance Scheme,
the blind community, in particular, has been very active very recently
on, you know, exactly the issue that we are talking about here today
in terms of accessible technology.
Thank you.
Now, I'm going to jump to Lainey.
Usually I'd let you guys jump in if you really want to jump in.
I'll come to you in a second.
But, Lainey, we've got a slightly different scenario
seeming to happen in the United States
at present, in the last few years.
So can you paint just a bit of the picture
of what's going on in the United States at present
from a legal perspective?
Yeah, one thing I meant to say before,
like, my work has all been with the blind community
and the blind community were the main activists around digital initially.
Now as more tech knowledge of video,
you have the deaf community being involved in the lawsuits
around Netflix captioning, captioning for students.
I mean, so much of the educational space is now video,
so you're seeing more deaf people.
And we haven't seen so much legally on the cognitive side,
but I think that's going to be next
because that's a huge and growing area
and the activism around people with learning disabilities
or people who are autistic,
there's a lot of digital issues around that too.
So even though I tend to talk about blindness
'cause that's my personal work,
it's really important when you think of what's happening in the US,
it's not just that disability.
So, yeah, in the US, like I said,
I did the first with my clients and my colleagues,
we did a web accessibility agreement in 2000
and there were lawsuits filed.
Like I said, I do structured negotiations.
We don't have to file lawsuits.
We have a process that really invites people
to sit around the table and find a solution.
But there's also been lawsuits,
like the one against Netflix that the National Association of the Deaf did,
or the National Federation of the Blind
has done a lot of good lawsuits in the educational space.
And so we were all very collaborative and it was all very nice.
Some people did lawsuits.
We also had a great Department of Justice under President Obama
that was doing a lot of digital work.
So comes now, 2018, and we are on track
that there will be 2,000 lawsuits filed by the end of the year
about web accessibility.
3,000% increase since 2015. Approximately.
I was gonna say don't quote me,
but there's some video cameras here I guess.
-I'm being quoted - approximately. -Approximately. Yeah.
Approximately.
And, you know, that's because we have some lawyers who...
..a very tiny handful of lawyers who are not disability rights lawyers
who saw an opportunity
based on a foundation that the disability community built,
and so we have a lot of potential backlash against that right now.
These cases are cases being filed
with settlements that are confidential,
no-one knows what's really happening, quick turnaround.
And it's really important,
and I have really struggled with this myself personally
because, you know, I don't like
that kind of use of the strong foundation we have
because it generates a fear.
And people are starting to do web access,
"Oh, I'm afraid of being sued."
And that is not a motivation that will get us where we need to be
in terms of having accessibility built in from the core.
But it's also very important...
You know, there's a lot of metaphors -
don't throw the baby out with the bathwater
or don't let a couple of rotten apples spoil the whole basket.
So, yes, we have a situation now where we have these lawsuits,
there is potential backlash,
especially with the government, as we have now.
But, yeah, so that is the situation.
I really believe in lawsuits because lawsuits are a good tool.
I like collaboration when it's possible.
And it's really important not to hear
'cause you may hear, "Oh, my God, so many lawsuits in the US.
"It's terrible. You gotta change the law."
No, it's not that, we have to figure out a way
that the very tiny percentage of lawyers
who are using the law in a non-productive way,
we have to figure out that.
We can't...I really believe
we don't set policy based on the bad actors.
We have to set policy based on the good actors
and figure out how to deal with the bad actors, yeah.
I will say on all these lawsuits,
they are going in the direction of access.
It's very narrow 'cause, like I say, it's just about websites.
And judges, like you said, Rosemary,
you know, there's talk about who's disabled and who isn't,
there's, like, this... we call it a nexus, you know -
is the website connected to brick and mortar?
There's all that stuff going on, but by and large,
the courts are mostly saying
that disabled people have a right to go to court
and get accessible websites.
So it's a situation.
So we've got an interesting sort of difference
between, say, what's happening in the United States,
what's happening in the Australian space.
From the Australian space, we seem to follow
a lot of what your general thinking has been as a lawyer.
