Making a Complaint

Approaches to making a complaint

If you think you have been discriminated against, or someone has treated you unfairly, the first step to making a complaint is working out how to approach the situation.

Informal complaints

In some cases, you may want to talk directly to the person who treated you badly, to tell them how you feel. This can work well if the person is a friend or family member, as it is unlikely they intended to make you feel bad.

If you want to make a complaint about being treated badly at an organisation or service, sometimes it helps to ask to speak to a manager or a senior staff member. This can be done in person or over the phone. You could also send the organisation or service a short email explaining what happened and why you are upset. This could include your suggestions for how the situation could have been handled better and what may need to change.

This can be a good approach in some situations, for example, if a staff member in a shop or restaurant says you cannot come in because you use a wheelchair, or if they say something negative about your disability.

You may want to direct the person to a resource about discrimination, like our page on Disability and Discrimination.

Tip: You can also download the WWDA fact sheet on Discrimination and Making a Complaint.

Formal complaints

In cases where making an informal complaint does not work, or is not suitable, you can make a formal complaint through the organisation that treated you badly, or to an external organisation. Formal complaints can be made in person, over the phone, or via a letter or email.
‍

What to include in a complaint

Some organisations, like the Australian Human Rights Commission (external link) have forms you can fill out to make a complaint. Others may not, but you can check with the organisation or look at their website to find out. Some organisations, including the Australian Human Rights Commission can also take complaints over the phone.

When you make a complaint, you should make sure you think about and include all of the following information:

Your details - Provide all the contact details you can, like your phone number, address and email.

Details of your characteristics – Provide information about any characteristics that are relevant to the complaint. This could include your disability, gender or beliefs. ‍
‍
What happened – Detail the events. Explain who did what, where they did it and when. Give a clear description of how you were treated.

What you want to happen next - What do you hope to achieve from your complaint? Would you like a policy change, a payment, an apology or something else? You can ask for other things later, but it is important to have a list of your preferred outcomes.

Tip: Once you have written a draft of your letter, you should ask someone to look over it before you send it. This could be a family member, friend, support person or advocate.