From:
Margaret Tucker [mtucker@start.com.au]
Sent:
Monday, June 12, 2000 18:13
To:
disabdis@hreoc.gov.au
Subject:
ORTA exemption
Mr
Graeme Innes
Assistant
Commissioner, Disability
Human
Rights & Equal Opportunity Commission
Submission:
ORTA request for exemption from provisions of Disability
Discrimination
Act.
I
object to the request for an exemption by ORTA on the following
grounds:
Beneficial
legislation? I understood the
Disability Discrimination
Act
to be for the benefit of people with disabilities, not to further
disadvantage
them, by taking away - even if temporarily - their hard
fought
for accessible buses. If the law
technically allows such
exemptions,
whereby a large organisation like ORTA can obtain an
exemption
when it has demonstrably been inefficient (and maybe
obstructive),
then the law is indeed an ass!
The
Disability Community, and indeed many bureaucrats - including
myself
- have been making the Department of Transport and the Premier
aware
of the need for a comprehensive accessible bus fleet for years.
Indeed,
when I was a member of the NSW Government Accessible Transport
Forum
(chaired by David Richmond, the current head of the Olympic
Co-ordination
Authority) back in 1990-91, we pushed hard for Sydney
buses
to become accessible. I was present in
1994 at the DPI
International
Conference when Ian Cooper and Ian Irwin and co.
challenged
Premier Fahey about his "assistance" to the South
Australian
Govt during that state's futile battle to obstruct public
transport.
Ask
Joan Hume how long the disability community has been fighting for
accessible
public transport - remember the Eastern Suburbs Railway
battle
in the late 70s!!
The
NSW Department of Transport, and subsequently ORTA which took over
transport
planning for the Olympics have always done as little as
possible
to promote accessibility. What gains we
now have, have been
as
a result of legal battles, not of the NSW Government demonstrating
access
and equity policy!
So
why should the NSW disability and ageing community - (and indeed
interstate
residents) - the users of the paltry amount of accessible
buses
we now have in place, be the people who are disadvantaged by
this
exemption. Why should they not be able to complain if transport
operators
get greedy and offer their accessible buses to ORTA?
Why
should ORTA get away with this - just to save face with
international
Olympic /Paralympic visitors. You can
be sure that the
disability
sector will ensure that ORTA does not save face, either
way.
Overseas guests with disabilities will be askance at the lack of
planning. And they will know it is not for want of the
disability
community
trying!
Slowly,
gains are being made in NSW with accessible transport. But
that
does not mean we should pretend everything is perfect. In fact
we
have hardly started. The NSW Department of Transport has the
capacity,
through its performance assessment regime to insist that
private
bus operators meet accessibility requirements, but it does not
have
the guts nor the will to emforce these requirements. Meanwhile
the
Federal Government allows the draft Accessible Transport Standards
to
gather dust and will not implement them.
And
where was ORTA in all this? - don't tell me they couldn't have
exerted
some influence with the NSW Government and even the Federal
Government,
to ensure a speedy implementation of the Standards and
thus
have a far greater spread of buses for the Olympics.
So
for the above reasons - apart from the sheer immorality of the
application
- I strongly object to the application.
Margaret
Tucker
32
Taywood Avenue
WINSTON
HILLS NSW 2153
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