Commonwealth legislation
The Australian Human Rights Commission references legislation such as the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 which requires providing equitable access to people with disability. It is unlawful Under the Act, to discriminate against a person with disability by excluding access to information and services, which includes those delivered online.
- In 2008 Australia ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)
- In 2021 Australia’s Disability Strategy (ADS) was launched, updating the 2010-2020 National Disability Strategy. The ADS is Australia’s whole of government plan for the progressive implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Government standards
The Australian Government has endorsed the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.2 for all government websites. WCAG is also included in:
- Standard Australia’s AS EN 301 549 ICT Procurement Framework, and
- Australian Human Rights Commission’s Guidelines on equal access to digital goods and services was announced on 2 April 2025 and replaces the WWW Access: Disability Discrimination Act Advisory Notes Version 4.0, October 2010. The Guidance is now in-line with the latest WCAG and Procurement advice and standards.
WCAG is part of a series of accessibility guidelines, including the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) and the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG). Essential Components of Web Accessibility explains the relationship between the different guidelines.
Guides to help meet the standards
The Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) provides advice on how to meet compliance to Australian standards is detailed in the Digital Experience Toolkit that references compliance with the latest WCAG.
The DTA also recently promoted the Australia Government Digital Policy. The policy’s goals are further supported by the 4 standards.
- the Digital Service Standard now has a version 2 that references compliance with the latest WCAG
- The Digital Inclusion Standard ensures the people who need government’s services most aren’t left behind.
- The Digital Access Standard promotes reuse to ensure services are easy to discover and seamless to access.
- The Digital Performance Standard requires agencies to monitor, report and improve the quality of their digital services.
Australian Department and Agency Policies
- Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade – Inclusion Policy
- Accessibility is also included in the Commonwealth Government Style Manual which is the standard for Australian Government writing and editing.
- Department of Social Services developed Engaging People with Disability Good Practice Guidelines, published on the Disability Gateway and assessed against the Digital Service Standard by OZeWAI members.
States and territories have built on this work to develop their own toolkits and guidance:
- New South Wales (NSW) has a Digital Services Toolkit, that includes Design Standards and a Design System.
- NSW has developed their own Accessibility and Inclusivity Toolkit and updated guidance on ‘Buying accessible digital products and services everyone can use’.
- Queensland (QLD) Digital Service Standard is based on the DTA Federal criteria and Buy Accessible ICT guidance.
- South Australian (SA) has an Accessibility Toolkit that is being used by many other governments and agencies as an initial source of accessibility guidance.
- Victoria (VIC) has developed their standards as Digital Guides.
- Western Australia (WA) has the Office of Digital Government who is developing a Digital Inclusion Blueprint that has started with a digital inclusion report.
Australian education
Related international standards
- European Accessibility Act – will be enforced 2025. Will impact any companies who sell or build digital products and services in the EU.
- New Zealand Standards and New Zealand digital guide and checklist for procurement
- W3C Web Sustainability Guidelines
- PDF/UA Standards for PDFs and testing Portable Document Format (PDFs) PDF PAC Tester and Validate PDF
- W3C ePub Standard and Daisy Consortium’s ePub Standard and find an ePub product
- JTC1 Special WG Accessibility believes that the work in the area of information communication and technology standardization for accessibility is a major undertaking, encompassing many international, regional and local interests. Additionally, there are significant standards efforts taking place in ISO, IEC, ITU and the national and regional standards bodies as well as various consortia/fora and user groups. In response to JTC 1’s long term business plan and international, regional, national, and end user requirements in the area of accessibility, the Special Working Group on Accessibility was established at the October 2004 JTC 1 Plenary meeting in Berlin.
- Instructional Management System (IMS) Global Learning Standards are free to download and free to use. To claim conformance to an IMS standard an implementing organization must complete the certification process indicated and join the relevant IMS Alliance community. Each Alliance community serves as the developer and conformance certification community for the particular standard(s). IMS Affiliate and Contributing Members are eligible for participation in all Alliances.
- For the current schema.org vocabulary terms, please refer to the Schema.org Accessibility Properties for Discoverability Vocabulary. The vocabulary is now maintained by the Accessibility Discoverability Vocabulary for Schema.org Community Group.
- United States Section 508 is the official website with resources for understanding and implementing ‘Section 508’. There are also resources for understanding compliance for ICT procurement using a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT), which is maintained by Information Technology Industry Council (ITIC).
- Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability; Accessibility of Web Information and Services of State and Local Government Entities
- Canada has an Accessibility Strategy Policy that relates to their Accessible Canada Act.Canada has also adopted EN 301 549 Accessible ICT Procurement and created an HTML version to share.