Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to bring to the Senate’s attention the efforts of a group of determined, talented and disabled South Australian sporting stars, who recently had to confront discriminatory treatment at the hands of Australia’s major airline. This year, between 17 and 22 April, the National Electric Wheelchair Sports championships were held in Western Australia. It is, I believe, the 20th year of this sporting competition—the only national competition specifically for people who have a neuromuscular disorder and who are required to use electric wheelchairs for their everyday mobility.

Sports played at the games include wheelchair hockey, balloon soccer and rugby league. The championships are a showcase for electric wheelchair sports in Australia and are a unique opportunity for people to compete on equal terms and to demonstrate their considerable skills in deftly manoeuvring wheelchairs to gain competitive advantage. All competitors in the games are assisted by the muscular dystrophy associations of Australia. It was Mr Roger Melnyk, a well-known and much-respected advocate for people with disabilities and a former executive officer of the Muscular Dystrophy Association of Victoria, who first had the idea for a national electric wheelchair sports competition.

Nowadays, most states and territories participate in the games, and the standard of competition improves every year. In the finest tradition of Australian sport, there is great rivalry between the competing states and territories and all teams proudly wear their state colours. My own state of South Australia was represented at the 2006 games by the state team, the Scorpions, which was made up of six, mostly young, athletes and their carers and officials—a total contingent of just 13 people. In 2006 the South Australian team members were the captain, Clinton Woodman, the vice captain, Callum Rowe, and team members Ben Galvin, Tim Holman, Chris Spencer and Matthew Clarke.

As is the case for most amateur sports, securing funding for attendance at the national titles is a precarious adventure. In South Australia, the team and their supporters, friends and families worked extremely hard to raise enough money to travel to Western Australia. They spent many weekends organising and staffing sausage sizzles, selling raffle tickets and undertaking fundraising ventures and seeking corporate sponsorship. I am sure no-one begrudges the large amounts of corporate and government sponsorship provided to more high-profile sportspeople. While the nation is deservedly still basking in our Socceroos glory, we should not forget that for many Australians who want to participate in their chosen sport, it is a day-by-day proposition whether they will be able to find the money to do so.

Having raised the funding to attend the national competition, the South Australian team booked their flights to Perth through a travel agent and ensured that the Qantas group bookings office was given details of all those travelling and the dimensions and weight of the six electric wheelchairs that the athletes needed to travel with. It was assumed that, as had happened in the past when the team travelled interstate for the national games, provided sufficient information and time was given to the airline to make arrangements, there would be no problem with the team travelling together with their carers and, just as importantly, with their wheelchairs. At no stage during the initial discussions or bookings was the team made aware there would be problems. It was not until just one month before the team was due to depart Adelaide for Perth that Qantas advised it would be able to take only one electric wheelchair and one manual wheelchair per flight to Perth. In previous years, the airline had accommodated the whole team and their equipment on a single flight.

I would also bring to your attention, Mr President, that it was an important part of the whole experience for the Scorpions to fly together. Indeed, travelling together for any sporting team is an important part of preparation and competition. We are all familiar with the television footage of sporting teams of all descriptions arriving or departing from airline terminals to the welcome or farewell of the host state. In a country as big as this one, it is only by airline travel that sporting teams can participate in national sporting events. Why should disabled athletes, wheelchair-dependent men and women, not be given the same opportunity as their able-bodied counterparts?

As we now know, the reason for Qantas’s refusal to accommodate the team and their chairs on one flight arose because of a change in the airline’s wheelchair policy, following a review of its services for customers with disabilities. According to information provided by Qantas, certain wheelchairs now do not meet the cargo height restrictions of the narrow-bodied aircraft types that Qantas uses on some routes. As users of the wheelchairs advised the airline, most of the electric wheelchairs have removable backs or fold down and should be able to be accommodated as cargo. The Scorpions asked the airline why the policy had changed when, indeed, neither the wheelchairs nor the size of the aircraft had changed. Reasons provided by the airline for the last-minute change of heart included safety issues for its staff who are required to load the wheelchairs as cargo. There is no suggestion that anybody’s workplace safety should be compromised. However, the point is that, in a country like Australia where all of us, able and disabled, rely on air transport to get around, airlines should build and fit their aircraft to accommodate wheelchairs in a way that is safe for their own staff.

In a nation where already one in five people has a disability and where an ageing population means that the number of people with a disability impeding their mobility will only increase, we seem to be going backwards in terms of providing equitable access to basic services for people with disabilities. It is not good enough to have Qantas now saying that they will be working with wheelchair manufacturers to ensure that the manufacturers are aware of the airline’s cargo restrictions, with a view to the manufacturers modifying their wheelchair design to suit the airline’s policy. Who knows what the airline’s policy will be next year? The vagaries of airline policy should not be the determinant of whether or not persons confined to wheelchairs can travel.

I am pleased to say that in the end the South Australian Scorpions did get to fly to Perth, but only by splitting the team up and taking different flights on different airlines on different days and with some additional cost to the team for accommodation. It was not a particularly satisfactory outcome. I am sure that, given the recent unflattering publicity that both Qantas and Virgin Blue have suffered as a result of their proposed or actual discriminatory treatment of disabled persons, the airlines will continue discussions with advocates and representatives of disabled Australians to ensure that all Australians are afforded equitable access to transport. I am aware that the Minister for Transport and Regional Services, Mr Truss, has been asked by the Western Australian Minister for Disability Services to speedily conclude the required five-year review of the federal government’s Disability Standards for Accessible Public Transport. I am unsure if the minister has responded to that request yet. For the sake of disabled Australians, we hope that the review will be concluded sooner rather than later and that the outcome of that review will be good news for teams which participate in sporting events for disabled Australians.

I note that, while the South Australian Scorpions did not win any of their finals, our team certainly did us proud. The newest and youngest member of the team, 11-year-old Matthew Clarke, scored goals in the hockey competition. The second youngest member of the team, Tim Holman, scored two rugby tries. Chris Spencer won the best and fairest trophy for the second year in a row. Not only did the Scorpions represent their state with enthusiasm and success, they dealt with the discrimination they faced with great dignity and refused to let their travel woes interfere with their enjoyment of the national titles and their pursuit of sporting excellence. In closing, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the members of the Scorpions and all the state and territory teams who competed in the 2006 National Electric Wheelchair Sports competition. We can only hope that next year’s teams will be afforded better treatment by Australia’s airlines, just as we hope that all disabled Australians are more successful in their quest to live their lives free of discrimination.