Advocacy builds for Australian universal design centre

Age Discrimination Commissioner Susan Ryan has backed calls for Australia to follow Ireland’s lead and establish a centre for excellence in universal design.

Ms Ryan told the inaugural Universal Design Conference in Sydney on Thursday that embedding inclusive design principles in Australia would support the implementation of both aged care reform and the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

Speaking after a keynote address by Dr Gerard Craddock, chief officer of the Centre for Excellence in Universal Design in Dublin, Ms Ryan said the success of the Irish centre was a call for action in Australia.

“I have come across a lot of big ideas and many good ideas but I don’t think I have come across an idea that is as exciting in its ramifications and possibilities as the idea of universal design,” she told the forum instigated by Council on the Ageing NSW.

“During the time I have been Age Discrimination Commissioner and very recently Disability Discrimination Commissioner, I can’t think of an idea which if implemented would make a bigger impact.”

Ms Ryan said Australia’s ambitious social reform agenda relied on environments that promoted independence and an older person’s capacity to exercise choice. She said this involved accessible public transport and universally designed housing and neighbourhoods. “You can’t successfully age-in-place at home if the home is badly designed,” she said.

For people with a disability, boosting workforce participation required access to buildings and workplaces that met the needs of everyone in the community. She said:

“The NDIS and aged care reform really depend on universal design to work.”

Ms Ryan said that current implementation of universal design in Australia was patchy and she committed to supporting any efforts to establish a centre for excellence in Australia to harness its “transformative impact” locally.

The Dublin-based Centre for Excellence in Universal Design is a statutory body established by the Irish Government in 2007 as part of the country’s National Disability Authority. It has helped embed universal design into educational curricula, developed professional design standards for industry and built community awareness of its benefits.

Dr Craddock told the forum the centre is part of the government’s department of justice, in recognition of the centre’s role in advancing equality and community participation.

Ms Ryan said that Ireland provides “a strong case for showing how Australia can get to a point where we not only have a centre for excellence in universal design but a society and an economy that is implementing it.”

Similarly, Jo Manton, director of Institute of Access Training Australia, said an Australian centre would bring a whole range of people together to “crystallise a vision for universal design in Australia.”

She said the baby boomer generation would also be a key driver in this area by demanding universal access as a basic right and that industry were also starting to understand that “good access was also good business.”

The inaugural Australian Universal Design Conference was instigated by COTA NSW and organised by Interpoint Events, the events arm of the Intermedia Group, publisher of Australian Ageing Agenda.