All Means All has made a submission to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on the Draft Guidelines on Addressing Multiple and Intersectional Forms of Discrimination Against Women and Girls with Disabilities.

Our submission focuses on education as a domain where intersecting discrimination on the basis of gender, disability, Indigeneity, race, and socio-economic status compound disadvantage for girls and women with disability and limit their lifelong opportunities.

All Means All has called for the Committee to affirm inclusive education as a transformative and rights-based measure that advances equality, and to urge States to adopt positive duties requiring education providers to proactively eliminate discrimination.

📄 Read our full submission below.

All Means All has made a submission to the United Nations Human Rights Council as part of Australia’s Fourth Universal Periodic Review (UPR).

Our submission focuses on Australia’s failure to uphold the right to inclusive education under Article 24 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Despite numerous inquiries, decades of research and clear guidance from international human rights bodies, successive Australian governments have continued to invest in and expand segregated education and failed to ensure a universally accessible, quality and inclusive education system.

While we acknowledge the breadth of human rights issues raised by other organisations in this UPR cycle, our focused submission reflects the urgency of this issue. We are especially concerned by recent regressive developments in education policy in Australia, suggesting a reorientation towards ‘co-location’ of new segregated ‘special’ schools with existing mainstream schools that will further entrench the ‘dual-track’ system and increase segregation of students with disability, together with the refusal by governments to commit to a planned and time-bound transition to inclusive education, including a strategy to phase out segregation over time, as recommended by the three ‘lived experience Commissioners’ in their recommendations in the Final Report of the Disability Royal Commission.

You can read our full submission here:

All Means All has made a submission to the Australian Government’s 2025 Anti-Bullying Rapid Review.

At All Means All we recognise that student wellbeing and safety are critical elements for inclusion. Our submission highlights that the disproportionate bullying of students with disability is not simply an individual issue, but a structural and systemic problem rooted in discrimination, segregation, and ableism.

We argue that effective bullying prevention requires school-wide transformation—embedding inclusion and human rights into the culture, structure, and practices of schooling. Our recommendations include implementing a National Roadmap for Inclusive Education, embedding anti-bullying strategies into multi-tiered system of support (MTSS), and ensuring student voice and leadership, particularly of students with disability, in designing safe, respectful, and inclusive schools.

You can read our Submission in full here:

All Means All has made a Submission to the process established under the United Nations Human Rights Council’s resolution 56/5 adopted on 10 July 2024, in which the Human Rights Council decided to establish an open-ended intergovernmental working group of the Human Rights Council with the mandate of exploring the possibility of, elaborating and submitting to the Human Rights Council a draft optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child with the aim to:

1. Explicitly recognize that the right to education includes early childhood care and education;
2. Explicitly state that, with a view to achieving the right to education, States shall:
   1. Make public pre-primary education available free to all, beginning with at least one year;
   2. Make public secondary education available free to all;
3. Recall that States shall promote and encourage international cooperation in matters relating to education;
4. Consider a provision that would allow for States parties to the Convention on the Rights of the Child to incorporate all reporting on their obligations under the optional protocol into their reports submitted under article 44 of the Convention, eliminating the need for an initial or other separate reports.

All Means All’s Submission has been endorsed by the following Australian organisations:

You can read our Submission here:

All Means All supports National Children’s Commissioner Anne Hollonds’ call for urgent, coordinated national action to prevent violence, abuse, and neglect of children in early childhood education.

The ABC Four Corners investigation aired on 17 March 2025 exposed shocking practices against children. This included the use of restrictive practices against young children, in particular children with disability, alongside widespread neglect.

All children have the right to be free from violence, abuse, and neglect, and to learn in an inclusive and safe education system.

We share Commissioner Hollonds’ concern that the investigation laid bare serious failures in the regulatory system governing Australia’s early childhood education and care (ECEC) sector. This system is failing to prevent and adequately respond to violence, abuse, and neglect against children, including children with disability.

Dr Rhonda Galbally AC, Patron of All Means All:

“The Disability Royal Commission heard about horrific instances of violence, abuse and neglect of children with disability in early childhood education.   We found widespread systemic failings across education systems that allow such serious harm against children to go unchecked. The Four Corners investigation has reinforced this disturbing reality within the ECEC sector.” “Urgent reform is needed to ensure that all children, including those with disability, can receive an early childhood education that is safe and free from violence, abuse and neglect. This is a foundation of ensuring a quality and inclusive ECEC sector for all.”

We call on the Education Ministers Meeting to take immediate action to address the critical gaps in laws, regulations, policies and enforcement that allow violence, abuse and neglect of children in ECEC to continue. This should include establishing an Independent ECEC Commission as recommended by the Productivity Commission in 2024.  Regulators must be adequately resourced to deliver timely assessments of service quality and safety and take action to tackle concerns.

Reforms should be informed by the findings of the Disability Royal Commission and its recommendations should be adapted and implemented in the ECEC sector. This includes prohibiting restrictive practices and strengthening monitoring and enforcement mechanisms to ensure these practices never occur.

Urgent action is needed to ensure every child has access to a safe, high-quality and inclusive early childhood education.

You can download a printable copy of our Press Release here.