CHAIR (Mr Danby) —I am pleased to declare this first public hearing of the inquiry into the migration treatment of disability in Australia. I welcome all of my colleagues and all of the witnesses. I look forward to hearing a range of views on how we find the balance between recognising the rights of people with disabilities or health conditions and contributions they can make to our country or making sure that the impacts on our health and community services are sustainable. Although the committee does not require witnesses to give evidence under oath, I would remind everyone that this hearing is a legal proceeding of the parliament and warrants the same respect as proceedings of the House itself.

Before I call our first witness, the Australian Disability Discrimination Commissioner, I would ask his indulgence and that of our visitors while we authorise some submissions to this inquiry. This is necessary so that our witnesses can speak freely about their submissions as public documents. The committee has received a number of additional submissions to the inquiry, some of which need to be authorised. They are also some minor amendments to existing submissions.

The committee accepts the submissions numbered 31 to 48, 50 to 63, and 66 to 70 as submissions to the inquiry. The committee accepts 31(A) as a confidential attachment to submission No. 31. The committee accepts submission numbered 49 and 64 as submissions to the inquiry into migration treatment of disability and authorise them for publication. The committee accepts that submission numbered 65 be accepted as a submission into the inquiry into migration treatment of disability and authorise it publication, with the name of the submitter published only as ‘ZK’. The committee resolves that the resolution for the publication of submission No. 12 from ‘Name withheld’ be rescinded insofar as to allow the secretariat to replace the authorised version with a corrected version emailed by the submitter. Finally, the committee resolves that the resolution for the publication of submission No. 27 from ‘Name withheld’ be rescinded insofar as it would allow the secretariat to obscure the name of the migration agent mentioned on page 3.

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