Page 2851 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 16 August 2017
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Ms Lee, in her speech, talked about some specific issues. I can speak also from, unfortunately, a period of recent experience. My husband had a stroke a few years ago, so I had a period when I was the driver for a disabled person and thus did an exploration of disabled parking spaces in the ACT. I can tell you that there clearly are not enough of them. And, even worse than that, they are not very well distributed. There are often suburban shopping centres which have plenty, but then you come into Civic, as Ms Lee noted, and there are very few.
I think the idea of making the MLAs car park available for people with a disability to park in after hours is probably one seriously worth exploring. Some of us do come to work after hours, but not most of us in the building.
I would repeat the call that I made in 2012 to increase the minimum disabled car park provisions in the Territory Plan parking and vehicle access code for town, group and local centre parking as well as for parking at hospitals and other public facilities which the government is responsible for. I suggested a ratio of four to five per cent. I do not have any further information as to what would be the best percentage. I note that the government is reviewing this, and I sincerely hope that it will come up with a bigger percentage, because the need is clearly there.
My understanding is that Ms Lee is going to be accepting Minister Gentleman’s amendment. I am very pleased that yet again today we will be having tripartisan agreement on something that is important for people with a disability in the ACT.
Speaking about people with a disability and why disability parking spaces matter, let me say that disability often impacts your mobility—not always, but often—and it may impact your ability to take public transport. Partly it could be because of your ability or otherwise to get to the bus or, soon, a light rail stop; or it could be, particularly in the circumstance of our current bus system, your ability to safely ride on the bus. One of the improvements that we can hope for with light rail is that for all people who find the stop accessible, it should be much more disability friendly. People, I understand, will be able to drive their mobility scooters onto the light rail, which will be a great step forward for some people.
If you cannot get anywhere, if you are in the situation where the distance that you can walk, be pushed in your wheelchair or use your walking frame is only a very short distance from a vehicle, in general you are going to need access to parking spaces for disabled people, and there are simply not enough of them around. This means that people with a disability have issues with being involved in society as a whole, issues with going to appointments, issues with doing their shopping. If you cannot get to park close to shops, you may not be able to shop if you have a disability. That is obviously a major problem. And, of course, it is hospitals and medical precincts. I note, as Ms Lee noted, that these areas have, generally speaking, higher proportions of parking spaces for disabled people. I also note from practical experience that in many cases these tend not to be enough.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video