Letter to the Editor, Sunday Age - Accessible built environment

12/07/2006

A good hard look at Melbourne's planning (My kind of Melbourne – Sunday Extra 9-7-06) provides an ideal opportunity to take into account what works and doesn’t work for all members of the community. So it is disappointing that older Victorians and people with a disability were unrepresented in the views canvassed on this important subject.

Almost 20% of Victorians have a disability and if we include just one family member or friend for each of these people we are talking about 40% of the population directly affected by disability. Equal access to the built environment is therefore an issue for all of us.

Under the State Equal Opportunity Act it is against the law to discriminate against someone because of their disability in the provision of goods and services. Through its enquiries and complaints, the Equal Opportunity Commission Victoria is acutely aware of the challenges people with disabilities face in accessing the built environment. This includes physical access to shops, businesses, restaurants and offices, the lack of clear signage for people who are visually impaired, access to hearing loops in public spaces and access to public transport.

Iconic developments and new housing are still created in our State without due regard to how planners, designers and developers can include access for all. We have a diminished sense of community as a result. Victorian thought leaders about how we live and where we live need to join the discussion about this issue and help us catch up with other countries we consider our peers like the US,Canada, and the UK .

Under national standards public transport providers are obliged to provide appropriate services to people with disabilities. Standards have also been drafted under the Building Code of Australia (BCA) to meet the level of access required by the Federal Disability Discrimination Act (DDA). The adoption of these standards will hopefully deliver some long overdue guidance about expectations regarding the rights of people with disabilities to access public buildings. We await the Federal Government's announcement of what it intends to do about creating a public premises standard.

We need to remember that people with disabilities have the same rights as everyone else including access to our great city. We must make sure that the future, which inevitably will involve major infrastructure overhauls, is a universally accessible future for everyone.

Dr Helen Szoke
Chief Executive Officer
Equal Opportunity Commission Victoria