Edited Transcript
by Jane Bringolf
COTA NSW
2012 National Disability Award winner
Edited Transcript Final Panel Session
Australian Universal Design Conference 2014
Sydney Town Hall, Lower Town Hall
Thursday, 21 August 2014 at 8.45am
Day 2
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This edited transcript has been taken directly from the text of live captioning provided by The
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provided for this edited version.
COTA NSW accepts no liability for any event or action resulting from this edited transcript
provided for the benefit of conference delegates. Only those presentations made in the Lower
Town Hall are provided. There was no captioning available for the concurrent sessions held in an
upstairs room.
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Page 1
Edited Transcript
by Jane Bringolf
COTA NSW
2012 National Disability Award winner
Synopsis: Ger Craddock’s keynote presentation on the story of the Centre for Excellence in
Universal Design, was followed by a panel session. Participants were: Dr Ger Craddock, The
Honourable Susan Ryan, Ms Joe Manton, and Richard Hawkins. They discuss the role of a centre
for universal design in Australia and why it should be established.
MC ANDREW BUCHANAN:
This is the closing panel, where we're going to ask the question where to from here. Our guests
are Ger, the Honourable Susan Ryan, Joe Manton and Richard Hawkins. Where to from here? The
Honourable Susan Ryan was appointed as Australia's first Age Discrimination Commissioner and
was recently Disability Discrimination Commissioner. She pioneered extensive antidiscrimination
and equal opportunity legislation, including the landmark sex discrimination Act 1984 and the
affirmative action Act of 1986. She was awarded an AO for services to the Australian Parliament in
1990. We are delighted to have the Honourable Susan Ryan. (Applause).
THE HON. SUSAN RYAN: Thanks, Andrew. Congratulations Ger. It's really terrific - it was
encouraging for me just to sit and listen to your presentation because it was so comprehensive
and it covered how we get to a point where we can have not only a centre for excellence in
universal design but a society and an economy that appears to be implementing it. It's most
encouraging. Although people who know me very well say “always looking to Ireland for
inspiration”, I think I've just got a great big boost of inspiration today. So thanks.
In my very long life, which Andrew kindly alluded to, I've come across a lot of big ideas and a lot of
good ideas, but I don't think I've come across an idea that is quite as exciting in its ramifications
and possibilities as the idea of universal design. Certainly in the time I've been Age Discrimination
Commissioner, and very recently Disability Discrimination Commissioner as well, I can't think of an
idea which, if implemented, would make a bigger impact than universal design.
We have a whole package of legislation, of policies in the area. We have national regulations on
accessibility in building, and so forth, but we don't yet have the way of implementing universal
design. If you look around our wonderful city of Sydney, it is not a city where you'll see very much
universal design in practice, and that's true of other cities around Australia, it's certainly true of
our suburbs, it's true of most of our workplaces and our university campuses and school
campuses.
You might see from time to time a particularly good implementation, but you don't see it
throughout our society, and why don't we? I think the question for this session is where to from
here. Well, look, I really think we should have in Australia an Australian Centre for Excellence in
Universal Design and I'm very happy to say right now to this audience I'd be keen to work with
anyone who has strategies for how we might get that set up.
I think the case for it is so strong and should we fall through making the case in Australia, we only
have to look at your example of what you've done.
I say that because if you look at some of the big social reforms we're currently implementing, the
two of them that I'll talk about really depend on universal design to work. Let's start with the
Page 2
Edited Transcript
by Jane Bringolf
COTA NSW
2012 National Disability Award winner
National Disability Insurance Scheme, a monumental step forward in terms of recognising the
human rights of people with disability and recognising the need to have the appropriate supports
in place. Probably the most important aspect of that new scheme is that people with disability
themselves choose how to use the government support that's made available to them so that for
the first time the provision of services to people with disability recognises their human rights to
choose.
Many of them will choose when they get their packages a different kind of housing, they will
choose to be able to use public transport to get to work, or they will choose to work in a building
which may need to be adapted. For all those choices to actually happen, the design has to be in
place.
