TELECOMMUNICATIONS INDUSTRY OMBUDSMAN ACTION PLAN LAUNCH

Graeme Innes

Melbourne

28 February 2008

I begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet.

I'm very pleased to launch this Disability Action Plan for the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman.

I want to congratulate everyone involved in putting this action plan together.

Access to telecommunications services and equipment is increasingly, something that affects us all - an essential part of social interaction, of work, and of access to or participation in an ever greater range of activities and services. All of us, rather than just ET, phone home. This month, mobile phones celebrated 21 years of service in Australia . And yesterday stockbrokers announced the availability to trade on the stock exchange using SMS.

Access to telecommunications must include access for people with disabilities and older people. An ever greater proportion of the Australian population is made up of older people, and people with disabilities. Issues which affect people with a disability will affect more and more of us personally as we age, and will affect a greater proportion of the Australian people as the population ‘ages'. So access issues for older people, and people with disabilities, are universal access issues; they are relevant to us all.

It's therefore very important that one of the regulators of telecommunications in Australia has a disability action plan. The Disability Discrimination Act sets out various practical measures to promote access to services and employment. One of these measures is the introduction of a disability action plan.

Disability Action Plans were included in the DDA to encourage service providers to assess their services and programs so as to identify barriers that exist, and devise strategies to address them. They were also included to provide mechanisms to encourage a pro-active approach to eliminating discrimination.

Implementing disability Action plans is one way that an organisation can create an accessible service and workplace. These plans are very important, and can successfully achieve access if they are conceived and implemented properly.

The TIO action plan is an excellent example of a thoughtful, considered, well researched and strategic policy which sets out clearly and realistically how TIO plans to avoid and eliminate discrimination against people with a disability. I commend TIO on this achievement.

Now it's not usually my style to hand out such glowing reviews. However, I have been recently inspired. A few weeks ago at HREOC, we held a summit for all staff to celebrate our 21st birthday, but more importantly to plan and shape our future as an organisation. The method we used to self-examine was called appreciative inquiry. We looked at what we have done right, and how we did it, as a starting point for shaping the future. And we complemented ourselves on what we had done right.

Darrel Kerrigan of The Castle fame is the master of appreciative inquiry. Remember the scene where the family sits around the dinner table eating a relatively standard meal.

"What's this?" asks Darrel, with a note of delight in his voice.

"Chicken" replies his wife, suggesting that it's nothing out of the box.

"But there's something special on it?" says Darrell, not to be deterred.

"Seasoning" she replies, making little of it.

Darrell, irrepressibly appreciative, proclaims "looks like everybody's kicked a goal."

Inspired by this, I thought it fitting to look at your plan, and report back using the appreciative inquiry approach. This turned out to be an easy task as the plan is a good example of what to do to get it right.

So what's good about it, I hear you ask excitedly? The Action plan opens with the comment that it is not just a statement about equitable treatment for people with disabilities. Instead, it contains an ethos of equality and fairness that underlies all TIO policies.

This comment sums up the action plan well and resonates throughout the entire plan. The comment suggests, and the action plan shows, that TIO places disability access and inclusion as part of its "core business" rather than just an "add on".

This core concept of fairness is central to everything the TIO does. This is clear by the following features of the plan:

Firstly, High-Level Consultation

TIO conducted thorough and high-level consultation with reputable organisations in formulating this policy. This process shows that TIO has clearly established close relationships with key disability organisations as evidenced by the ability to attract representatives from a range of organisations to attend consultation meetings. This not only shows that TIO takes disability access seriously but that these key organisations take TIO seriously.

Secondly, Evaluation techniques

I am particularly impressed with the performance indicators that have been adapted in the Action Plan. It's the Human Rights Commission's experience that these indicators are an essential part of an action plan, and too often they are inadequate. The performance indicators in this plan have the potential to effectively evaluate the big picture outcomes of the plan. Far too often organisations think that ticking a box, and finalising a task, amounts to evaluation.

In summary, the plan is the culmination of clear research, thoughtful consideration and wide-spread and high level consultation. But most importantly, it doesn't just pay lip service to strategy, with a box ticked approach. This plan sets out targets, and well-thought out assessment tools which actually assess the progress. This is crucial to success.

It's always pleasing to see organisations implement disability action plans, but it's particularly exciting to see such a useful plan, which has the ability to make a difference. I commend you for taking the disability access issues seriously. To paraphrase Darrell Kerrigan "looks like everybody's kicked a goal."