Accessibility compliance guides · Australia

AHRC digital access guidelines

The Australian Human Rights Commission’s web access notes are not a second statute. They explain how to meet the Disability Discrimination Act when the service is a website. Procurement and agency policy then turn that guidance into WCAG AA.

What they are: Advisory notes under the Disability Discrimination Act, not a separate Act
Publisher: Australian Human Rights Commission
Technical pointer: WCAG conformance as the way to avoid discrimination online

What it is

The Commission’s World Wide Web Access: Disability Discrimination Act Advisory Notes describe what the DDA means for websites and other online services. They point organizations to the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines as the practical measure of access.

The notes do not replace the Act. A complaint is still a DDA complaint, conciliated by the AHRC and capable of going to the Federal Court. Following the notes is how you show you took the duty seriously. Ignoring them is a hard position once a complainant cites them.

Government practice is stricter and more specific. Australian government digital services are expected to meet WCAG Level AA, and ICT procurement uses AS EN 301 549. The notes, the DDA, and the procurement standard all land in the same place: test the site properly, fix it, and keep a record.

We use the notes as the briefing for private-sector DDA work and use WCAG 2.1/2.2 AA plus AS EN 301 549 when the audience is a government buyer.

Who needs to comply

Anyone the DDA already covers should read the notes. Government suppliers should read the procurement standard as well.

Organizations providing online services in Australia. The notes are written for you. They are the Commission’s view of what “accessible” means under the Act.
Complaint respondents. If an AHRC complaint arrives, the notes are part of the conversation. An audit that follows them is more useful than a promise to look into it.
Government suppliers. You will also be asked for WCAG AA and often AS EN 301 549. The notes alone are not the tender response.

Timeline

Guidance is updated as WCAG is updated. The underlying Act does not expire.

Advisory notes. The AHRC has pointed to WCAG conformance for years and expects organizations to follow the current W3C recommendation, not a frozen early version.
Government digital policy. Agencies move through WCAG 2.0, 2.1, and toward 2.2 at Level AA. We audit to 2.2 AA so a policy bump does not restart the project.
When a complaint is filed. There is no grace period. The notes matter most when conciliation starts.

What the rule requires

Read the notes as a method: conform, tell people, and offer a way to ask for help.

WCAG conformance. The notes’ technical answer. We test Level AA at the current 2.1/2.2 criteria, not only the 2.0 clauses an old policy PDF might still mention.
Equal access to the service. The legal question is whether a person with a disability can use the service. A conformant homepage with a broken form still fails that question.
A contact path. People need a way to report a barrier and get the information another way. We test that path.
Procurement alignment. Where AS EN 301 549 is in the contract, we report against it as well as against the notes.

How we help

We turn the Commission’s guidance into a test plan, a fix list, and a statement you can show if the AHRC asks.

An audit designed around the advisory notes and WCAG 2.1/2.2 AA, written so a non-specialist can see what the Commission would care about.
Fixes in the templates and components that generate pages, so the next campaign does not fail the same checks.
Manual testing with NVDA, JAWS, and VoiceOver, plus keyboard-only use and browser zoom. The failures these rules care about are often invisible to an automated scan.
Remediation in your production code by our developers, so the fix lives in the product and not only in a report.
An accessibility statement and, where a buyer or regulator expects one, a VPAT-based Accessibility Conformance Report grounded in the audit.
Training for the people who publish pages, documents, and campaigns after the audit.
A retest after major releases, so a later deploy does not quietly undo the work.

Web accessibility audit and remediation

Our process

Confirm what applies to you. We confirm whether you need a DDA / AHRC response, a government WCAG AA attestation, or both, and which sites and apps are in the service.
Audit the live experience. We review the pages, flows, documents, and apps people actually use, with assistive technologies as well as automated checks, and map each finding to the standard this rule points to.
Fix the barriers that block access. Our developers remediate structure, keyboard access, forms, contrast, names, and media in your codebase, starting with the journeys that gate a service.
Document what was tested. You receive the findings, what we fixed, and the statement or conformance report your team, counsel, or procurement office needs on file.
Keep it from slipping. We train publishers and retest after significant releases so new content does not reopen the same gaps.

Longer background: How the DDA applies to Australian websites.

Frequently asked questions

Are the AHRC notes legally binding?

They are guidance, not a regulation with its own fine schedule. The binding duty is the Disability Discrimination Act. The Commission conciliates complaints, and the notes are the measure it has published. Treat them as the standard you will be asked about.

Which WCAG version do the notes mean?

They track the W3C recommendation rather than freezing an old version. Government policy is explicit about Level AA. We audit to WCAG 2.2 AA and report 2.0 and 2.1 conformance inside that, because each newer version includes the older criteria.

How is this different from your DDA page?

The DDA page is the statute and the case law. This page is the Commission’s guidance on how to meet that statute online, plus the procurement standard government buyers add on top.

Can you write the response to an AHRC complaint?

We can supply the technical record: what fails, what we fixed, and what remains. Your counsel should own the legal response. We do not replace a lawyer in a conciliation.

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This page is general information from Peradeo Technologies Inc., not legal advice.

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