‘Disability’ and ‘Discrimination’ in the Context of Disability Discrimination Legislation: The UK and Australian Acts Compared

Abstract

Both the Commonwealth of Australia and the UK now have in place anti-disability discrimination legislation. In the example of the Commonwealth, that legislation reflected a positive desire by the community and the government to eliminate disability discrimination in public life. In the UK on the other hand, the legislation introduced represented something of a compromise between activists, who wanted stronger legislation, and the government who up until that point had wanted none. Historically anti-discrimination legislation in both jurisdictions has been similarly structured; containing similar grounds of discrimination and also a similar conceptualisation of discrimination. However, partly no doubt as a result of government antipathy, the UK model of legislation departs from the model used in earlier antidiscrimination legislation in a number of key respects: the legislation contains a new conceptualisation of discrimination; and, it introduces for the first time in antidiscrimination legislation a general ‘defence’ of justification for all forms of discrimination. Additionally, the definition of ‘disability’ employed in the Act is very narrow, concentrating upon a person's functional limitations in relation to ‘normal’ activities.

The purpose of this article is to contrast the concepts of ‘disability’ employed in the Acts, and to consider the effectiveness of both the ‘traditional’ and the new conceptualization of discrimination contained in the Commonwealth and UK Acts respectively. While disability under the UK Act is reflective of the government's antipathy to the new legislation, the reconceptualization of discrimination is, on the whole, a positive feature, moving away from the principle that equality equals ‘sameness’, to one which gives recognition to disadvantage and places an explicit, positive, obligation on employers to redress that disadvantage.

Other areas of difference between the two Acts — such as in the area of ‘defenses’, the development of enforceable Standards (under the Commonwealth Act), and methods of enforcement will be covered in a subsequent article.