National Disability Advocacy Framework 2023-2025

About our Framework
We wrote the National Disability Advocacy Framework 2023–2025.
We call it our Framework.
Our Framework is about disability advocacy.
Disability advocacy is when someone supports you to speak up for your rights.

Rights are rules about how people must treat you:
• fairly
• equally.

Disability advocacy supports people with disability to take part in:
• decisions that affect them
• the community
• services and support.

Our Framework is also about disability advocacy services.
Advocacy services:
• support you
• help you have your say
• give you information and advice.

Our Framework supports the rights of people with disability.
It will also help us make sure people with disability can find and use advocacy services in Australia.
Our Framework will help governments work together to make advocacy services better. 

What we want Australia to be in the future
We want people with disability to find and use disability advocacy services that:
• supports them
• protects them

How we updated the Framework
Governments created the first National Disability Advocacy Framework in 2012.
Since then, Australia has changed a lot.
This includes:
• laws about disability
• policies – plans for how to do things
• services people with disability use.

For example, the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).
Governments worked with the community to update the Framework.
They worked with:
• people with disability
• their families and carers.

They also worked with:
• advocacy organisations
• other organisations that work with people with disability.

They made sure the new Framework works with Australia’s Disability Strategy 2021–2031.
This is a government plan to support people with disability in all areas of their life.

What does the Framework focus on?
People with disability can face many challenges in their lives.
Disability advocacy gives them a way to:
• take part in decisions that affect them
• protect their rights.

There are many different types of disability advocacy.
For example, friends and family can support you with disability advocacy.
The Framework focuses on disability advocacy that governments pay for.
This includes how these services can:
• work with people with disability
• think about what each person needs and wants

Our principles
Principles are important ideas that we should always think about.
Our principles help us:
• make sure others treat people with disability fairly
• think about why advocacy services are important.

We explain our principles on the following pages.
Rights and making decisions
Everyone has the right to be safe from:
• violence – when someone hurts you
• abuse – when someone treats you badly
• neglect – when someone is not helping you how they are supposed to help you
• exploitation – when someone takes advantage of you.

Everyone has the right to:
• have people treat them with respect
• tell someone if people don’t treat them with respect.

Everyone has the right to find and use information.
Everyone has the right to communicate.
Everyone has the right to make complaints if they want to.
And no one should punish them for this.
When you make a complaint, you tell someone that something:
• has gone wrong
• isn’t working well.

Everyone has the right to privacy.
Your privacy is your right to choose:
• what you want to keep safe and private
• what other people can know about you.

All adults have the right to make their own choices.
And all children and young people have the right to take part in decisions as much as they can.
Sometimes other people must make decisions for people with disability.
When this happens, these people need to think about:
• what they want to happen
• their rights.

Safety and justice
It’s important to protect the rights of people with disability.
It’s also important for people with disability to:
• know what their rights are
• feel safe.

And it’s important for everyone to treat people with disability equally.
People with disability should get support to understand:
• when someone doesn’t treat them the way they should
• what they can do if this happens.

Disability advocacy can also include:
• legal advice
• help from people who know the law, such as a lawyer.

People with disability should be able to get legal advice if they want it.
Taking part in the community and getting support
It’s important for people with disability to get support.
It’s important to:
• listen to what people with disability need
• communicate with them.

Everyone has the right to be able to find and use safe advocacy services where they live.
It’s important that advocacy services think about what people with disability need to use their services.
For example, what they need to communicate.

Listening to people with disability
People with disability often say:

“Nothing about us, without us.”

This means disability advocacy should listen to people with disability when they speak up for what they need.
Disability advocacy should also help them:
• speak up by using what they are good at
• learn about advocacy so they can do things for themselves.

Working with First Nations peoples
Our Framework will follow other plans that support First Nations peoples with disability.
It’s important for disability advocacy to be safe for First Nations:
• peoples
• communities.

Disability advocacy works well when it makes decisions with First Nations:
• people with disability
• communities.

First Nations peoples should be able to get disability advocacy through their community.
Disability advocacy should recognise what First Nations peoples:
• know
• are good at.

First Nations peoples should also be able to use information to help them make decisions about services. 

Respecting different experiences
Every person with disability:
• is different
• needs different things.

