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It has been three years since the Disability Royal Commission (DRC) handed down its recommendations, yet experts say only 3 – 7% of reform recommendations have been implemented. The evidence for reform remains strong. For example, the employment rate for people with disability sits 26 percentage points below the employment rate of non-disabled people.
The DRC ran 2019 – 2023 and made comprehensive recommendations across a wide range of areas such as education, employment, housing, health and justice.  While there have been some moves towards reforms, including law reforms, the vast majority of recommendations remain unimplemented.
Professor Alastair McEwin AM was one of the six Commissioners who led the DRC and says extensive consultation was completed as part of the DRC but now the recommendations need to be implemented.
“Thousands of Australians with a disability shared their experiences with the DRC. The focus now should be on ensuring that these contributions lead to meaningful and lasting change rather than becoming another report on the shelf,” he said. “Change only comes when people continually push for it. So, I am calling on all levels of government and institutions to champion that change.”
Prof McEwin is Professor of Practice in Disability, UNSW, working with the Pro Vice-Chancellor Inclusion and the Director, Disability Innovation Institute.  Based on his experience as Commissioner, he brings his expertise to influencing and developing policies and practices for greater societal inclusion of disabled people. 
The Commonwealth Attorney General has reviewed the DRC recommendations on reforming the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and draft legislation is now being considered.  However, many other areas are far from reform. The 56% employment rate of disabled people has hardly changed in decades compared to the 82% employment rate for non-disabled people in employment.
Only around 34% of Australians with disability have completed Year 12 or equivalent, compared with around 66% of Australians without disability.
Prof McEwin said the recommendations focused on a wide range of public policy areas and yet public debate has tended to focus on NDIS.
“Inclusion extends well beyond the individualised disability funding approach that the NDIS provides,” he said.  “Equal access to education, employment, transport, housing, health care and community participation all contribute to an inclusive society.”
Prof McEwin will be hosting a variety of events at UNSW’s Diversity Festival this month, including a panel discussion called, Do Disabled People Really Belong In Our Community? Joining him will be Megan Spindler-Smith, Acting CEO of People with Disability Australia (PWDA), and Emma Bennison CEO of Disability Advocacy Network Australia (DANA). They will tackle the implications of changes to the NDIS and the 2026 Federal Budget, including what they may mean for inclusion and belonging in the community for people with a disability.

The Victorian Greens say Labor has brought international shame on Victoria after the United Nations warned its plan to demolish and privatise all 44 of Melbourne’s public housing towers could violate the human right to housing.

The Greens say the extraordinary UN intervention exposes Labor’s housing agenda for what it is – evicting public housing residents, ripping communities apart, bulldozing public homes and carving up valuable public land for private development in the middle of a housing crisis.

After years of Labor dismissing residents, ignoring advocates and refusing to justify why every tower must be demolished, the UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing has now condemned the lack of meaningful consultation and warned the demolitions could make Victoria’s housing crisis even worse.

The Greens say that Labor’s plan is an international human rights disgrace and that Premier Ben Carroll needs to finally admit it and scrap this plan that’s been a total disaster from day one. 

Victorian Greens housing spokesperson, Gabrielle de Vietri: 

“Labor should be utterly ashamed. Their attack on public housing has now become an international human rights disgrace.

“Labor has become the party of bulldozers, evictions and privatisation.They have treated public housing residents as disposable and public land as something to be carved up for developers.

“In the middle of the worst housing crisis in generations, when people are sleeping in cars, rents are crushing families and tens of thousands of Victorians are waiting desperately for a public home, Labor’s answer is to destroy public housing.

“The Greens will stop Labor’s demolition agenda, keep public housing land in public hands and build the tens of thousands of public homes Victoria desperately needs.” 

Concerns are being raised that Labor Premier Chris Minns’ response to recent murders from organised crime will do more to erode civil liberties than stop organised criminals, following an announcement today of tougher criminal penalties for children and young people and a $15 million investment in phone-cracking technology.  

Greens MP, solicitor and spokesperson for Justice Sue Higginson said, “This is the Chris Minns law and order spin formula that we have seen since he came to power. The only thing this Premier seems capable of doing in response to horrific criminal behaviour is erode civil liberties, increase police powers and lock up more children and young people. 