One of my hopes as Disability Commissioner will be to improve access for people with disability to
jobs and I think we will have some success in persuading employers in the public and private
sectors to open up jobs more and hire people on their capacity to do the job rather than if they
happen to have a disability or not. But, again, an employer can say yes I'll offer this person a job,
but if the person can't get on the transport to get to the job or when they get to the building
where the job is housed, if they can't get into that building, if they get to the desk and they're a
person with vision impairment and they find that the IT system has not been adapted to the
system that people who are blind or vision impaired use, then they haven't got the job. So we can
give many examples, but I think part of making the Disability Insurance Scheme a real success is
universal design, for those sorts of reasons.
Similarly - I must have just about used my five minutes - in the aged care area we have a massive
new age care services program. The legislation has gone through, the first four years funding is
there. Two principles about it. One is that it's designed to support people to age at home for as
long as possible, perhaps for their whole lives. The other again is consumer choice,
consumer-directed choice. The funds that are available to assist an older person who qualifies
should be allocated according to that person's choice in terms of what services they know will be
best suited to them.
Now, you can't successfully age at home if the home is badly designed and there are hazards all
over the place. You'd think it was so obvious it would have changed by now, but it hasn't. Once
people get to choose how they spend their aged care services support funding, you will find that
they want to do things that enable them to get around their towns, get around their suburbs, use
public transport, and so on.
So both of these massive schemes - and they are massive in terms of the impact they will
potentially have, and in terms of the public funding that will be devoted to them - require a
successful environment of universal design. So that's why I have no hesitation in coming
immediately to the view that we must have this in Australia and I'm happy to support anyone who
is going to work on making it happen. Thank you. (Applause).
ANDREW BUCHANAN: Joe Manton is director of the Institute of Access Training Australia, an
accredited access consultant and qualified trainer and assessor and has also undertaken access
studies overseas. Ladies and gentlemen, Joe Manton. (Applause).
Page 3
Edited Transcript
by Jane Bringolf
COTA NSW
2012 National Disability Award winner
MS JOE MANTON: Thank you very much. Unfortunately I wasn't able to be here yesterday, but I
have been here for a little bit of today and I'd like to echo what Susan has said in terms of a need
here, I believe, in Australia for a centre of excellence in relation to universal design.
I did study at the Centre for Accessible Environments in London over 20 years ago and I went over
there from Australia thinking I'd learn a whole lot of new and exciting things that we couldn't
possibly have thought of here. It was interesting - certainly it was a fantastic experience and I
learnt lots of things, but one thing I learnt is there are lots of people here in Australia who are very
skilled, very knowledgeable and have a lot of commitment to ensuring that universal design is
something that is taken on board holistically across this country. I guess one of the things I did
was come back to Australia and say “where are we at here?”, and that was over 20 years ago. At
that point here we didn't even really have training in relation to access, let alone universal design.
It was at that time that State Governments were introducing deinstitutionalisation, which is one of
the most inaccessible words I've heard, let alone the general community, that threw up a whole
range of challenges as well.
In order to fill a void, I with a number of colleagues decided we'd make an attempt at least to set
up some education and qualifications around access. I think Ger mentioned before the need for
awareness around universal design and I see on a daily basis when I'm working with students and
working with other colleagues that in Australia we are still to some degree struggling with the
concept of access, let alone moving towards universal design, but I also see there are a lot of
people passionate about moving towards universal design, but I think a centre of excellence would
allow us to bring together a whole range of people who could crystallise a vision around universal
design in Australia.
I don't think anyone owns the concept of universal design and I know there are people here today
and yesterday from a whole range of different professions and organisations who are working in
areas such as housing and whether it's called liveable housing, barrier-free housing, step housing,
all the other names we have for housing, I think generally people are looking towards universal
housing. We have people like me who are access consultants, who are working very, very hard to
work with clients and designers and builders and developers to talk with them about the benefits
and opportunities about universal design, rather than just what are the minimum standards.
