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SPARK AND CANNON Telephone: Adelaide (08) 8212 3699 TRANSCRIPT Hobart (03) 6224 2499 Melbourne (03) 9670 6989 OF PROCEEDINGS Perth (08) 9325 4577 Sydney (02) 9211 4077 _______________________________________________________________ PRODUCTIVITY COMMISSION INQUIRY INTO DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION ACT MRS H. OWENS, Presiding Commissioner MS C. McKENZIE, Commissioner TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS AT SYDNEY ON THURSDAY, 17 JULY 2003, AT 9.09 AM Continued from 15/7/03 DDA 1332 dda170303.doc MRS OWENS: Good morning. Welcome to the public hearing for the Productivity Commission inquiry into the Disability Discrimination Act 1992, which we will refer to as the DDA. My name is Helen Owens, I'm the presiding commissioner. On my left is my associate commissioner, Cate McKenzie. The hearing will have breaks for morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea. We will need to stick fairly closely to the timetable today, because we've got a lot of participants. On 5 February this year the government asked the commission to review the DDA and the Disability Discrimination Regulations 1996. The terms of reference for the inquiry ask us to examine the social impact of the DDA on people with disabilities and on the community as a whole. Among other things, the commission is required to assess the costs and benefits of the DDA and its effectiveness in achieving its objectives. We have already talked informally to a wide range of organisations and individuals. The purpose of this hearing today is to provide an opportunity for interested parties to discuss their submissions and their views on the public record. We will be holding hearings in Melbourne following the hearings today and tomorrow in Sydney. We have already held hearings in the other Australian capital cities, and we're nearing the end. We will then prepare a draft report for public comment, which we will release in October this year, and there will be another round of hearings after interested parties have had time to look at the draft report. Now, we like to conduct these hearings in a reasonably informal manner, but I remind participants that a full transcript is being taken. For this reason, and to assist people using the hearing loop, comments from the floor cannot be taken. Participants are not required to take an oath, but are required under the Productivity Commission Act to be truthful in their remarks. You are welcome to comment on issues raised in other submissions. The transcript will be available on the commission's web site in Word format following the hearings. I now invite the first participant of the day, the Australian Taxi Industry Association. Welcome. Could you each give your name and your position with the association, for the transcript. MR BOWE: Yes. Thank you very much. My name is John Bowe, I'm the president of the Australian Taxi Industry Association. I am based in Sydney, and I am certainly happy to be here today. MRS OWENS: Thank you. MR EVANS: Jack Evans, consultant to the Australian Taxi Industry Association, and I'm based in Canberra. 17/7/03 DDA 1333 J. BOWE and J. EVANS MRS OWENS: Good. Thank you. Thank you very much for your submission, which we have both read. It's a very clear submission, and I don't think we need to go through a lot of the detail. But I understand that you do have a few introductory remarks for us. MS McKENZIE: Key issues. MR EVANS: Yes. If I may start off at least. As you appreciate, the taxi industry is ideally placed to meet a lot of the needs of those in the community with disabilities. It is a demand-responsive service. You do have, if you like, a personal support through the driver and the facilities and assistance the driver can provide. The one area where the traditional taxi industry - which is based on a fairly standard family sedan type vehicle - has been confronted with an issue in terms of meeting needs is in regard to wheelchair-dependent passengers. There, through various types of vehicles, including the commuter van style of vehicle, over the years the industry, government and the other stakeholders, have worked together to develop arrangements that have enabled the provision of increasing numbers of these style of vehicles to support that particular section of the community. In our submission we did highlight that there is a need to identify and support particular programs, as inherently these style of vehicles have much greater operating costs - higher operating costs than do the traditional taxi vehicles. We estimated they are something slightly over about 30 per cent higher than a traditional taxi. What has happened over time is that through various licensing arrangements the governments have been able to establish programs to release licences for wheelchair-accessible taxis into the marketplace, and the arrangements, whilst not always perfect, certainly have been improving over the years, and are delivering better and better services to those sections of the community. The ATIA has been involved in the development of the transport disability standards and in our submission we did talk about one particular issue where we do have a safety concern, about the provision of tactile identifiers on the external area of the vehicle. There, it is an issue about whether the sort of in-principle requirements of the objectives of the act should take precedence over what we believe is a legitimate safety concern. Overall, as I mentioned earlier, we do consider that the cooperation between the various interest groups and ourselves and government are working fairly - or very well, and we are being effective in delivering better services to the target markets. Thank you. MS McKENZIE: The other thing I say is, when you raise the concern about 17/7/03 DDA 1334 J. BOWE and J. EVANS identifiers - if I understand your submission correctly - you've got no problem about them being internally in the car. MR EVANS: Yes. It's the external one where - you know, people - - - MS McKENZIE: Might be trying to read them - - - MR EVANS: Yes, read them as the vehicle starts to move away. MS McKENZIE: You would want to have a very short number, I can tell you that. MRS OWENS: Given that you were involved in the development of the transport standard, was that issue addressed at the time? I mean, were these concerns raised? MR BOWE: Yes, commissioner. I raised those - - - MRS OWENS: You can call me Helen and call Cate "Cate". MS McKENZIE: Yes, as long as you don't mind us calling you by your first names. MR EVANS: Of course not. MR BOWE: They have been raised in the development of the draft standards - certainly by myself, because I represented the association on all of the federal committees established over the years, and I have written to the attorney-general. It is easy to construe that the taxi industry - and it has been done - doesn't want to be identified. Far be it from that. We believe a person with a sight difficulty should be able to identify the vehicle they travel in. In short, I believe in time meters will be capable of talking the fare, and all that technology will evolve in time. But in the short term, it is far too dangerous to put them on the outside of a vehicle. The person has got enough disability with sight than to wander out in traffic trying to identify a taxicab, that may be moving, and not being able to see other traffic - particularly in the city of Sydney. Now, it is still alive, and still well within our concerns regarding that. The identification is not a problem; it is just where the standards say the identifier should be. MRS OWENS: It raises an interesting question about standards, and that is, how flexible standards can be if some issue like this is raised or identified, whether standards can be adapted for either changing circumstances or a safety issue such as this. Have you got any comments you'd like to make about that? MR BOWE: There wasn't a lot of flexibility developing the standards, because 17/7/03 DDA 1335 J. BOWE and J. EVANS they were so wide and so far-reaching. When we dealt with transport and the various modes of transport, the difficulties - that are still there - and over time they will be resolved. But to accept that the standards can - if I can use a for instance - provide hearing loops in electric trains, with all the electrical interference that I understand takes place, is going to take quite a specific time in addressing and getting over that problem. There are so many wharves - private wharves for ferries, and making them accessible, with the rise and fall of tides and things like that - you know, tactile identifying paths to those ferries. There's a myriad of problems that confront the current committee that's operating through the Department of Transport and Regional Services. To its credit, the people I sit with on the committee, they are totally committed to resolving it and to investigating all possible avenues that are available to come up with solutions that meet the standards. It's not an easy task, and it is going to take time with some of the more technical areas, but I've got to say this, with due respect to the people I sit with who represent state governments and interested associations, they're totally dedicated to fulfilling the task. MRS OWENS: So is this issue - coming back to the tactile indicators on doors - - - MR BOWE: That's just one of the problems.

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