Rosemary, I'm just curious to get your impression about -
are we heading... are we in the right track
or do we need to be doing more for the community moving forward?
From the Australian perspective.
Oh, um...
God, yes, we need to be doing more.
It's...it's a tricky ask.
You're talking about a dynamic space.
I mean, you're talking about technology.
And if there's one way to describe the space that we're in,
it's dynamic.
I mean, um...
..the pace at which things... with which technology is changing
is incredible,
and so how do you take something that's standardised
and takes years to develop and get agreed to
to be as fluid as the thought processes of the developers?
So how do you work in that space?
How do you keep that space focused
on making sure it's including everybody?
I think there must be a way of doing it,
but I can't see it in the short term unfortunately.
And I think that's why...
I come back to my first point
when I talked about my role at the university
and what the institute wants to do, is that there's a long-term game
to embed disability in the broader thinking of the community
and get designers taught their craft and researchers taught their craft
with the whole human condition in mind.
And, I mean, OK, that's a bit of a cop-out
saying it can only be addressed in the future.
There are things that we can do now.
But I think litigation is...
..a very small part of the game.
I think engagement...
One of the best things the Australian Human Rights Commission achieved
in the space around the DDA was the original banking standards.
And that was engagement with the banks in a positive way
about a narrow area that they understood.
And so that engagement,
the commission gave space to people with disability
and the banking industry
to engage one on one and find solutions.
Now, the longer that process...
So once that was established and those standards were in place,
that was fine,
but as technology changed, those standards became redundant.
So that engagement needs to be ongoing.
There needs to be mechanisms that we can build into the industries
to ensure they have internal watchdogs.
And this is why education of people with disability is so important -
we need people with disability, you know, in education,
getting the academic, you know, education that everybody else gets,
and being offered the same academic opportunities as everybody else
so they can be working in these industries
and they can be part of the industry
and informing the industry about their experience
and so it's not something foreign to them.
Engagement is such a powerful thing when it comes to disability
and it's because people with disability
have been isolated from the mainstream.
And people don't often engage with people with disability,
so they don't think of the issues for them.
And so it's not...wilful ignorance,
it's just ignorance nine times out of ten.
And so it's about making space for that engagement
and looking at how that engagement can happen
in an ongoing, dynamic way.
Thanks for that, Rosemary.
And before I throw open to the crowd,
Lainey and Alastair, just...
Any sort of additions to what Rosemary was saying?
Lainey, I'll start with you.
Yeah, the irony is this is a panel
on, like, legislation and law and we're, like, lawyers,
but the truth is the law really can't be the driver.
I mean, it's like...
We see here in the US,
you know, Microsoft is really just doing wonderful things
around accessibility because they have made it
part of their corporate culture, starting...
ROSEMARY: And why so? Because their head...
I was just... Finished my sentence.
Satya Nadella, CEO, his son actually has a disability.
-I apologise. -No, no, no.
I was saying I agree with you.
And if those of you who haven't read the book
that the CEO of Microsoft wrote - it's called 'Hit Refresh' -
and you can see what happens with one person.
And they have Jenny Lay-Flurrie,
who has the highest accessibility position.
And I did a session last year with one of their lawyers
and we saw exactly eye to eye.
You know, I've only represented disabled people
my whole...this part of my career,
and they're Microsoft, you know, one of the biggest corporations,
and we agreed that, yeah, the law's important.
But we had cookies, because the law's like the sugar or the butter,
but it's not the cookie, it's not the whole cookie, you know?
You need the culture and the transparency
and the accountability and the design and the development.
You need all this, so those of us in the legal space
have to kind of humble ourselves with, like, how much we can do
and remind people, yeah, this is a civil and a human right,
and don't forget that.
But accessibility is about people
and, you just... the law has its limits.
-And I'll add a little bit to that. -I don't know.
Our experience as a consulting firm, a lot of the times it's because...
Our experience is those people who actually have experience
with other people with disabilities,
they tend to be more proactive and productive
towards doing the right thing.