I think there's a lot of people who now understand that good access is good business and that
progresses on to this concept of universal design. And I think the other thing that is changing - and
Susan would be very aware of that - because of our demographic, we'll all have an investment in
universal design. The baby boomers like me will not be quiet and I think for a long time we have
focused particularly as we should have on the needs of people with disabilities, but I think as our
population ages, we are learning to understand that baby boomers who expect that the world will
be accessible by the time they become older adults are going to have a fair say in moving this
process forward. So, again, like Susan, I fully support this idea of having a centre of excellence in
relation to universal design and I would very much look forward to working with others in relation
to that and would hope that collectively we can move forward and bring Australia to a point
where we can be demonstrating that leadership. Thank you. (Applause).
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Edited Transcript
by Jane Bringolf
COTA NSW
2012 National Disability Award winner
ANDREW BUCHANAN: The one thing that has come through in the last two days - that's a hint,
Richard - is that universal design is not purely for people or persons with disability. It's really for
the whole population. I think we've got that message loud and clear in the last two days. Richard
Hawkins leads the disability access and inclusion team within the Department of Family and
Community Services here in New South Wales. Richard, good afternoon.
Richard Hawkins: I'd like to start off with echoing the views of Susan and Joe in terms of both the
great benefit it is of having a range of people in a conference like this and the diversity of opinion
and also the collective approach that we might be able to apply to the issues of accessibility more
generally.
Our area within Family and Community Services, as the introduction said, is called Carers Ageing
Disability and Inclusion, and we've recently been involved in the development of the New South
Wales Carers Strategy, the Ageing Strategy that was released last year and the soon to be released
hopefully New South Wales Disability Inclusion Plan, which is generated by the recently passed
New South Wales Disability Inclusion Bill.
I'd like to take a little bit of time just to note that the Disability Inclusion Bill is a major
achievement for New South Wales. New South Wales was the first State to sign on to the National
Disability Insurance Scheme and fully supporting that implementation and the Disability Inclusion
Bill is probably the first Bill, certainly in this State, that we've had, that upfront outlines the rights
for people with disability. That is a critical point to have in legislation.
The Bill itself will help to support the development of the New South Wales Disability Inclusion
Plan, which aims to address access and disability issues across the whole of government and
whole of community. It's difficult in the sense that the Bill itself isn't explicitly a law that's binding
for the rest of the community, so government will have to use its influence, power and leadership
to be able to ensure that the outcomes of the Bill are achieved more broadly than just within
government. Within government itself, though, one of the Bill's fine points is that it requires
disability inclusion access planning to be developed across government and part of that specific
implementation of that is really about universality and the applicability of access and diversity
across the entire work force, across the customer base and the service users of government. So
that will be something that will be pushed out across all agencies, and it's particularly applicable to
the principles of universal design.
I think one of the things that has struck me out of this workshop today is the fact that design
thinking is something that is really useful for policy setters. I went to a workshop at UTS probably
sometime last year which really involved the designers within the design department, getting us to
think about policy issues in a different way, turning things on their head. Part of the moving
forward we're doing in terms of our strategies has been influenced by that sort of approach.
We're moving away from the standard black box let's design a policy and pop it out. We really
need to consult more, but not consult in that “oh, here's what we are going to do, what do you
think?” of it sort of style, we really need to consult in a more co-design approach. As a
government overall we're moving towards that direction.
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Edited Transcript
by Jane Bringolf
COTA NSW
2012 National Disability Award winner
Co-design is where you walk into a group of stakeholders with a problem in hand and no known
solution. It's the great way to deal with the wicked problems that Ger has mentioned.
But the difficulty for government is that you don't know the answer when you walk out of that
room. And government hates doing that. It's a really uncomfortable and difficult spot to be, but
that's how you start to address some of these more wicked problems.
That co-design approach was influential in the development of the Carers Strategy, it's something
that we wish to push with the implementation of the disability plan in New South Wales. The
three stages, including our new strategy, are things we really feel need to be developed in
tandem. The universality of the issues, the commonality of need across those three groups is
incredibly close. We've done mapping, we've looked at those exercises in New South Wales we're
taking an approach - I know language is an issue - we're looking at a series of programs under a
‘liveable communities’ banner, slightly more broad than universal design, but certainly
overarching the universal design principles I think that can be incorporated within it.
It probably is a little bit broader than some of the actions we'll undertake. We're looking at
working with local government, we're looking at coming up with some programs to enhance
liveable communities for age, using the World Health Organization guidelines. So that's the
general approach.
