Launch of Westpac Accessibility Action Plan

6 September 2006 Graeme Innes Human Rights Commissioner and Commissioner responsible for Disability Discrimination

Can I begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, the Gadigal people of the Eora nation.

Thank you David for this invitation to participate in the launch of Westpac's third Action Plan.

This launch comes a few days after the International Day of Disabled Persons which this year has electronic information access as its theme and the release last Monday of the Australian Bankers' Association progress report on Accessibility of Electronic Banking.

In its report the ABA summarised progress made in the area of electronic banking since the introduction of the ABA voluntary standards in 2002. The report also identified a number of areas for further development:

First for the ABA, in co-operation with HREOC, to work with banks to promote the development and enhancement of Disability Action Plans and other accessibility service commitments across the banking industry.

Second for ABA , in consultation with its members and the disability sector, to complete its work on developing industry guidance on principles for functionality of authentication and online security in banking.

Third for the ABA and member banks to identify improvements in accessibility of electronic banking and include information in communications with the public.

Finally for the ABA to conduct a stocktake of the voluntary Industry Standards to take account of technological and service delivery changes .

I know that Westpac, as a member of ABA , has made a considerable contribution to the development of the industry standards and is currently contributing to the development of guidelines on authentication system a draft of which was released last Monday for community consultation.

I welcome your contribution to the work of ABA and hope that will continue.

The fact that this is your third plan seems to me to indicate that yours is an organisation that wants to be at the forefront of change in the area of accessible services and, looking at your achievements over the past two years, I believe you have much to be congratulated on.

I am especially impressed at the vigorous approach you are taking to addressing barriers in your premises, strategies for improving access to your services for customers with disabilities and your attempts to integrate monitoring and reporting of access issues into your general business accountability systems.

One of the particularly encouraging aspects of Westpac's new plan is the move away from a focus on 'disability' compliance towards a culture where access becomes just one of the issues routinely consider in all business areas. This change is symbolically expressed through the title of your new plan which is 'Accessibility Action Plan'.

Moving any organisation from a culture of thinking about access as a special afterthought to one where accessibility is 'the way we do things around here' involves strong advocacy and I offer my congratulations to those people within the organisation who, with the support of David Morgan, are championing that change, particularly Sally Herman, Niki Kesoglou and Ruth Thompson.

As well as a number of ongoing actions in relation to improving access in areas such as buildings, ATMs and Internet services it is particularly good to see new commitments in the areas of captioning of customer information videos, redesign of queuing systems, mental health awareness training and a number of employment related strategies.

Westpac clearly understands the value of pro-actively addressing barriers to its services and facilities and using its Action Plan as a means of achieving equitable access, but it also recognises that improving access for customers with disabilities improves access for all customers and is just good business practice.

It would be remiss of me to let this opportunity go by without trying to push out the boat a little so let me say I particularly look forward over the next few months to further discussions with Westpac on building on the employment strategies to ensure that your goal of increasing employment rates of people with disabilities can be met.

I congratulate you David and Westpac and look forward to hearing about your progress during the life of this plan and encourage you all to embrace the culture of "How can we do things differently" in order to ensure accessibility.