Do standards have to have the same effect as existing DDA provisions?
No. This would be an impossible requirement on many issues – since the whole point of standards is that the precise requirements of the existing provisions are not known or able to be known with certainty until decidced by the courts. The DDA does not make valid Standards impossible by requiring that Disability Standards should nonetheless somehow trace precisely the same, unknown, level of rights and obligations as the existing provisions. Section 32 of the DDA, by providing that it is unlawful to contravene a DDA Standard, necessarily contemplates that a Standard may make something unlawful which is not already unlawful under the DDA. Section 34 of the DDA, by providing that if a person’s act is in accordance with a disability standard then the existing unlawful discrimination provisions do not apply to that act, necessarily contemplates that a standard may make something lawful which would otherwise have been unlawful, or potentially unlawful. General administrative law rules mean t