I suppose one of the challenges that I'll push out is I just did a little bit of a review. We've got the
tyranny of distance that Ireland doesn't have. I think that's one of the really big challenges we
have in New South Wales. For instance, we have 11 times the area and 1.6 times the population
of Ireland. So Sydney has the same population as Ireland, which makes it a nice little microcosm
and comparable but it means we have 3 million people who live across that other expanse of
space we need to deal with. A lot of the problems we face that are wicked and intractable are
things like rural transport, not necessarily urban transport, where we have critical masses, but
dealing with some of the people who are doubly isolated.
We also have the problems of multicultural isolation for individuals and disability on top of that or
ageing within that community. So there are a number of policy settings that we need to start
working together collaboratively across those groups. Universal design I think is a really critical
tool that can support that process.
ANDREW BUCHANAN: Ger Craddock, is there anything else from your point of view? Where to
from here?
DR GERALD GRADDOCK: All I would like to say is I think it's a great idea. We are seven years old.
It has been a journey. It has been about champions like the people who are sitting beside me here
at the table on pushing this through government, but it is I suppose a key aspect that I would say is
a push-pull as in there has to be pull as well for people with disabilities, which was very strong in
Ireland back in the early noughties when the Centre was proposed. So they were looking forward,
it wasn't just as we'd say the people in government or public service, we thought it was a great
idea, it was also grassroots. I think that's important and talking to some of the people today and
yesterday, that seemed to be very much a part of the thinking here.
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Edited Transcript
by Jane Bringolf
COTA NSW
2012 National Disability Award winner
I suppose on the global front, there are a lot of good friends out there. We did work, a group of us
were very much involved in promoting the Centre in France that was set up in 2011. And these
friends are closer than Ireland is to Australia. I've presented to several key constituents out there,
including people in Singapore, which I'm visiting next week, and I will be telling them about the
work going on in Australia.
ANDREW BUCHANAN: Let's go to questions because we now have a quarter of an hour for you to
ask the panel anything you like. At 4.20, Jane Bringolf, who has organised this conference, wants
to ask you two questions, and then we shall irrespective whether you want to or not be
emotionally disturbed and say farewell at 4.30. Let's go to questions. Just before we do, I'm keen
to ask Susan, in real terms, what role do you think the Human Rights Commission plays in
encouraging the uptake of universal design? You've touched on that. And from your point of view,
what barriers might be encountered in setting up the centre for universal design?
THE HON. SUSAN RYAN: Well, the Human Rights Commission does two things. We have two areas
of action. One is that we have legislation, anti-discrimination legislation, and other legislation
we're responsible for implementing, so we advocate that, we attempt to educate the community,
employers, service providers about their legal responsibilities, and we operate I think a very good
complaints system where people can bring complaints where they have suffered discrimination
under any of the laws that we're responsible for. We do that, that's a more formal legal role that
we have.
On the other side of it we have a public education role, a public advocacy role, and I think we can
be effective in that role. You'll find that my six commissioner colleagues and I spend a lot of time
speaking at conferences, indeed instigating conferences which other people are invited to speak
at, so we advance the discussion and understanding of the human rights basis of so many things
that we are looking to achieve. As I said - I was pleased to hear you say, Ger, that universal design
is in the Department of Justice in Ireland because it's seen as a human rights issue, and
congratulations, Ireland, on that because that's how we see these areas too, so we can talk about
it. We have access to decision makers. We don't have funds, I'm sorry to say. We don't have
funds, but we have access to people who do have funds. In our role as an advocate for universal
design and now I hope for a new centre, I believe we have got a role to play and, as I said, I'm very
willing to play it.
ANDREW BUCHANAN: Thanks, Susan. First question, good afternoon.
DELEGATE: Good afternoon. My name is Louise. I'm from Shepparton in northern Victoria. May I
propose a barrier with universal design - I'm a big advocate for it. However, an example would be
a unisex accessible toilet, a toilet designed for anybody to use. I was thrown a curly question last
week about a toilet and where I'm from there is a lot of refugees, a lot of different cultures in the
community where I live and we're developing a cultural centre and people wanted a universal
accessible toilet just for females and then another one just for males. I was thrown by that
because you might have a female with a disability with a male carer, and vice versa. So I think that
just food for thought whoever is behind the big policies, keeping in mind people of different
cultures to make sure we don't discriminate against their needs.
