Disability Access News

Federal Parliament has sped up the process of ratifying the United Nations treaty on the rights of people with a disability in a bid to ensure that Australia can nominate people to be on the panel of experts to implement it.

Human rights commissioner Graeme Innes has urged Parliament's Treaties Committee to take the unusual step of speeding up its finding so Australia can ratify the treaty before July and be able to contribute to the process.

Committee Chairman Kelvin Thomson says the advice has been accepted.

"We recognise that this will truncate the opportunity for interested persons to make submissions about the treaty," he said.

"However, the committee will consider any other issues in the framing of its final report which it intends to table at a later date.

"The committee encourages the Government to ratify the convention as quickly as possible."