This submission was made by Women with Disabilities ACT for the Inquiry into Crimes (Coercive Control) Amendment Bill 2026, held by the Legislative Assembly for the Australian Capital Territory. You can read it in full below.
Category: Submissions
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Submission: Inquiry into endometriosis and other pelvic pain conditions
This submission was made by Women with Disabilities ACT for the Inquiry into endometriosis and other pelvic pain conditions, held by the Legislative Assembly for the Australian Capital Territory. You can read it in full below.
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Submission: ACT Public School System Resourcing Review
AFI, Women with Disabilities ACT (WWDACT) and ACT Down Syndrome & Intellectual Disability (DSID) have made a joint submission to the ACT Public School System Resourcing Review. Our submission argues that inclusive education cannot succeed without structural investment and sustained resourcing to close the gap between policy intent and lived experience.
Inclusive education is fundamental to safety, participation and long-term social and economic outcomes for students with disability. While the ACT Government has committed to inclusion, families, teachers and students are reporting a system under significant strain. Students continue to experience inadequate staffing, inconsistent adjustments, inaccessible environments, informal “reset days” that function as undocumented suspensions, and a growing drift toward segregation through small group programs and specialist settings.
These are system-level resourcing failures, not failures of individual teachers. Schools are being asked to deliver increasingly complex supports without the staffing, specialist capability or administrative infrastructure required to do so. The result is exclusion in practice — including students missing excursions, assemblies and mainstream learning opportunities due to insufficient support.
The ACT Disability Caucus calls for substantial reform to the resourcing model, including:
- A significant increase in disability loading for ACT public schools
- Adequate numbers of trained Learning Support Assistants across all settings
- Dedicated administrative and coordination roles to relieve pressure on teachers
- Investment in physical and digital accessibility and universal design
- Improved access to allied health and specialist supports
- Transparent annual reporting on disability funding, enrolment, exclusion patterns and workforce capacity
- Stronger cross-system coordination between Education, NDIS, Health and Child & Youth Protection
We also emphasise that funding reform must account for intersecting needs, including autistic students, students with intellectual disability, First Nations children, culturally and linguistically diverse families, and students with co-occurring mental health conditions.
The ACT Disability Caucus supports an education system where every child can attend, participate and thrive on an equal basis with their peers. Achieving this requires structural investment, sustained funding and system-wide capability — not reliance on goodwill alone.
You can read the full submission below.
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Joint Submission: ACT Budget 2026-27
The ACT Disability Directed Advocacy Caucus (including Women with Disabilities ACT, Advocacy for Inclusion, and ACT Down Syndrome and Intellectual Disability) has made a joint submission outlining our shared investment priorities for the ACT. Government Budget for 2026/27. In our submission, we outline five shared investment priorities to address critical gaps, support the delivery of election commitments and ensure that disability reforms in the ACT, our effective, inclusive and sustainable.
Our priorities include:
Priority 1: education funding reform for an inclusive system, in which we seek a substantial increase to the loading for students, additional resources for LSAs, funding infrastructure, administered positions and to address labour market supply issues
Priority 2 health, responding to complex needs and systemic gaps in which we seek funding to improve the circumstances of long stay patients that the university of Canberra rehabilitation hospital, urgent rectification work at North Canberra Hospital, training in the social model of disability and disability liaison roles as well as funding to support the involvement of people with disability in health reform processes. We also seek funding to ensure there is at least one fully accessible non hospital multi modal screening option in the act.
Priority 3 is housing and planning reforms, in which we seek funding for a capital improvement fund to facilitate fast tracked housing mods, a dedicated housing advocate position to sit within AFI and a community led housing research project.
Priority 4 is infrastructure access and transport in which we seek funding to community councils and DPO’s to enable improved engagement with neighbourhood voice organisations, increased resourcing for new transport digital platforms and to improve the on demand transport experience
Priority 5 seeks funding to deliver the ACT Disability Strategy and election commitments and build sector capability to support reform. This also includes resourcing the policy advisory groups operated by WWDACT at a cost of $32,000 over 2 years ($16,000 per annum) and $150,000 to ACT Down Syndrome and Intellectual Disability to support their Advocacy Reference Group and their systemic advocacy capability. We also seek funding of $74,000 to resource the ACT Disability Caucus through a dedicated three-days-per-week position, based at AFI, to support ongoing coordination and provide an efficient, consistent point of engagement with government.
You can read the submission below.