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Edited Transcript
by Jane Bringolf
COTA NSW
2012 National Disability Award winner
MS JOE MANTON: Louise, I agree with you. We already know, for example, where we've had
situations in Australia where users, because of cultural issues, have had challenges in relation to
allowing some of those dogs into certain places our law in Australia says those dogs are allowed
into. Of course we need to respect culture, but we also need to understand what our laws are
here. So they are challenges that will need to be addressed in the physical environment, the built
environment, we're looking at those issues related to universal design. I agree with you, I think
some of those will be challenges.
ANDREW BUCHANAN: A very good question you raise.
DR MARGARET WARD: Commissioner Ryan, thank you very much for your generous offer to
support the idea of a centre of universal design and I guess my question is also to Ger Craddock. I
heard what you said about garnering the support of the users of the people most affected across
Australia as a key step in this. So my question to you, Commissioner Ryan, speaking now as the
convener of the Australian Network for Universal Housing Design, which has a very broad church,
how can we support you in this endeavour?
THE HON. SUSAN RYAN: I think with housing design I was clicking over a few things that you
referred to, Ger, when you said you mentioned having awards for designers. Now, we have a lot
of architectural awards, a lot of building awards, developers' awards. I think we should perhaps
try - and you're working, I know, at a very high level on policy at inclusive housing - to target those
areas and try to persuade them in their awards to recognise - I think you said that universal design
award is now the most prestigious award. Most overarching award. I think we should be trying to
get universal design as an overarching criteria, these awards, and I'm conscious of the huge
amount of housing development we're seeing just around Sydney. We have Barangaroo, the
much discussed Barangaroo, but there will be a whole new area of housing. I don't know whether
the concept of universal design has been introduced to developers and designers who are going to
build all this new housing here on our doorstep, but it should be. I would be happy to be involved
in any discussions around that.
We've had the involvement of the Mayor. They are supporting the development of the new light
rail, which will go through Sydney. The mind boggles, I have to say. The logistics of it are pretty
enormous. But again to what extent is universal design going to be in the procurement, the
contracts for the work to be done, the design of the new light rail, the access to it? These are
massive projects that are happening right here on our doorstep and I think we should try to find a
way to get into the discussion perhaps via awards, because there is so much money involved in all
of this, to get the contract - I think the State Government is involved, Richard, perhaps you could
say something. I think that's where I think we should be jumping in.
RICHARD HAWKINS: Just to add in there, I think it's a real opportunity. The National Disability
Insurance Scheme is worth $14 billion, it will be probably one of the largest industries in the
country. The housing industry and those developments, there's a lot of money. There is a baby
boomer population coming through, as you said, who are purchasers. There's a huge opportunity
to link in to that demand, that market that will drive some of those choices. They will be
demanding universality in their properties, when they downsize from the three-bedder, they'll be
Page 8
Edited Transcript
by Jane Bringolf
COTA NSW
2012 National Disability Award winner
looking for the unit that will accommodate them and it's happening a lot now in retirement
villages and things. I think there is certainly a market out there we need to tap in to and they are
critical players who need to be part of this discussion. I think it's been mentioned in a number of
sessions it's not only the people planning, it's the people building, putting the money upfront and
selling it. Let's have a scheme that recognises through real estate agents that this is an accessible
property on Domain.com. Where are those sorts of selling points that are branding or indicating
that there is an accessibility element to the housing stock, to the transport stock, to whatever
those things happen to be.
ANDREW BUCHANAN: Richard, on the subject of money, as you have raised the issue, how much
money do you think you would be willing to convince the New South Wales Government to spend
in helping to establish the centre?
