National Construction Code's minimum national accessibility standards cover doorways and corridors
Advocates claim that the NSW and WA governments’ refusal to adopt the minimum national accessibility standards in the National Construction Code (NCC) for new homes is causing problems for older people and people with disability.
“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,” said Robert Fitzgerald, age discrimination commissioner, in a media release of the Australian Human Rights Commission.
“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,” said Rosemary Kayess, disability discrimination commissioner, in the media release.
“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,” Fitzgerald added in the media release.
In the media release, Australia’s disability and age discrimination commissioners called out the two state governments for failing to require new housing within their jurisdictions to comply with the minimum accessibility standards and thus failing to protect the older population as well as people with disabilities.
“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,” Fitzgerald said in the media release.
Apart from the two states, Australia’s other states and territories have all committed to the NCC’s minimum accessibility standards, the media release noted. These standards include a step-free entrance, wider doorways, and accessible bathrooms and corridors, which seek to enable those using mobility aids to navigate through dwellings more safely and easily, the media release added.
“NSW and WA can’t keep ignoring the need for accessible housing,” Kayess stressed in the media release.
“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,” Fitzgerald said in the media release.
“The cost of retrofitting dwellings to meet the accessibility needs of residents is much more costly than making new homes align with minimum accessibility standards now,” Kayess added in the media release.
