From:
John Moxon [jmoxon@chilli.net.au]
Sent:
Monday, June 12, 2000 19:01
To:
disabdis@hreoc.gov.au
Subject:
ORTA exemption application
Are
we sure that this exemption application is not a script for the ABC's second
series of "The Games"?
It
would have to be only the most arrogant of organisations that would seek to
have themselves exempted from an act of parliament because they had planned
badly.
And
you really do have to wonder at the genuineness of a human rights body that is
prepared to even consider granting an exemption in these circumstances.
To
seriously suggest that bus companies might be "penalised for buying
accessible buses" is an absolute nonsense.
No
bus company will be penalised for buying buses. If any are penalised at all, it will be for taking them away
again for a short term financial gain.
Why
shouldn't such bus companies have to defend their actions if a complaint is
made? If they can demonstrate
unjustifiable hardship, they have no worries.
People
with disabilities attending the Olympic and Paralympic Games are no more
important than the rest of the population.
Why then should they have preference to the buses?
Certainly
the granting of this exemption will not, in any way, further the cause of
people with disabilities - no extra "removing of discrimination" will
occur - in fact quite the opposite.
I
wonder whether HREOC would be "inclined to grant the exemption" if,
instead of being about buses being taken off people who use wheelchairs and
others with mobility disabilities, it were about taking guide dogs back from
those who have them so they could be lent to Olympic visitors with low vision?
And
would HREOC think it okay to take TTYs back to lend to deaf visitors?
Somehow,
I think not!!
Perhaps
this whole sorry saga is just a political decision anyway and HREOC has no real
power to do anything about it.
In
any case it lends weight to the general view that government human rights
agencies in Australia are more about maintaining the status quo than actually
doing anything concrete to allow people with disabilities to participate in
society.
HREOC,
in case you hadn't noticed, people with disabilities are really pissed off
about this (and it's as much with HREOC as it is with ORTA and the bus companies). But of course we have little power so we'll
just be walked all over yet again.
John
Moxon