Richard: I have no idea how much establishing the centre would cost and I certainly can't talk for
the New South Wales Government. As I've said, we're very supportive of universal design in
general and it will certainly be a support to influencing the work we do. But I think we also need
at the table Planning New South Wales, we need Local Government New South Wales, and we
need the other agencies, the division of local government within the Department of Premier and
Cabinet and Planning New South Wales. All of those agencies need to be at the table I think to
really be able to say yes, this is something worthwhile as a Government. I haven't got money to
commit, as Susan said. We're struggling to do what we want to do in terms of implementation of
the National Disability Strategy. That's the other place to look for cash, the Commonwealth
Government. The National Disability Strategy is unfunded. National Disability Strategy overarches
the National Disability Insurance Scheme, it's the strategy for those two-thirds of people who
won't be eligible for the National Disability Insurance Scheme. We have to remember that they're
a huge group of people who will be influenced and impacted by accessibility issues so we should
look to the Commonwealth to support funding for those people, not just those on the National
Disability Insurance Scheme.
ANDREW BUCHANAN: Question, please, good afternoon.
DELEGATE: I'd like to make two comments following upon what Susan Ryan was saying. I think it's
very important that we look upon the whole area of universal access as being a step beyond
conforming with legislation about disabled access, because what we're talking about is going the
step beyond. I spent a lot of time over the last few years travelling in Europe and seeing what is
being done about improving accessibility in places from buildings to trams to trains, buses,
et cetera, and what I would say is following on from what you were saying about Barangaroo, I
spent a lot of time trying to encourage the Barangaroo building not just to conform with the
legislation they kept on saying they would do, but they were going to become a universal
accessible building to the benefit of all people, not just people with disabilities, because what is
good for people with disabilities, the aged, people with prams, is convenient for everybody. So
that becomes an added reason for doing things, because everyone likes to do things that are easy
and accessible for them, whether they have disabilities or not. So it becomes a compelling reason
to do things because universal accessibility is not just universally accessible for people with
disabilities, it's universally accessible for all.
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by Jane Bringolf
COTA NSW
2012 National Disability Award winner
ANDREW BUCHANAN: I think that's a very good comment and I think the panel would fully agree.
STUART MCLELLAN: The Academy of Sciences has organised parliament on a number of occasions
and they just asked the delegates who are going to meet in Canberra to convey the message we'd
like to have more science teachers to make the country more science literate. If we were to
establish a similar “universal design meets parliament”, what is the message that we should be
carrying?, because individually we all have different messages and it took something like ten years
before we had an increase in funding for science teachers. So if we don't have success in
establishing a universal design centre, we all have to focus on small local initiatives that we can get
traction on. So it's a two-part question, but what are the aspects we should be taking to Canberra
to have a universal voice?
THE HON. SUSAN RYAN: Well, I'm firmly convinced that the message for Canberra at the moment
where they're agonising about trying to reduce budget outlays and how they're going to cope with
the ongoing funding of the disability scheme and we have all these people getting older and not
dying and inconveniently costing the Government all these outlays on pensions and so forth - the
answer to that is to make sure the money that has to be spent is spent successfully.
As I said in my panel remarks, the Disability Insurance Scheme will work much more effectively if
we have universal design supporting it, if people can live in housing where they can use their
disability money to seek a more independent life, if they can get to work, if the workplaces are
accessible, and the same applies for older people. Most older people want to stay at home, they
want to stay contributing to their community. If they can get paid work, they want to do it. They
don't have to be forced into it by changing the age pension eligibility age, they want to do it if they
can. I would say look, you're committed to all this public expenditure, you're very concerned
about it but you're committed to it. To make it effective, why not make a commitment to this
transformative aspect of universal design which will make sure that everything - it has a much
better chance of success.
The other thing I would say, since we're always looking at our trade operations, we live in a region
which also anticipates having a large ageing population, but a region where they don't have a lot
of services and products. If we can develop universal design successfully here in living
environments, products and services, then we have a service we can very readily sell into our
surrounding region and earn export dollars doing that. So I'd present the economic case for it and
the economic efficiency case for it. It's such a strong case. I feel optimistic we might get
somewhere.