Whereas a lot of people, as Rosemary, you were saying,
if they've had no experience with someone who has a disability,
it's just not in their conscious mind and they don't think about it.
LAINEY: Oh, I should have... Just one last thing on that Microsoft panel.
The Microsoft lawyer said, you know, we had seven things
that really make for accessible culture.
And number one was hiring people with disabilities. That she saw that...
And I had never really...
I knew, of course, you have to hire disabled people,
but she's the one, the Microsoft lawyer, who taught me
that is key to digital accessibility
because if you're designing something and the person next to you is deaf
and isn't going to be able to see the video unless you have captions
or is blind and isn't going to be able to use a touch screen,
you're not gonna do it, so hiring is, you know, word one.
It's not a sep...
Yeah, I had always thought of it, like,
"Oh, diversity hiring, that's important."
But, no, it's, like, a critical component.
STEWART: Which is interesting. I'll throw it to Alastair.
Because, Alastair, you flagged earlier
how there were a number of complaints against government agencies.
And I do remember seeing a statistic,
where I think it's over the last 20 years,
the employment numbers of people with disability in governments
has halved, I think, at the federal level,
so we've gone from about 5.8% down to I think about 2.6%, roughly.
Um, so, curious.
Your thoughts, I guess, before we throw it open to the crowd.
Anything further to add along those lines?
Certainly, we've seen a decline
in the rate of employment of people with disability
in the public service,
both at Commonwealth and at State and Territory levels.
Absolutely, in the last 20 years, as you've pointed out,
it's gone from I think 6% down to as low as 1.8%, 2%,
and in some ways it's still declining,
so we have a significant issue here in Australia
of where government is not, or are not...
..governments are not employing people with disability
or giving them the opportunity to come into the workforce
and then be supported to become employees.
For me, that is also linked to - and as Rosemary's pointed out -
where we see success is when we bring together the relevant stakeholders,
so industry, government and people with disability,
and try and identify what is the common issue
and then come up with a meaningful dialogue to develop solutions
and to try and work out what the...where to from here.
So absolutely, we are seeing many declines.
So the rate of employment,
the digital divide that we talked about earlier and...
So, in many ways, we are seeing a backward step.
And Rosemary's quite right.
We need to always be looking to the future
to make sure that we get the foundations right.
Thank you very much for that, Alastair.
So I've gone a little bit longer than I was first expecting,
but we had some wonderful thoughts and opinions
from all three of our panellists.
What I do want to do is give everyone who may have a question
an opportunity to ask a question.
We do have some roaming microphones,
so does anyone have a question that they would like to ask?
Ah, I see a hand over here.
BRENDA: Hi, thanks.
That was really, really to the point,
I would say, especially the last part.
I had something in mind around, like, asking something towards that.
So you kind of answered a bit of what I was wanting to ask.
Oh, sorry. You said introduce yourself, so... (LAUGHS)
STEWART: Just your name and then ask your question.
My name is Brenda Castro, I work as a designer,
user experience, interaction design mostly.
And, yeah, my question is basically because...
In my work, I've seen very, very little people
with even minor disabilities engaged in the process.
And one of the things that could help us a lot
as designers and in the technology industry,
would be to have, for example, initiatives
where you could actually, without a lot of resources, access...
..have the possibility to engage with people with different disabilities
on the beginning of your project,
which for me, and I'm sure for many other people in my same situation,
like, in the similar roles,
it's just very difficult to approach or to find the people
who would actually teach you how to do a better design.
Because even if you have the basics, the law, or the basics on theory,
even web standards, for example, are very clear, even that is not enough.
You need to know people, you need to actually get the people engaged.
So are there any initiatives, at least in Australia,
that we know that we, people working in the field, could actually access
and get that feedback from people who could teach us?
STEWART: OK.
I'm going to throw to you first, Rosemary,
because I think you've got some thoughts to this
and I know Lainey's...
There's something in the US she could probably flag.
Yeah, look, I don't know of specific projects
but I know a way you could probably work through it.
