Upholding the human rights of disabled people in ‘closed’ and ‘semi-closed’ care settings is generally agreed to require independent monitoring and reporting. Community Visitor schemes are a key mechanism in this independent process. The unique powers of Community Visitors to undertake unannounced, onsite visits to places such as Specialist Disability Accommodation (‘SDA’) (often referred to as group homes), involuntary psychiatric facilities, and supported residential services (‘SRS’) help monitor people’s safety, well-being, living conditions, and the quality of services they are receiving. 

Community Visitor schemes have been operating in Australian states and territories (except Western Australia and Tasmania) for over 30 years. More recently, Community Visitor programs have been significantly impacted by the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). This new privatised approach has seen most governments move out of direct service provision. Yet state-run services were the main sites visited by Community Visitors in the past. Instead, the new NDIS service landscape comprises many private or non-government organisation (NGO) service providers that are either registered or unregistered with the NDIS (with unregistered providers including individual support workers directly employed by NDIS participants). 

This report seeks to examine the role of Community Visitors in being able to undertake adequate safeguarding in the diversified and privatised service landscape of the NDIS. It examines 'grey-zone' sites - those sites where there is ambiguity about whether Community Visitors have the statutory authority to visit. In these settings, the potential remains for people with disabilities to face excessive control or coercion, and even outright violence and abuse, as the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability has made clear in its 2023 report. 

To complicate matters, in 2017, Australia ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT). OPCAT has implications for the disability service settings monitored by Community Visitor. Under OPCAT, Australia is obliged to create a reporting framework to prevent torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment in closed settings. For Australia, this requires a federal model of ‘National Preventive Mechanisms’ (NPM). NPMs are independent visiting bodies established at the domestic level, composed of one or more bodies, for the prevention of torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. An NPM has the potential to overlap with Community Visitor schemes in monitoring certain disability service settings. 

As well as considering the impact of the NDIS, this report takes the opportunity to consider the potential role of Community Visitors in Australia’s OPCAT monitoring obligations.