MS JOE MANTON: Can I make a comment on that? I think the message we have to send is we are
mainstream, that we understand universal design as a concept that benefits everybody and - I
make no apologies for this - we stop talking about disability when we are specifically talking about
universal design. I think it detracts from the people who will fund us if anybody is going to fund
us. I think the private sector marginalises disability. I think they think disability is an issue that
impacts only a few people. I think that's what they think. I think we need to change their mind
about what universal design means for mainstream. When we get that message across, I think
we're more likely to get the ears opened of the people we're trying to target. It's almost like a
marketing strategy that we need to develop to the people who we think may be funding us, and
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by Jane Bringolf
COTA NSW
2012 National Disability Award winner
certainly we talk about government funding, but I believe the private sector has a lot of money out
there. If they understand there's something in it for them, they may very well get on board. I
think that's a really important area to focus on.
ANDREW BUCHANAN: Final question.
BRUCE JUDD: Thank you. Bruce Judd, University of New South Wales, a question for Susan Ryan.
Susan, in 2013 the Australian Human Rights Commission released the advisory notes on
streetscape, public outdoor areas, fixtures, fittings and furniture - I'm reading off my iPad here.
This seems to have been done in the wake of creation of the Access to Premises Standard which
used to be an advisory note which included these urban elements. I'm wondering what the future
of this advisory note is, if it's likely to become a standard or not. Do you know anything about
that?
THE HON. SUSAN RYAN: Look, not as much as I should, I suppose. The Commission issues advisory
notes, but we don't have a lot of muscle in ensuring that that advice is implemented. So this is
where I think we need to improve our working relationships with local government, with State
Government in particular and we have a relationship with the Federal Government, but it could be
more around these sorts of areas.
We're well able to get experts to come and assist us draft these advisory notes or draft standards,
but the next step of how they're implemented I think does lead us back to partnership with
governments and I think we have to strengthen those partnerships.
DELEGATE: My reason for asking is I think something like this could be a kind of step towards a
universal design standard of some sort for public open space.
THE HON. SUSAN RYAN: Well, I hope so. Perhaps we can talk about it more offline.
Jane Bringolf, who has organised this conference, would like to thank very much Margaret Kay,
Marg Ward, Nick Loder for their assistance in developing this program for the last two days; and
Interpoint Events for their wonderful collaboration in delivering this conference; Simon Cooper,
Melanie, Laura, and Mandy that I mentioned in terms of the captions. I also thank Rob in terms of
audio for looking after us over the last two days. Jane Bringolf would like to ask you two questions
before you go. She's a woman who has passion for this subject and she wants you to say yes.
JANE BRINGOLF: Thank you, Andrew. I thought that this was going to be one event where I didn't
have to stand behind the microphone, but somehow I've been engineered into it. We have about
two minutes left, so I’ll come to the point. Do we have a mandate for a Centre for Universal
Design? Do I have anyone to help Susan and me to put it together? Okay. My email address is on
the website, the universal design conference website, or, as Mandy is captioning, it's
jane.bringolf@cotansw.com.au. It might be a long road, but I think if it's going to be driven by
passion, it might not be so long.
The other question that I have is do we want another conference? Yes? The next conference is
open for bids. I know that Victoria, Melbourne, has already shown some interest and I've got a
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Edited Transcript
by Jane Bringolf
COTA NSW
2012 National Disability Award winner
nod from Joe Manton. So if anyone any other State would like it, you might have to fight with Joe
for that one.
The other thing that I really would like to say is how the wonderful support that I've had not only
from the a team putting this together but from all the people who have turned up to make this
such a wonderful event. The people who have put in the time and effort to make their
presentations, the keynote speakers who have been very generous with their time. We've done
this on something of a shoestring budget and everybody who has participated has shown so much
willingness and I deeply thank you from the bottom of my heart, because this conference has
taken me nearly 10 years to get here and it's now I can retire. Thank you very much. (Applause).
ANDREW BUCHANAN: On looking at this subject over the last two days I am reminded of the
former cattle woman from the Northern Territory, Sara Henderson, who came to speak to one of
our ABC Rural Women of the Year national awards and her credo was, “all the strength you need
to achieve is within you, don't wait for a light to appear at the end of the tunnel, stride down there
and light the bloody thing yourself!”. Thank you for coming. Goodbye. See you next year.
(Applause).
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