It’s important to respect each person’s experiences.
This includes experiences they’ve had because of their age.
This includes experiences because of who they are:
• as a person
• attracted to.

This also includes experiences because of their:
• religion

The goals we want to reach
We want people with disability to have the same rights as everyone else in Australia.
We want people with disability to take part in decisions that affect them.
We want people with disability to:
• ask for what they need
• feel supported to get what they need.

We want people with disability to have their say:
• in the community
• about plans all levels of government make.

We want to make sure people with disability can get advocacy services.
Even if they live far away from cities or towns.
We also want to support people with disability to find and use the services they need.
This includes people who need support because of more than one thing in their life.
For example, if they have a disability and also speak a language other than English.
We want disability advocacy to include legal help.
This will help people with disability:
• use their rights
• fix legal problems.

We want to support all people with disability to share what they think about services they receive.
This might be a complaint.
Or it could be what the service is doing well.
We want First Nations peoples with disability to have a say in how advocacy services work.
We want advocacy services to understand First Nations peoples.
This includes advocacy services that are run by First Nations communities.
We want advocacy services to support First Nations peoples by:
• respecting them
• listening to them.

We want First Nations peoples to have advocacy services that are run by First Nations communities.
We want culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) people with disability to find and use safe advocacy services.
CALD people:
• come from different backgrounds
• speak languages other than English.

We want advocacy services to support CALD people by:
• respecting them
• listening to them.
 
We want LGBTIQA+ people with disability to find and use safe advocacy services.
LGBTIQA stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer and questioning and asexual.
The ‘+’ is for people who are part of the LGBTIQA+ community but don’t talk about themselves using a word from this list.
People also use these words to talk about who:
• they’re attracted to
• they feel they are as a person.

We want people with disability to live in communities that are inclusive.
When the community is inclusive, everyone feels like they belong.
We want governments to work with people with disability on decisions that affect them.
This includes decisions about:
• laws
• government plans
• government services.

We want the community to:
• understand the rights of people with disability
• know about advocacy services
• learn about what people with disability bring to the community.

We want disability advocacy to use information and facts.
We also want disability advocacy to think about how it works with other disability supports.

Reaching our goals
All levels of government must work together to reach the goals in our Framework.
We need to make sure people with disability are the focus of new plans that affect them.
To make our Framework better, we will:
• work with people with disability
• listen to people with disability.

We need to work with others to protect the rights of people with disability.
We can do this by changing:
• services
• policies
• ways of working.

We need to help the community understand:
• the rights of people with disability
• disability advocacy.

We need to make sure it’s easy to see how:
• the government pays for disability advocacy
• this supports everyone equally.

We need to collect more information to:
• plan disability advocacy
• make these services better.

Disability advocacy needs to work well with:
• government services
• community services.

We need to create advocacy services for First Nations peoples.
And they need to work with plans we have that support First Nations peoples.
We created a plan to make sure governments work together to reach the goals in our Framework.
We call it the Disability Advocacy Work Plan.
We created the plan with:
• governments
• people with disability.

It works with other plans and strategies that support people with disability.

We created an Easy Read version of the plan.
You can find it on our website.
www.dss.gov.au/nationaldisabilityadvocacyframework
Contact us
You can visit our website.
www.dss.gov.au/nationaldisabilityadvocacyframework

Word list
This list explains what the bold words mean.
Advocacy services
Advocacy services:
• support you
• help you have your say
• give you information and advice.
Culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD)
CALD people:
• come from different backgrounds
• speak languages other than English.
Complaint
When you make a complaint, you tell someone that something:
• has gone wrong
• isn’t working well.
Disability advocacy
Disability advocacy is when someone supports you to speak up for your rights.
Framework
A framework explains how things should work.
Inclusive
When the community is inclusive, everyone feels like they belong.
LGBTIQA+
LGBTIQA stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer and questioning and asexual.
The ‘+’ is for people who are part of the LGBTIQA+ community but don’t talk about themselves using a word from this list.
Principles
Principles are important ideas that we should always think about.
Privacy
Your privacy is your right to choose:
• what you want to keep safe and private
• what other people can know about you.
Rights
Rights are rules about how people must treat you:
• fairly
• equally.

You can find more information about the Framework on our website.
www.dss.gov.au/nationaldisabilityadvocacyframework