My co-blogger at Hoyden About Town, lauredhel, has written a post about the proposed national disabled parking scheme (to have a uniform standard between the states):
For an examination of the details, see her post: the main point is that there is a significant population of legitimately disabled people who don’t fulfil the suggested major criterion of “walking without physical assistance from another person” (sticks/canes will no longer count, apparently).
Who does this exclude? Everyone who walks, with or without a cane, and who does not require the physical assistance of another person.
Every single independent person with an invisible disability.
What, it doesn’t matter how restricted their independent walking distance is by an invisible medical condition?. Even for the visible disabilities, most amputees (including military veterans) and most stroke victims won’t qualify under the new rules.
As for the invisible disabilities?
Tough luck for the chronic asthmatics and the emphysematous.
Tough luck for most people undergoing chemotherapy for cancer.
Tough luck for many people with Multiple Sclerosis or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
These rules will disable me, and many thousands of Australians like me.
These rules will create physical dependence.
Way to go, Disability Office. “Improving the lives of Australians” by making them more dependent and limiting their opportunities to participate in community life? No thanks.
If anyone can help with drawing up a form letter, please do – but meanwhile, you can print out the feedback form and fill it in, describing these concerns with the eligibility criteria. Give them your feedback. Right now. Please. If you have the time and spoons, please attend a public information session (RSVP required) and give your feedback.
Independent people with invisible disabilities need to be able to remain independent. We need to fix this.
Well tigtog, given this government’s disgusting campaign against indigenous Australians, should we be surprised they are also targeting the disabled?
I downloaded the discussion document and checked it out. It actually proposes 3 criteria for permanent eligibility and two for temporary eligibility ( temporary eligibility applies for a minimum of six and a maximum of 12 months). The criteria seem broad enough to offer the potential for inclusion for most of the examples that tigtog cites though…..I’m not sure about some of the young, fit looking people with “Fitness First” bags I frequently see briskly striding off from disabled parking spaces in the Sydney CBD. If they were all enduring Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, I’d be quite surprised.
It’s unarguably the case that there is major ongoing abuse of – and confusion about – the current permit system and it can frequently result in people with significant physical mobility challenges being disadvantaged in limited parking space/accessibility scenarios. This is not to say that people who might not appear to be “disabled” – in stereotypical perception terms – are not.
I think that nationally consistent eligibility criteria are a good and overdue idea and I wish Bill Shorten luck in achieving them. He’ll need it.
“Proposed nationally consistent eligibility criteria
The following eligibility criteria, based upon functional ability, are proposed for permanent and temporary permits.
Organisations wishing to obtain a permit would need to continue to show evidence that they are transporting individuals who meet these criteria.
Permanent permit
Under the proposed scheme, you would be eligible for a permanent permit if:
• Criteria 1: You are unable to walk and always require the use of a manual wheelchair or powered mobility device, or
• Criteria 2: Your ability to walk is permanently and severely restricted and you sometimes require the use of a mobility or medical aid. This does not include a walking stick, shopping trolley or pram, or
• Criteria 3: You do not use a mobility or medical aid but your ability to walk is permanently restricted by a significant medical condition or disability, which sometimes requires the physical assistance of another person and limits your access to the community.
Temporary permit
Under the proposed scheme, you would be eligible for a temporary permit if:
• Criteria 1: Your ability to walk is significantly restricted on a temporary (rather than permanent) basis and you sometimes require use of a mobility or medical aid. This does not include a walking stick, shopping trolley or pram, or
• Criteria 2: You do not use a mobility or medical aid but your ability to walk is restricted by a significant medical condition or disability, which requires the physical assistance of another person and limits your access to the community for the temporary period.
Temporary permits will be issued for a minimum of six months and a maximum of 12 months.”
@Geoff Honnor:
Geoff, the first two criteria are fairly standard, although I wonder about the exclusion of walking sticks in #2.
Criterion #3 is the problem – there are many disabilities which restrict people’s ability to walk but which do not require the physical assistance of another person – they just require frequent stops to rest and the shorter the distance needing to be travelled the better. The criterion as written seems to exclude all those people, so how are they meant to get about and access the community now?
As for parking permit abuse, surely the answer is to crack down on the abusers rather than make access even more difficult than the woefully inadequate and poorly designed disabled parking spaces are already for PWD?
“Criterion #3 is the problem – there are many disabilities which restrict people’s ability to walk but which do not require the physical assistance of another person.”
My reading of criterion 3 is that it doesn’t require that the holder should invariably have to be physically assisted. It speaks of a disabling condition which may ’sometimes’ require assistance in walking. Obviously, a point ripe for clarification in the consultation process.
I actually think that the proposed criteria are a significant improvement on the current NSW criteria for MPS eligibility, which are:
* Unable to walk due to the permanent or temporary loss of use of one or both legs or other permanent medical or physical condition.
* Someone whose physical condition is detrimentally affected as a result of walking 100 metres.