And, I mean, one of the ways that you could do it
is by approaching...
..disability organisations.
They generally have people that work in this space.
If you're respectful to your engagement with those organisations,
recognise and respect the expertise that you're seeking,
and engage with that as you would any other consultant,
I'm sure you would be able to get access
to people to be able to support your design process.
But this is exactly what we are trying to build into
the opportunities for design students and...
Sorry, art and design students, built environment students,
engineering students, is that opportunity
to be able to engage people with disability
to be involved in their projects from the very beginning
to help frame the questions,
to help frame the design parameters
and to be part of the team.
But, so I think if you go to organisations
such as Vision Australia
or...even the Deaf Services around the country,
or People with Disability Australia,
that they would have people that work in this space
and would be quite willing to assist you
if you, you know, approached it in... as part of your...your project.
STEWART: I'll add one thing to that.
So there are a couple of market research companies in Australia
that will help you find people with disabilities.
Our company does something similar as well.
What we generally recommend, though,
is that, if you're going to go down that path,
you've got sort of sometimes two options -
you can go find volunteers, but we generally recommend
that you compensate people for their time for any research.
But what I want to do...
Lainey, there's also Teach Access in the United States.
So if we come back to the education side of things,
we sort of have two angles here.
We've got the angle of including people with disabilities
as part of the process,
but the education side was another element to that question
and the Teach Access initiative in the United States
seems to be trying to deal a little bit with that
from the US perspective.
Yeah, I can answer that.
I was going to say that I know there's some people
just right in the room from Digital Gap Initiative, for example,
which is a grassroots organisation.
I think that, you know, if...
-And I don't know who else is... -ROSEMARY: I forgot about that.
(LAUGHS) Gisele, raise your hand
in case anyone wants to talk to you afterwards.
Sorry, Gisele.
Yeah, so, a couple of things.
Yes, Gisele over here.
I keep on my website and I would recommend someone here do it of...
..non-profits, NGOs, who do this kind of work,
there's also consultants who do it.
I think it's really important to treat
whatever consultant you bring in or disabled person
as a part of the process, not an add-on.
It has to be just like any other vendor.
That, you know, you have a security issue.
You want to make sure you have,
you know, hit all the buttons on security,
you're gonna have that built in, it's going to be a part.
If disability issues become add-on or second nature
or, "We'll just do it after work or we'll just have a volunteer come in,
"give 'em a gift card,"
it's going to get lost once you get to the next, so...to the next phase.
Yeah, we have this...a thing going on in the US,
and it might be even global, Teach Access,
where we don't have enough skilled designers and developers
who know accessibility, and so the big companies have gotten together
and they have a website, I think it's...
It's definitely 'teachaccess', might be teachaccess.org
and this summer, for example,
they brought in 25 computer science students
to Silicon Valley and they spent...
I think they spent three weeks going around and meeting the big companies
and a lot of the companies have what they call empathy labs
where you can try out the equipment and just get some basic understanding
'cause we need...
But that's sort of... Teach Access is a separate thing.
That should have disabled people in it
but it's somewhat different than the whole usability...
..making sure disabled people are involved
from the outset in the design.
But, yeah, I really recommend having a...
'Cause we have a lot of NGOs, and there's also people...
Like, people in the US, you can do it remotely
and you can get feedback remotely.
I think you guys do that at Intopia and...
STEWART: Well, there's an ability, for example, in the United States,
to do a lot of that remotely.
They find hit-and-miss about the potential benefits of that.
We do it more locally...type stuff.
But we're one of a number of organisations that do the same thing.
So there are organisations out there that do that.
I think if you connect more in with the accessibility community,
that will give you more opportunities
to sort of find these organisations and groups,
and everything Rosemary and Lainey just said,
that can help you include it and just being aware of that's just...
..that's the first big step.
And one quick comment from me on this,
when it comes to teaching students about inclusive design,
it's important to stress that people with disabilities are very diverse,
just like, you know, any people in the community.