“Under the Minns Labor Government police have been given increased powers, the number of kids and young people in prison has increased at record rates, and more people are being arrested and incarcerated than ever before. This approach has failed to stop recent criminal murders or address the causes of organised crime, and the exact same law-and-order approach will simply keep failing,  

“If we are investing $15 million to hack more phones and give police further access to messages, images, location markers and other sensitive information, we must also increase the independent oversight to safeguard against improper use of this invasive technology. This announcement comes amidst increasing community concern about Cellebrite, the Israeli spyware firm run by ex-IDF soldiers who provide phone-hacking technology to police, 

“The Premier’s ‘adult crime, adult time’ rhetoric helps no one, and appears to be a shameless attempt to beat One Nation in a race to the bottom based on zero evidence, 

“We need targeted and evidence-based solutions to combat organised crime developed in consultation with experts, not an escalation from Chris Minns’ media unit. We need to take serious action on social media algorithms, drug law reform, systemic disadvantage and inequality and diversion and rehabilitation for children engaged in criminal behaviour. Instead, we are locking up kids and expanding state surveillance,” Ms Higginson said.  

Labor has covertly extended the life of its racist and failed compulsory income management regime today, joining with the Coalition to kill off a Greens attempt to put an end to this cruel program.

In April 2022, federal Labor made an election commitment to scrap compulsory income management. Two elections in, and Labor has instead extended compulsory income management indefinitely. The Government also refuses to release the documents from the apparent consultation they’ve been conducting since 2023.

The Greens’ disallowance, moved by Senator Allman-Payne, sought to oppose the Social Security (Administration) Legislation Amendment (Income Management and Enhanced Income Management) Instrument 2026 (the Instrument). Labor’s Social Services Minister, Minister Tanya Plibersek, registered the Instrument on 24 June 2026 which removed the self-repealing clauses for four income management determinations that Labor made in 2023, effectively extending compulsory income management indefinitely.

Senator Allman-Payne is chairing the current Community Affairs References Committee’s review into the Instrument. As of 7 September, the majority of the submissions to the committee oppose the deeply unfair and targeted compulsory income management scheme and call for a transition to a voluntary system. 

Greens spokesperson on Social Services, Senator Penny Allman-Payne:

“Labor has today extended a failed, racist and coercive policy indefinitely, despite pledging to abolish it.

“Labor won’t release their own consultation because it’ll tell them what they already know: that compulsory income management doesn’t work, that it harms people, and that it must be abolished and replaced with a truly voluntary system.

“Compulsion, fear and racism should never be part of a genuine safety net. Social security must instead champion equality, human rights and the right to choose what income management works for you.” 

Labor is now openly divided over Australia’s failed tobacco excise regime, with NSW Labor Premier Chris Minns calling for the tobacco tax to be cut while Anthony Albanese continues to stick his head in the sand.

Speaking on Sky News this morning, Premier Minns said the current tax settings were not working and were helping fuel the illegal tobacco market.

Asked whether he still supported cutting tobacco excise, Mr Minns said:

Chris Minns: “Yes, I think it’s perversely driving a situation where you’re seeing more people not less people smoking because they’ve got access to readily available cheap cigarettes. It’s in the black market, it’s being organised by criminals, it’s not working. It’s the opposite of the intended policy.”

Mr Minns went further, saying the current tax settings were making it harder for police to permanently shut down organised crime gangs.

Chris Minns: “If the demand is there as a result of the tax settings it’s very difficult to do it permanently.”

The comments expose a deepening split within Labor after the Prime Minister repeatedly refused in Parliament yesterday to answer questions about organised crime and refused to rule out cutting tobacco excise.

Now the Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino has joined them.

In a trainwreck interview on Sky News this morning, Mr Mulino admitted he did not know about a reported tobacco-related firebombing in his own electorate.

Pete Stefanovic: “Wasn’t there another firebombing in your own electorate on the weekend?”

Daniel Mulino: “Look, I don’t know about that.”

When asked directly whether the Government could guarantee it would not cut tobacco excise, Mr Mulino also refused.

Pete Stefanovic: “But can you guarantee that you will not cut the excise down?”

Daniel Mulino: “No, so we’re not getting into rule-in, rule-out games on this.”

The contrast could not be clearer.

Chris Minns can see the current system is failing. Police can see it. Communities dealing with firebombings and organised crime can see it.

Anthony Albanese refuses to see it.

Australia’s illicit tobacco market has become a serious organised crime problem, with gangs making an estimated $4.1 billion to $6.9 billion and using the proceeds to fund drugs, scams, money laundering, extortion and violence.

At the same time, tobacco excise revenue has fallen from around $16 billion in 2019-20 to around $8 billion, while organised crime collects billions instead.

Coalition analysis shows that if the average of the six excise write-downs since Labor’s first Budget update is repeated at the December MYEFO, tobacco excise revenue would fall to zero by 2029-30.

Anthony Albanese needs to stop pretending the current policy is working and start listening to his own Labor Premier.

The Coalition has a plan to smash the business model of organised crime by cutting tobacco excise by 80 per cent, backing it with stronger law enforcement and driving consumers away from the illegal market.

You do not smash organised crime by protecting its business model. You destroy the business model.