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Submission to the ACT Budget Consultation 2026-27
WWDACT has made a submission to the ACT budget process. We are calling for:
- Increased funding for violence prevention
- Support for parents with disabilities
- Support for sexual and reproductive health
- Inclusion of women and non-binary people with disabilities in policy consultation processes
You can read our submission below.
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Submission to the Inquiry into ACT Health system data, demand and processes
WWDACT made a submission to the independent Inquiry into ACT Health system data, demand and processes.
As part of preparation for this submission, WWDACT surveyed our members.
We received 22 survey responses from women and non-binary people with disabilities. They talked about their experiences in the public healthcare system.
WWDACT also consulted with our Policy Advisory Committee, consisting of 6 women and non-binary people with lived experience of disabilities.
You can read our submission below.
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Joint Budget Submission 2025-26
The ACT Disability Directed Advocacy Caucus is pleased to make a submission to the community consultation process for the 2025/26 ACT Budget.
The ACT Disability Directed Advocacy Caucus is made up of Women with Disabilities ACT, Advocacy for Inclusion and ACT Down Syndrome and Intellectual Disability. We advocate together representing Canberrans with disabilities.
In our submission we have identified five key priorities for consideration and targeted investment.
These are:- Rescue package for ACT disability advocacy
- Funding people with disability to engage in foundational support reforms
- Funding for reform policy capacity in the ACT Government
- Meeting critical unmet needs
- Delivering government election commitments
We have two main urgent priority funding asks to address the disability advocacy funding crisis and enable people with disability to engage with government reforms, support the foundational supports implementation and stocktake, audit and surface capacity to deliver tier one foundational supports.
We also seek better government delivery capability and funding to deliver government election promises and address key priorities and support gaps.
You can read our full submission below. -
Joint submission to the General Foundational Supports consultation
Last week WWDACT, along with Women with Disabilities Australia and Women with Disabilities Victoria, made our submission to the General Foundational Supports consultation process. This submission includes the survey report from our joint survey a couple of months ago, which received just under 200 responses nationwide. A massive thank you to everyone who contributed to this work, through a survey submission, conversations with our team, or feedback on the final product.
We’re looking forward to continuing working with the ACT and Federal governments, along with our sister organisations, as they keep developing this new system of supports.
You can download and read the submission and report using the links below.
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#WhatWomensServicesNeed: 2024 ACT Election Platform
Women with Disabilities ACT has come together with Women’s Health Matters and other ACT women’s services to show our joint election priorities.
In a city like Canberra, everyone should be safe from violence, have access to health services, and supportive and equitable jobs and communities.
While there have been steps in the right direction, slow action on domestic, family and sexual violence and women’s health and wellbeing and an under-resourced and overwhelmed women’s sector means that gender equity is still out of reach for ACT women.
Canberra women services need better. This election, ACT women’s services across the sector call for action from the future Government to:
📣Prioritise ending domestic, family and sexual violence
📣Recognise and resource specialist approaches to end sexual violence
📣Promote women’s health and wellbeing
📣Resource women’s policy
📣Value women’s work.
You can read our joint platform below.
Authorised by Kat Reed for Women with Disabilities ACT
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Joint submission: Menstrual products as NDIS supports
Like many people with disabilities and organisations, WWDACT has been alarmed at the proposed draft list of supports released prior to the passing of the National Disability Insurance Scheme
Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Bill 2024.The draft list of supports represents a huge change to how the NDIS operates. It attempts to remove many reasonable and necessary supports from the NDIS. It puts lots of supports into an exclusion category meaning that people with disabilities can’t access them with NDIS funding.
This draft list changes how the NDIS operates and goes against the objectives of the NDIS. Now, people on the NDIS can only access supports that are on the list, and they will lose access to some reasonable and necessary supports. This goes against the recommendations of the NDIS review and disempowers people with disabilities.
One of the items in the ‘exclusion category’ is menstrual products. Some people with disabilities need specific products to manage menstruation (such as period underwear) or use menstrual products to assist with their disability (daily use for incontinence). The draft list says that people with disabilities can’t access menstrual products using the NDIS anymore.
WWDACT has endorsed a submission by Women with Disabilities Australia and the Australian Women’s Health Alliance, expressing concern about menstrual products being excluded from NDIS support lists. You can read the submission below.
If you want to learn more about the draft NDIS support lists, here is some information:
Department of Social Services Consultation (now closed)Submission by Advocacy for Inclusion
Statement by Women with Disabilities Australia