So, many organisations will bring in a person with a disability,
let's say, for example, a blind person, and say,
"Well, we consulted with a blind person on the design of this product
"and we've ticked the box."
Somebody who, for example, is totally blind with no sight
as opposed to somebody with low vision
will have very different needs
when it comes to how you use a smart device.
So it's a really important point for our students to remember,
is to always keep that in mind, the diversity of disability.
STEWART: Even two people with the same blindness about them
may have different levels of aptitude for technology
and we see that a lot,
so there's a lot of those variables to keep in mind.
Conscious of time. Any other questions?
Sean, over here, just in the middle.
SEAN: I'm just curious.
Like, currently, if you're a disabled person
and you go through our DDA process,
there is a fear factor out there in the community
where people might not want to take up the process,
A, it's too complex or B, the fact that if they lose the case
they're going to bring up, they could be countersued for the legal costs.
So I would like to know that the pros and cons from the US side of things
and from the Australian side of things,
should we have something in there for, like, a safety net
to permit people to utilise the DDA more often
and to get that social change we're all trying to achieve?
Who wants to jump in first? Alastair?
(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
Oh, thank you. Thank you, Sean, for that.
Look, in terms of what we try to do
at the Australian Human Rights Commission
with the complaints process is, I said earlier,
we encourage the parties to come up with the solution that, you know...
The best outcome for both the complainant and the respondent.
I acknowledge, of course, the barriers to that
are, you know, people with disability feeling intimidated
or overwhelmed by the system,
particularly if the outcome is not what they want
and they wish to take it to court.
They have the option of taking it to court.
However, as many of us know,
the justice system is very expensive, very complex, very time-consuming,
so, many, many barriers.
So, all up, for me, it's really important
for the Australian Human Rights Commission
to promote the outcome where we can,
noting that the outcomes of conciliation are confidential,
but where we can, we try and promote...
For example, if an employer agreed
to do things like disability awareness training
or to implement a more proactive,
inclusive design process and so forth,
so we try and do that, so that's some of the pros.
Of course, some of the cons are being overwhelmed by the system.
Rosemary?
Beyond conciliation, we don't have a human rights jurisdiction
within the Federal Court,
so we don't have a human rights jurisdiction
that is a no-cost jurisdiction, and that is problematic.
I believe there is probably a good case
for a human rights jurisdiction that is a no-cost jurisdiction,
because the cost...the cost issue is a big issue.
I mean, the decision to take an unsuccessful conciliation
to the Federal Court is definitely...
..a difficult decision to make for people.
You know, do my kids go to the local high school with their siblings
or do we lose the house?
I mean, not a question you really want to put on people.
The other...the other issue is that we've got jurisprudence where...
..business cases have, with very little evidence and...
I mean, not a particularly well-run case,
but unfortunately a very adverse decision
in terms of Jetstar and King.
And so when you see business cases
trumping...beneficial legislation,
it's very difficult to inspire confidence.
So...the cost jurisdiction is a problem and I...
There are mechanisms like cost capping and stuff like that,
but there isn't enough.
I mean, there would need to be a wholesale recognition
of a no-cost jurisdiction
before we got any change,
so I don't see that on the horizon anytime soon.
Unlike the States.
LAINEY: Well, one thing you just...
Alastair, you were talking about confidentiality,
and that would be a place that would be good to change because I...
My clients and I have really insisted on transparency
of our agreements from the beginning because nobody wants to go first.
And even though I never go to court and we don't have any court cases,
we have what I call industry precedent,
so when we convince the first bank to do talking ATMs,
the next bank could say,
"Oh, well, they did talking ATMs, I won't be first."
Talking prescription labels.
It was a big issue 'cause nobody had them.
There haven't been any court cases.
All the pharmacies have done them as a result of structured negotiations.
No-one wanted to go first.
So, we do tend to keep the money part of our cases confidential,
like what attorneys' fees are paid -
I'll mention that in a minute - or damages to the client.
But I think it's really important.
And that was one of Microsoft's elements of the cookie.
