Victoria Police Disability Action Plan 2025–2030

Message from the Chief Commissioner of Police

I am excited to launch the Victoria Police Disability Action Plan 2025-2030 (the Plan). This plan builds on the many achievements made through successive previous Victoria Police plans and continues to guide our work on reducing barriers and improving our services for people with disability.

The Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect, and Exploitation of People with Disability (the Royal Commission) recommended that police services ‘collaborate with people with disability in the co-design, implementation, and evaluation of strategies to improve police responses to people with disability’.

To prepare this plan, we spoke to almost 300 people, including people with disability, carers, families, advocates, and disability organisations through interviews and surveys.

We asked you to tell us what you think the priorities should be to support improving police responses to people with disability.

From these conversations we know that you want us to:

• improve police understanding of disability
• improve the way police communicate with and about people with disability
• ensure all our services are accessible
• show that we are an inclusive organisation through our employment practices.

Victoria Police’s vision is a safe Victoria, where everyone is safe and feels safe.

This plan sets out how we will achieve this vision for people with disability:

We know that we have a lot of work ahead of us to achieve this objective and that this work will go beyond the life of this plan and its actions.

We will continue our work in partnership with the Victoria Police Disability Portfolio Reference Group and most importantly, we will continue to listen to and learn from people with disability.

Mike Bush CNZM
Chief Commissioner, Victoria Police

Message from the Disability Portfolio Reference Group Co-Chairs

The Disability Portfolio Reference Group (DPRG) aims to enhance interactions and engagement between Victoria Police, the disability community, and the broader Victorian community. The DPRG brings stakeholder, community, and lived experience perspectives to the review and development of Victoria Police policies, processes, and initiatives.

We work together with the disability community to ensure everyone has equal access to safety, and dignity. This must continue to be a vital part of Victoria Police’s commitment to accessibility and inclusion.

Over the life of the Accessibility Action Plan 2021–2023, DPRG members provided valuable input and guidance around key actions. This included supporting Victoria Police’s Disability Liaison Officer (DLO) program.

Individual DRPG members also took part in programs and initiatives to increase the awareness and understanding of disability among senior Victoria Police officers and new recruits.

A refresh of DPRG membership in 2023 saw increased representation of people with lived experience and a number of organisations joined us for the first time. Along with community members with lived experience and Victoria Police employees, the following organisations make up the DPRG:

• Amaze
• Blind Citizen Australia
• Brain Injury Australia
• Different Journeys
• First People’s Disability Network
• Inclusive Rainbow Voices
• Office of the Public Advocate
• Spectrum Intersections
• Victorian Advocacy League for Individuals with Disability
• Victoria Police Enablers Network
• Villamanta Disability Rights Legal Service
• Women with Disabilities Victoria
• Yellow Ladybugs.

We are indebted to all members of the DPRG. We acknowledge the significance and impact when people with a disability share their lived experiences to create a more inclusive, accessible, and responsive organisation.

We look forward to working together over the next three years to deliver on the commitments outlined in this plan.

The Disability Pride Flag

Disability pride is a global movement that has its origins in disability advocacy against ableism and institutionalisation. It is about accepting and honouring every person's uniqueness and treating disability as a normal part of human diversity, in line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

The Disability Pride Flag captures the broad spectrum of different experiences of disability.

The faded black field represents mourning for ableist violence experienced by people with disability, while each of the five colours represents the diversity and experiences of disability (physical disabilities, neurodiversity, invisible and undiagnosed disabilities, emotional and psychiatric disabilities, and sensory disabilities).

The stripes are parallel to show solidarity across disabilities.