Consultation period

29 April 2019 - 12:01 am To 26 July 2019 - 11:59 pm

Moderation Guidelines for Online Forum to shape the national disability strategy beyond 2020

About the online forum for National Disability Strategy Beyond 2020

The online forum for the National Disability Strategy Beyond 2020 is moderated live between the hours of 9am-5pm AEST from Monday, 17 June to Friday, 22 June 2019.

We will be discussing the following topics as they relate to people with disability and the future of Australia’s national disability policies.

  • Human rights and being equal
  • Inclusion in all community life
  • Independence and wellbeing, and
  • Emerging areas.

Terms of Use

These Terms of Use set out the rights of the Department of Social Services (DSS) when engaging with the public in an open online forum using engage.dss.gov.au, enabling consistent application across the department, and establishing expectations and rules of engagement between DSS and the public.

Contributors should familiarise themselves with, and must agree to, the Terms of Use before participating. If you do not accept these Terms of Use, you must refrain from using, or engaging with the online forum.

The Department of Social Services, and its contractors, reserves the right to:

  • restrict, suspend or terminate your access to the online forum if you are found to be in breach of the Terms of Use
  • refuse, moderate, move or remove (including delete, hide or edit), any material that you post in breach of these Terms of Use, the ascertainment of which is to fall under the moderator’s or account administrator’s discretion, exercised in accordance with these Terms of Use and Australian law.

The moderation process

  • The online forum for the National Disability Strategy Beyond 2020 will be moderated by external moderators at The Social Deck.
  • The forum will be moderated live from 9.00am to 5.00pm AEST only.
  • Outside of this time, comments will be reviewed prior to being published at 9.00am each morning. A comment made after 5.00pm or before 9.00am on the forum days will not appear immediately on the page.
  • Moderators will pose questions during the online forum, using comments.
  • Where appropriate or required, moderators will respond directly to comments and questions by replying to comments, or may start a new comment to provide more information.
  • Responses will be conversational and informal. If you seek a formal response from the department on a matter, please address your request to the relevant area by referring to the ‘Contact DSS’ page of the Department of Social Services website.
  • The Australian Government has strict anti-discrimination laws. DSS takes a strong stance on deleting content which is discriminatory, hateful or threatening and actions which may offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate. DSS and its moderators will delete content that is not in accordance with these Terms of Use.
  • Your contribution may be removed if it does not comply with the Terms of Use.
  • Other users within the forum may report your contribution to the moderator for checking.

Rules for all contributors

In making your contribution, you agree that you will not use this online forum to:

  • post personal website addresses, email addresses, telephone numbers or any other personally identifiable information of yourself or others
  • collect or store personal information of any other person or group
  • abuse, harass, stalk, threaten or otherwise violate the legal rights of others
  • impersonate any person or entity, or falsely state or misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity. Making false representations may amount to a criminal offence
  • post any misleading, deceptive, false, defamatory or libellous content
  • post content that is insulting, threatening or hateful towards a certain group of people
  • post content to incite hatred on the basis of race, religion, gender, nationality, sexuality or any other personal characteristics
  • post inappropriate, profane, defamatory, obscene or indecent content
  • post or upload content of a partisan political nature
  • conduct any illegal activity or solicit the performance of any illegal activity
  • contribute any text or other material that infringes the intellectual property rights of others
  • spam your contribution to the site by sending multiple copies or versions of it
  • post off-topic or irrelevant contributions not in keeping with prescribed topics or themes
  • advertise or offer to sell any goods or services for any commercial purpose unless you have our written consent to do so.

What happens to my contribution?

Contributions submitted in this online forum will be analysed and used to inform the next national disability strategy for 2020 and beyond. The content of your contributions are, and will be treated by the Australian Government as non-confidential, public information. However, your name and details will nt be used in any public reports.

Generally, the moderator will inform help-seeking users about available services and information. Posts which contain a threat or disclosure about the safety and wellbeing of a person will be escalated as soon as practicable and/or the situation may be reported to emergency services on 000.

Intellectual property

By submitting a contribution, you accept full responsibility for ensuring that in making your contribution your intellectual property rights are not lost or diminished. This is for your own protection.

DSS does not warrant that any material or information you contribute will be protected against loss, misuse or alteration by third-parties. In particular, DSS does not warrant that you will not suffer loss or diminution of any intellectual property rights you currently own or may be able to obtain in relation to any material or information that you contribute.

If your contribution includes material in which the copyright is owned by another person or entity, you warrant that you have obtained all necessary permissions, authorisations, licences and consents required for the use of such materials and have made arrangements for the payment of any royalties or other fees payable in respect of the use of such material.

You agree to indemnify the Department against any loss, liability, claim, demand, damage or expense (including legal fees) asserted by any third-party (including yourself) arising out of a breach of the warranty referred to above or of these Terms of Use.

You grant DSS a royalty-free and irrevocable licence to do any act comprised in the copyright (including reproducing, publishing, performing or communicating to the public) in relation to the stories, material or information you contribute.

Privacy

DSS is subject to the obligations imposed by the Australian Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988 and will collect, hold, use or disclose your personal information in accordance with those Principles.

The DSS Privacy Policy outlines information on the collection of personal information, how an individual may access and correct any personal information, how to make a complaint about a breach of the Australian Privacy Principles and how any complaint will be dealt with.

By providing your personal information, including any sensitive information, on this online forum, you provide consent for DSS to collect and use your personal information for the purposes of displaying content, administering the forum and/or addressing any comments made. Any personal information you provide through participating in the online forum will not be used for any other purpose by DSS.

DSS will not disclose your personal information to any third-party, except to the extent that you choose to allow your information to be publically displayed on this open online forum. DSS is not responsible for the privacy practices of third-parties who may access information you choose to allow to be displayed.

Contact

For enquiries about the National Disability Strategy Beyond 2020 consultations, email disabilityreform@dss.gov.au

Contact us