You know, transparency, and say what you're doing,
not just so people can have the benefit,
'cause if you're doing accessibility but nobody knows it,
that's a problem in itself,
but so that other businesses can have the benefit,
that they're not the first
and there can be learnings even in a competitive field,
that there can be learnings from each other.
The way the money works in the US
is that the Americans with Disabilities Act
does say that if you win your case,
the company or the government that loses
has to pay your attorneys' fees,
and that works even in settlements,
so that is my business model, I guess you'd say,
is that when we settle with a company,
they do pay our attorneys' fees, and the idea of that...
And this is how we never have any issue 'cause we say...
And this is true for race cases and gender cases,
that the people being discriminated against
don't have the resources to hire a lawyer,
so if you win your case or you successfully settle,
you do get your lawyers paid.
And you only have to pay the company if your case was frivo...
It's higher standard.
If your lawsuit was frivolous and unreasonable and without foundation,
something like that, those kinds of words,
then you might have to pay...
-ROSEMARY: Vexatious. -Vexatious. Right.
Then you might have to pay, but it's not like,
oh, if you lose, you're stuck paying.
And the attorneys' fees I think is a really big piece of it
because we have a separate law for airline access.
Airlines aren't covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act.
That law doesn't have the attorneys' fees piece,
and so that law has very little enforcement.
People still in 2018, you know, they have terrible problems
with wheelchairs getting wrecked and people not being treated fairly,
so the attorneys' fees piece is... it is an important part.
Yeah, don't fly in the States, not with American Airlines.
-(ALL LAUGH) -Believe me.
Yeah, it's a problem.
Our co-founder is a wheelchair user as well
and he's had a few issues as well from flying unfortunately.
Yeah, 'cause you can't sue them
because there's not that independent...
They call it... You can't...
You have to go to the administrative processes.
You can't go right to court, so...
OK, we probably have time for one more question.
We've had a gentleman jump in really quickly down here.
CLIVE: Hi, my name's Clive.
We're currently setting up a start-up to enable carpooling services
for the disabled carers and guardians.
So carpooling in its traditional sense,
you know, where one parent or a guardian or a carer
could actually help another parent's disabled kid or child.
And one of the things that...
And it's not a service where we're going to charge by the hour
to the parent, it's going to be a business-to-business model.
So, you know, it's just a subscription fee
that the business pays and then the users can use it for free.
But the challenge that I have is, you know,
how can I actually train up able parents
to help other parents who have disabled kids
just so that they can look after the person
when they are transporting them from point A to point B.
So my question is, are there any organisations
or training frameworks in place
to kind of, at least, give the basic guidelines to, you know,
able-bodied people to help another disabled person?
Who would like to jump in on that question?
WOMAN: Sorry, just... It's called Enabler.
That's Huy Nguyen down in Melbourne.
WOMAN: By Huy Nguyen.
He won a Myer Foundation grant to develop something like that
based on the standards and with avatars
to train people in a safe way.
It's really quite cool.
When you were saying there's so much happening.
Like, here in Australia we've got the Remarkable group,
and the Remarkable group is part of the Cerebral Palsy Alliance,
and they're a start-up accelerator to help organisations
that are focusing on using technology
to target and benefit the disability community,
which is a large community,
and they're trying to help people to get their start-ups
up and running as an incubator process.
So Huy's company, Enabler, is one of those groups,
and it's some great stuff that's actually happening in Australia.
Alastair, sorry, you were going to jump in.
Firstly, Clive, it's fantastic to hear that you're being so proactive
in terms of using technology
to address what I think is a very significant need in the community.
We've got many, many families who are...with children with disabilities
who just want the best for their child
to be educated in a mainstream setting
and they have to make many sacrifices to try and achieve that ideal.
You could, for example, think about contacting Family Advocacy NSW,
who do a lot of advocacy about children and inclusive education,
so that's just one that popped to my...my head.
And of course, as we mentioned earlier,
PWD and others who might be able to facilitate
some sort of referrals or connect you.
I think it's just great.
