The recent Supreme Court of Victoria ruling makes clear that Victorian owners corporations are required to make reasonable adjustments for both tenants and visitors who have a disability.
Since 2015, Anne Black had lived in an apartment on the fourth floor of a residential development. In 2015, she developed disabilities that required her to use a wheelchair which inhibited her from accessing her apartment and other parts of the building.
Ms Black commenced proceedings, pursuant to sections 44, 45 and 56 of the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 (‘the EOA’), against the relevant Owners Corporation asserting that the Owners Corporation was unlawfully discriminating against her by failing to make alterations to the building so she could access the common areas and her apartment independently. Read together, sections 44 and 45 of the EOA essentially provide that a service provider must not discriminate against a person with a disability by refusing to make reasonable adjustments to a service so the disabled person may access or derive a substantial benefit from the service.
The Owners Corporation’s position was that its obligations were limited to consenting to Ms Black making reasonable alternations to the common property so long as she paid for those alterations. In support of that position the Owners Corporation relied on section 56 of the EOA which obliges Owners Corporations to allow owners to make reasonable alterations to the common property at their own cost in circumstances where those owners are disabled.
VCAT’s Determination
Senior Member Steele found that section 56 did not exclude the operation of sections 44 and 45 and therefore those sections applied to Owners Corporations as a service provider. However, the question of whether the Owners Corporation had unlawfully discriminated against Ms Black depended upon whether the alterations required by Ms Black were reasonable within the meaning of section 45(3) of the EOA. Submissions on the reasonableness of Ms Black’s requests were not made at this hearing.
Background
Over the past 30 years the Commonwealth Government and the state and territory governments have introduced laws to help protect people from discrimination and harassment.
The following laws operate at a federal level and the Australian Human Rights Commission has statutory responsibilities under them:
- Age Discrimination Act 2004
- Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986
- Disability Discrimination Act 1992
- Racial Discrimination Act 1975
- Sex Discrimination Act 1984.
The following laws operate at a state and territory level, with state and territory equal opportunity and anti-discrimination agencies having statutory responsibilities under them:
- Australian Capital Territory – Discrimination Act 1991
- New South Wales – Anti-Discrimination Act 1977
- Northern Territory – Anti-Discrimination Act 1996
- Queensland – Anti-Discrimination Act 1991
- South Australia – Equal Opportunity Act 1984
- Tasmania – Anti-Discrimination Act 1998
- Victoria – Equal Opportunity Act 2010
- Western Australia – Equal Opportunity Act 1984.
Commonwealth laws and the state/territory laws generally overlap and prohibit the same type of discrimination. As both state/territory laws and Commonwealth laws apply, you must comply with both. Unfortunately, the laws apply in slightly different ways and there are some gaps in the protection that is offered between different states and territories and at a Commonwealth level. To work out your obligations you will need to check the Commonwealth legislation and the state or territory legislation in each state in which you operate.
You will also need to check the exemptions and exceptions in both the Commonwealth and state/territory legislation as an exemption or exception under one Act will not mean you are exempt under the other. See the table below for detailed information on Victorian Acts.
