Website Accessibility Law in Australia: DDA Guide

If Australians buy from, book with or enquire through your website, the question is less whether disability discrimination law reaches you and more how much risk your site carries and how quickly you can reduce it. This guide explains how the DDA applies to websites, how a complaint moves through the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) and the courts, what the public cases show and what a practical plan looks like. For a summary of the rules by market, see our Australia compliance page.

How the DDA applies to websites

The DDA makes it unlawful to discriminate against a person because of disability. Section 24 deals with goods, services and facilities, and that is the provision a website complaint is most likely to rely on. The Act itself does not mention WCAG, so the technical benchmark comes from the AHRC.

In April 2025 the AHRC published its Guidelines on equal access to digital goods and services, which replace its 2014 advisory note on World Wide Web access. They recommend WCAG 2.2 Level AA as the minimum benchmark and cover organisations in both the public and private sectors. The guidelines are not legally binding and are read together with the DDA. They are the standard the Commission itself points to, which makes them the sensible reference for your own testing.

How a complaint works

Most disputes start with a complaint about a specific barrier and then move through the AHRC. The process has three stages:

1. 1Complaint to the AHRC. A person who believes they were discriminated against can complain to the Australian Human Rights Commission. Website complaints often describe a specific task, such as checking out or booking, that they could not complete with a screen reader or keyboard.
2. 2Conciliation. The AHRC tries to resolve the matter. Outcomes reported from conciliation include an apology, a change of policy and compensation.
3. 3Court. If the matter is not resolved and the AHRC terminates the complaint, the complainant can apply to the Federal Court or the Federal Circuit and Family Court (Division 2). Under section 46PO of the Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986 (Cth), the application must be filed within 60 days after the termination notice, unless the court allows further time.

What the public record shows

Maguire v SOCOG. A blind complainant said the website of the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG) was not accessible to him. In 2000 the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission found that SOCOG had unlawfully discriminated against him, and ordered that the website be made accessible, including compatibility with assistive technologies. In a later complaint, after SOCOG had only partly complied, the Commissioner awarded him A$20,000 for hurt and humiliation. That award figure comes from a published account of the case. We did not locate the Commission’s full reasons.

Mesnage v Coles. In October 2014 a blind customer, Gisele Mesnage, brought a claim under the DDA over the Coles online grocery site. The case settled in February 2015, with Coles agreeing to make the site more accessible. The settlement terms were not published, so there is no public ruling on the exact standard the site had to meet.

Neither case turns on a statutory checklist. Together they show that a website can be a DDA issue, and that the remedy can be an order to fix the site, money, or both.

Positive duty and the DDA review: still open

Today the DDA works mainly through complaints. The Disability Royal Commission recommended a positive duty in its 2023 final report, which would require organisations to take steps before anyone complains. The government announced a review of the DDA in response, and the AHRC has backed a positive duty in its submission to that review.

We could not confirm that a positive duty, or any digital-specific amendment to the DDA, has been enacted as of 8 October 2026. Check the status of the review before you plan around a legal deadline. The practical advice does not change either way, because the complaint risk exists today.

Selling to EU customers: the European Accessibility Act

The European Accessibility Act (Directive (EU) 2019/882) applies to listed products and services provided to consumers after 28 June 2025. Its scope article does not limit coverage by where the provider is established. On that wording, an Australian business that provides covered services to EU consumers can be in scope. The directive is applied through national law, which sets penalties and enforcement, so the rules of each country you sell into matter.

Micro-enterprises providing services are exempt under Article 4(5). Read the definition carefully before relying on that exemption. We did not find a reported enforcement action against an Australian business under the directive. That is not the same as no risk.

A practical plan for Australian businesses

Accessibility work is easier to defend when it is planned and recorded. These steps work for most small and mid-sized online businesses:

1. 1Map the journeys that matter. List the pages a customer needs to buy, book, enquire or log in. For example, an online shop with a product page, a cart, a checkout and an account area has four journeys to test. These carry most of the risk, more than the brochure pages.
2. 2Run an automated audit. The InclusiveWeb audit checks your site against more than 90 WCAG 2.1 and 2.2 AA rules and produces a prioritised report. The first three pages are free. Automated tools catch only part of the issues, so the next steps still matter.
3. 3Test by hand. Complete each key journey using only the keyboard, and check that focus is always visible. Then run one journey with a screen reader such as NVDA on Windows or VoiceOver on Mac or iPhone.
4. 4Fix the code and content, then retest. Start with colour contrast, form labels and error messages, image text alternatives and keyboard traps. A widget alone is not enough. Our accessibility panel adds a layer for visitors who want adjustments, on top of the fixes in the code.
5. 5Publish an accessibility statement with a contact. Say which standard you aim for, what is known not to work yet, and how a customer can report a problem and get a reply. We did not confirm a specific DDA requirement for a statement, but it gives people a route to raise problems before they complain to the AHRC.
6. 6Keep a dated record. Save audit reports, fix dates and retest results. If a complaint arrives, a dated record lets you show what you knew and what you did, and lets your adviser respond quickly.