* Requires the use of crutches, a walking frame, callipers, scooter, wheelchair or other similar mobility aid.
* MPS cards are also available to people who are permanently blind.
Spot the problem with those……..
Tigtog, the disallowance of people who need walking sticks is a worry.
Sounds like whoever came-up with the criteria doesn’t use one, that’s for sure.
I’ve managed to get onto the website and look at the Discussion document in PDF form, but can’t download the Submission document in word form (Bloody Government websites), which is what I’ll need to use if I’m goint to eamil it.
I’ll keep at it as I’d like to give them an anecdotally based submission based on my wife’s need for a disabled parking space while she was on a walking-stick for 8 months following a nasty ankle fracture last year.
Simply put, had she not had the use of such spaces, she wouldn’t have been able to go to work at all during that period.
The “sometimes requires” in Criteria 3 should be replaced with “may require”. Having mild cerebral palsy and now being old, I fit that category although often, if there is a space available closed to my target, I will take that.
@Geoff Honnor:
I don’t see any problem with the current NSW criteria at all, unless you think that only drivers but not passengers need disabled parking spaces, if the blindness was the supposed “problem”.
The problem in NSW is that an awful lot of permits are being used by people who don’t appear to need them. Specifically, inner city disabled spaces are in very short supply and often used by people who leap out of thjeir vehicles and stride briskly off to work every day.
So either many more spaces are needed or the permit system needs to be tightened. More rigorous enforcement is tricky as a doctor and examination room are needed to verify the disability…
Tigtog, I’m actually pretty much onto the fact that people with signicant sight deficit do need assistance in exercising their right to mobility – including parking.
I think the problem with the current NSW guidelines is the [potentially]catch-all criterion two, which can be (and often has been) over-generously interpreted by docs providing assessments for permit applications. I think that Shorten’s proposal is shaping as a a clearer and fairer delineation of the territory but additional clarity can only assist.
moz: more spaces are indeed required. Permit eligibility does need to be more consistent and enforced more effectively and importantly – the act of snaffling a disabled parking space under false pretences should attract opporobrium rather than the envy and admiration it often inspires.
Yeah moz, there was a story in that scandal-sheet the Tele about it about 8 or 9 months ago. Some louse was flogging disabled permits to a bunch of tossers who whack ‘em on the wiindscreen of the Beemer or Lexus, so they can park right outside the office.
You’d reckon the Government would suss it out, identify those responsible and using the bloody things and tear ‘em all a new arsehole.
@Evan:
Do we know that the louse was a corrupt civil servant? Or was he someone fencing stolen permits?
I believe that disabled parking permits are very often stolen from cars, so how is tightening up the permit system going to stop people stealing and selling them on?
I still don’t see how making life harder for PWD than it is already is “fairer”.
I’m going to apply Hanlon’s Razor here and suggest it’s a pissweak attempt at the former.
Ha!
Good luck trying to get national consistency on anything controlled by the States. Have a look at subsidy scheme for people with disabilities using taxis.
Actually, these (parking permit) criteria look very similar to some states taxi schemes. Medical assessments?
If you use a handicap parking placard, check out this ingenous gadget at http://www.visortag.com. It is made to protect your tag, and you will no longer need to hang and remove your tag. It is called “VisorTag”. Pull it down to park, and swing it out to drive. It clips to the visor. Great invention. Bought my dad one, and loves it.
My mother fits into the category three bit however after a pretty nasty incident where a local demanded she hand over her pass and then “confiscated” it my mother sent back the replacement pass she was given with a letter saying the hassle she got from people who didn’t see her on crutches and therefore fair game wasn’t worth it. Still at least she didn’t get her tires slashed.
She relies on taxi’s now.
Harmonisation of regulations and policies between the states, and the associated quests for Uniform National This, Uniform National That and Uniform National Any Other Damn Thing runs the risk, in a number of policy areas, of cruelling one of the main benefits of federalism, namely the ability of individual states to be policy leaders and policy innovators.
There are a range of important policy areas where inter-state and Federal-state cooperation is (a) badly needed and (b) presently lacking (e.g. the Murray-Darling Basin). There are others where it is genuinely necessary to avoid inconsistencies. But in a range of areas, of which this appears to be one, as long as uniform minimum standards are being met there should be no reason why individual states can’t be allowed to be innovative and/or go “beyond compliance”.
I agrre with Paul Norton – why on earth do we need harmonisation on this? Its not like things such as workers compensation or heavy vehicle registration where interstate variations cause multi-State businesses and the like real problems. Very few people with a disabled parking sticker will be regularly parking interstate.
It looks like bureaucratic tidiness for the sake of tidiness. Let each State work it out for itself – regulations here that suit Tasmania are unlikely to be ideal for inner Sydney.
I see no major problem with standards (sorry, harmonisation), provided the number/distribution of disabled bays is also standardised.
Seems to me that Melbourne has loads of them – but maybe someone who uses them would know better. I could have skewed perceptions from the annoyance of there only being three parking spots free, and they’re right near the shop I going to, and I’m not allowed to use one.
