Anonymous

Regarding 5. What support do employers need to attract, employ and retain
people with disability?

I suggest that Employment sectors building new large public-use infrastructure (eg railway stations, transport hubs, shopping centres, government buildings) be specifically encouraged & supported to embrace Co-Design but also what I’ll call Co-Inspection walkthroughs before providing public access to new infrastructure. Team of diverse range of consumer reps with Disability be invited, supported, & subsidised to participate first in Co-Design (which is happening more frequently nowadays), then later in Co-Inspection usability Walkthroughs (this would be a new activity as doesn’t seem to happen in Australia) to detect construction faults & usability oversights at a stage when much less costly & disruptive to rectify than after opening to public.

To prove the worth of the above suggestion it could initially be trialled on a volunteer or student placement basis – getting fresh sets of eyes with lived experience of disability to ‘walkthrough’ all public access areas of new infrastructure, take photos & make notes of issues, and submit report to project management.