From: Jack Frisch [frisch@free.net.au]
Sent: Saturday, 27 May 2000 6:29
To: disabdis@hreoc.gov.au
Subject: ORTA EXEMPTION
I endorse Mr. Maurice Corcoran 14-point submission, and would like to add the following comments.
 
1.    With respect to his second argument, Commissioner Innes' logic puts people with physical disabilities into a no-win situation. My understanding is that in law a compainant cannot make a general compaint against a system, but can only make a complaint about a specific situation and therefore has no choice but to make a complaint against a specific service. Yet the Commissioner seems to be implying that HREOC will not act on specific situations, and that because compaints following ORTA's commandeering of buses will more than likely be about specific situations, he will likely grant the exemption. Catch 22 - Yossarian lives!
 
2.    With respect to his first argument, Commissioner Innes seems to imply that bus operators bought accessible buses over the last few years because they figured that they would be making a profit contracting out to Bus 2000 for the Olympic period. If this is so, then the implication is that once there are no more Olympics in Sydney, we can look forward to no more purchases of accessible buses.
 
Is that the signal HREOC wants to be endorsing? Surely the signal should be that "you bought accessible buses to provide transport in Victoria, Brisbane, Maroubra etc. because that is where people with disabilities go to work, shop and play. You can't just withdraw the ability of people to go about the things they have adjusted to just so that a few people in Sydney can go and play".
 
Any company that makes an investment based on a one-off short-term event such as an Olympics is not sustainable. The notion that companies that have accessible buses will suffer more than companies that have not bought accessible buses will suffer if the exemption is not granted is convoluted logic. It begs the question of why ORTA did not ensure four years ago that there would be enough accessible buses all round and that no buses would have to be withdrawn.
 
3.    There is nothing to suggest that these buses will actually be used by wheelchair users. My experience over the "test" period is that ORTA couldn't manage its way out of a paper bag. They anticipated road closures for the trial marathon for periods well in excess of that required; similarly for the half-marathon. They have never managed to get their timtabling right for the Easter Show and have therefore never managed to have much patronage. I expect they are involved in overkill on getting in accessible buses from all over Australia, and then they will screw up the timetabling and it will all amount to nothing but a withdrawal of service rather than a reallocation.
 
4.    Personal evidence relating to buses and the Paralympics - My daughter's school is going one day to the Paralympics and the teacher concerned has been trying to arrange an accessible so that my daughter - the only wheelchair user in the school - can go with her classmates to this disability showcase. The teacher has rung SOCOG, ORTA, Sydney Buses and private bus companies - but guess what? She can't get an accessible bus!!!!! The only wheelchair user in the school will be isolated from her classmates.
 
Wheelchair users on non-Olympic routes will be worse and there is absolutely no guaranttee that wheelchair users on Olympic and Paralympic routes will be better off. The exemption should not be granted. ORTA and State government agencies should face the music of their incompetence and lack of planning.
 
(On the other hand, maybe the planning is perfect. Maybe authorities anticipated some years ago that the exemption card was there for the picking - after all, who would dare stand up to fight the 5-ring circus - and it was calculated that there was no need to do anything. ORTA's risk was minimal because if the exemption is granted, terrific and if it is not granted, then there would be no shortage of journalists and radio talk-back hosts to blame the anti-sport anti-fun crips and do-gooders from HREOC.)
 
 
 
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