It's really good to see also all the innovation that is going on
in the disability sector at the moment, particularly with the NDIS.
And we are...we need to make sure
that yourself, Clive, and others, have the means to be innovative
to make sure that we don't then get stuck in the bureaucracy
or hamstrung by red tape and government inaction,
so my hope for the future is that innovation
for people with disability can be allowed to be
as, you know, innovative as they can be.
So we're pretty well out of time.
But what I do want to do is allow
a short one-minute final sort of thought pieces
from each of our panellists
from both the questions we've had through today
and the commentary we've had this evening.
And what I might do is I'll go from right to left.
So, Rosemary, I will actually start with you.
I know you were hoping to go last. I'll start with you, Rosemary.
And, yes, a short sort of takeaway.
What do you think from today,
maybe what do you think we need to do?
What would you want to leave everyone with as a...thought point?
People with disability have just got to be part of the community.
I mean, if... Engagement is how it works.
If we're there and an integral part,
then it will work because we'll be seen,
we'll be doing, we'll be part of.
I know it's a simplification
but I think, you know,
two of the questions that we've had tonight
is about how do I contact people with disability?
Well, if, you know, we were more included in the society,
if the society was more inclusive,
those questions wouldn't need to be asked.
Thank you, Rosemary. Lainey. What would you like to leave?
That was a really good summation. (LAUGHS)
You can always go 'ditto', but what else would you like to add?
I want to say 'ditto'.
I guess I just want to throw in a word we haven't said,
which is intersectionality,
which is disability is not its own thing over here.
That any conversation about access to justice
for poor people, for Indigenous people, gender,
disability is crosscutting.
And the more we can take it out of the silo -
it's like, you know, another way in addition to what Rosemary said -
the better, because we can't... we can't just be an add-on,
you know, we can't be an afterthought.
We have to be there from the beginning,
and the more, like you said,
we recognise the full scope of humanness,
the more we're going to have accessibility.
And also, don't forget we're all going to get old,
on top of everything else.
As a last resort, you know, design for your future self.
We are all going to need this. We are all going to need this.
-Some of us sooner than others. -(LAUGHTER)
-Thank you. -STEWART: Thank you, Lainey.
Alastair?
When I reflect on the cases, for example, Rosemary's mentioned,
King v Jetstar and there have been many others,
such as Graeme Innes vs RailCorp,
and when I reflect on how the respondents
have been very defensive and very adversarial,
and when I reflect on the complaints that we get at the commission,
large organisations, we need to build a culture of inclusion
for everyone in the organisation.
You can have a fantastic CEO or board saying,
"This is the right thing to do,"
but if it doesn't trickle down to the front-line staff,
to the designers, then we will never achieve an inclusive society.
So a culture of inclusion is everyone's responsibility.
STEWART: I can't agree more with that, Alastair.
And I'm a big fan of...
A value statement's not enough.
It's actually got to be embraced and actioned
throughout the organisation.
Alastair, Lainey, Rosemary, thank you all for your time this evening.
I know, Lainey, you've travelled a lot farther
than Alastair and Rosemary.
-LAINEY: I got to come to Australia. -(LAUGHS)
But it's been fascinating, it's been enlightening.
There were some really interesting points
all three of you brought to the table for everyone here.
So if we could have a nice round of applause for all three of them.
Thank you very much.
I also want to thank a few other people.
I'd like to thank University of Sydney,
University of New South Wales,
Telstra, Intopia.
I also want to thank the Sydney Web Accessibility Meetup Group
and the Accessibility Camp, or A11yCamp, and A11y Bytes,
all of which have worked together to help us put this on for you today.
So I really would like to thank all of them
'cause without them we wouldn't have been able to
put something like this together as well.
So thank you very much for that.
I also want to thank Meredith and Lyn from University of New South Wales,
and also Renata and Chris from Intopia.
All four of them have done an amazing amount of effort behind the scenes
to make sure this ran, hopefully, as smoothly as it has.
So, thank you, each of you, for your time and effort.
So finally, thank you all for attending
and thank you for your participation this evening.
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