FDB @ 18 – the number of the handicap spots is probably calculated such that probability wise they’re much more likely to be free than a normal spot as people who don’t need the handicap spots usually have reasonable alternatives (eg parking much further away).
Yes Chris, I understand that.
Just wondering if my casual observation that there seem to be more spots in Melbourne (inner) is on the money, or just me being envious.
Not sure how sensible it is to be envious of the ‘convenience’ of one’s legs not working properly, which is really what PWD parking space envy boils down to :/
FDB @ 20 – Sorry. From what I’ve experienced it pretty similar in Adelaide and Canberra, but as you say it may just be a perception thing where you’re more likely to notice the parks you can’t use when the rest of the car park is full. And the peak times for disabled parking may be different.
Grumphy – I should have used some smiley icon or other. Was assuming that the whinging sense of able-bodied motorist entitlement came through loudly enough to be seen as tongue-in-cheek.
It is very annoying to not be allowed to use the only park left, when no disabled drivers may be along for hours, but I’ll take that and my working legs any time over the alternative.
We need harmonisation so that when people with disabilities go on holiday their permits still work.
Personally, I like to rub their noses in my mobility and athleticism by never using any car park, let alone a disabled one. So I lock my bike up as close to my destination as I can. To make the point that I can park even closer than they can.
One thing that does come up is people who have the permit but no car – they get the permit so that whoever usually provides their transport can park in disabled spots. Which is fine at those times. But there’s a real temptation to leave the permit in the car… and so convenient too. Unfortunately the only real response to that is to withdraw the permit…
And in case you’re wondering, I’ve never seen a disabled bicycle park (but I have seen quite a few disabled folk on bicycles). Not sure why that is, perhaps because cyclists normally get pretty darn good parking anyway, so it’d be tricky to give better parking to cyclists with disabilities. But it would be nice.
Worst/funniest experience I’ve had on a bike was taking my tandem recumbent trike along to an event so a bunch of blind people could ride on it. Which they mostly enjoyed. Some of the “no, really, I can see shadows, I’ll be fine” ones also enjoyed driving it. The brake accessible from the rear seat was handy for them because it was enough fun that some of them felt the need to exaggerate the extent of their vision. Nothing quite like an “I’m not blind” driver pointing you confidently at a white patch on a fence to induce panic.
Moz: Currently there are reciprocal arrangements between States, and most will also accept a variety of overseas permits. Interstate travel is not the problem that’s being solved. Read the government’s Q&A – it is specifically aimed at reducing the number of permit holders. They expect TABs to freak out at the figure of 800 000 – 800 000! permit holders. Why anyone would think that that number is absurdly excessive is beyond me.
Leaving the permit in the car isn’t a problem. The person driving the car using the permit if they don’t need to is the problem in that scenario. Withdrawing the permit could make life almost impossible for the permit holder which is unfair if someone else has been using their permit improperly.
Mindy, it’s a problem that can be solved easily by the holder: don’t leave it in the car. So punishing them is reasonable in that sense. It would be good to start with more effective penalties for motorists, but I’m not confident. At the very least permits should be a standard size and have a photo of the bearer on them.
The problem with punishing the driver is that we lack effective punishments. It’s well established that fines, towing the car and removing the drivers license don’t work very well to discourage habitual offenders. Perhaps those who misuse disabled parking permits are different, it would be nice to know.
lauredhel, reducing the numbers of permits is obviously a good idea. The problem of how to program the bureaucrazy to do it efficiently is one that I’m not sure can be solved. But standardised permits with photos seems like a good start. I’m guessing that they expect a large number of current holders not to reapply just because the hassle of faking it is more than people who don’t really, really need them will put up with.
I’m not sure that’s at all obvious, moz.
Getting away from the issue of disability permits as a rights issue per se, parking strikes me as far more a matter of efficiency in city planning: in the next decades we’re going to have to deal more and more with the problem of urban car parking as a scarce resource. I’m fond of congestion schemes, paid parking, and road tolling as a partial approach, but there should always be an equity aspect to it, ie. that the people who should be given priority access to a scarce resource—accessible parking space—should be the ones who have the most need of it and the least access to public alternatives.
The more cars on the road in total, the more disability parking permits there should be. Is that wrong?
Liam, if you assume that we must have more cars on the roads, which inevitably leads to more roads to put the more cars on as well as more buildings demolished to make way for more car parking, then yes, more disability permits do make sense. I don’t make that assumption.
A more reasonable argument is that as we achieve our goal of fewer cars on the road we can afford to dedicate more space to disabled parking. That makes a little more sense to me, but I’m inclined to the opposite view: as public transport gets better we will need fewer cars for people with disabilities. The one aspect of Sydney’s taxi service I like is that most of the new permits are for disabled-accessible taxis. The rationale is stupid, but the practical effect is that people who need those taxis are finding it much easier to get around.