Discrimination or not

[WhoDo]

The building codes for disabled and equitable access are so strict there would be no way of providing this type of access to national parks without destroying it. And you would need to provide that level because the anti discrimination and equitable access laws are so strong these days even federal government could be sued if it wasn't done to the code.

Sure. I get that, but I do think people in general (not you or anyone else specifically) tend at times to say "Oh, well, we can't do that so let's just accept it and move on" when what is needed is more of "Oh, well, we can't do that so how can we achieve something as good by thinking laterally". For example, if we don't want cars, trucks, cycles, etc trundling through our parks, and I sure as heck don't, what about developing a form of narrow gauge or elevated light rail access to key viewing points? Surely that can be achieved without destroying the environment in between the main access point and the key viewing point? It should never be "too hard" to help those less fortunate than ourselves IMHO, and I'm just as guilty of that approach as anyone else so there's no finger-pointing going on here either!

There is no way to make all parts of our natural environment accessible for all. There has to be compromise. I know it's a fact and the day when I'm too enfeebled to be able to do what I do now, I'll have to accept it. And will do so knowing that it'll help preserve it for the next generation to enjoy.

I can accept that "there is no way" that we know of right now, but maybe being in your area of expertise, Mike, you can be challenged to find a new way? This isn't about building monuments to human laziness or destroying our natural heritage before it can be shared by future generations. I'm certainly with you in that perspective. Maybe there do have to be compromises made, but compromises shouldn't require complete acquiescence on the part of one or other party. With some innovative thinking, the win-win solution is always a possibility IMHO.

[Scotty72]

Scotty, it's an Australia wide standard. If you feel your work place isn't up to spec and it is a disadvantage to users, let it be known because it is important in the built environment.

Kym, you hit the nail on the head.

Unfortunately, the nsw govt exempts itself from many standards it imposes upon others. Most parents would not accept the conditions for their workplace that they allow in their kids' school (in a range of areas) but, that is another topic.

I don't think anyone is suggesting all parks be paved over. Simply, that access be provided to key areas. It is possible if there is the will. Unfortunately, it doesn't affect most people so, they don't care.

However, if we fail to provide equity of access / dignity then, we should give up on the notion that we are a civilized, first world country and go back to sticking 'the cripples' into asylums. (note the sarcasm)

We are either civilized or we are not.

Scotty

[WhoDo]

It's one thing for building codes to define equitable access (and should),
but pragmatically disabled people will miss out on many things due to their disabilities (and the severity)... that's life.
Eg. there is no wheel chair access to the top of Ayers Rock, nor should there be.
You have to meet some basic abilities to do the Harbour Bridge climb; similar situation.

National Parks have limited access, rough terrain etc., and to provide special access is often detrimental to the park and should not happen in those cases.

Sure, there will still be places that remain inaccessible to people with disabilities. As you say "that's life". That shouldn't stop us from using our intellect to find ways around the restrictions that achieve the objective without destroying it in the process, should it?

I can't see a way around your Ayers Rock example at the moment, Kym, but there may be one some day. I can already envisage a way around the Harbour Bridge climb, though. We have chair lifts that get people up stairs where ramps are impossible or impractical. Why not a chair lift on the Harbour Bridge? Why not a Luna Park style of roller coaster rail access? The extra infrastructure isn't exactly going to stand out amid the millions of tonnes of steel already there anyway!

Yes, it will cost money, time and effort to achieve these things. And that investment must be balanced with other more pressing priorities, for sure. Should the ideal be abandoned then as "too hard"? I think that too often we collectively choose the easy alternative without truly pressing ourselves to go a bit further for others. I'd rather spend money on a chair lift to the top of the bridge than an extra 5 minutes of fireworks at New Year, and I LOVE the fireworks despite the cost!

For example, I am truly jealous of you bird lovers that can hike to where they are to take their photographs. Last year I was fortunate enough to get a taste of that because someone in Uralla NSW had the foresight to provide a hide for photographers accessible from the main road without damaging the fragile ecology of the area. The result, for me, was spectacular! I was able to get a picture of a nesting black swan without disturbing either the bird or its habitat! Thank you for those with a vision to not only preserve our natural heritage but also to make it accessible whenever possible.

I think the OP's point was that taking the easy option may be discriminatory. At least that's how I read the question and therefore how I framed my responses. Life may hand us lemons but I'd sure love someone to teach us how to make lemonade (ok, I know that's hackneyed, but you have to admit it's reasonably appropriate ). When bad things happen to good people, I'm naive enough to say I want to respond not with "Why me" but "What can I use that experience to achieve?"

[Scotty72]

Sure, there will still be places that remain inaccessible to people with disabilities. As you say "that's life". That shouldn't stop us from using our intellect to find ways around the restrictions that achieve the objective without destroying it in the process, should it?

I can't see a way around your Ayers Rock example at the moment, Kym, but there may be one some day. I can already envisage a way around the Harbour Bridge climb, though. We have chair lifts that get people up stairs where ramps are impossible or impractical. Why not a chair lift on the Harbour Bridge? Why not a Luna Park style of roller coaster rail access? The extra infrastructure isn't exactly going to stand out amid the millions of tonnes of steel already there anyway!

Yes, it will cost money, time and effort to achieve these things. And that investment must be balanced with other more pressing priorities, for sure. Should the ideal be abandoned then as "too hard"? I think that too often we collectively choose the easy alternative without truly pressing ourselves to go a bit further for others. I'd rather spend money on a chair lift to the top of the bridge than an extra 5 minutes of fireworks at New Year, and I LOVE the fireworks despite the cost!

For example, I am truly jealous of you bird lovers that can hike to where they are to take their photographs. Last year I was fortunate enough to get a taste of that because someone in Uralla NSW had the foresight to provide a hide for photographers accessible from the main road without damaging the fragile ecology of the area. The result, for me, was spectacular! I was able to get a picture of a nesting black swan without disturbing either the bird or its habitat! Thank you for those with a vision to not only preserve our natural heritage but also to make it accessible whenever possible.

I think the OP's point was that taking the easy option may be discriminatory. At least that's how I read the question and therefore how I framed my responses. Life may hand us lemons but I'd sure love someone to teach us how to make lemonade (ok, I know that's hackneyed, but you have to admit it's reasonably appropriate ). When bad things happen to good people, I'm naive enough to say I want to respond not with "Why me" but "What can I use that experience to achieve?"

Well said !

[tcdev]

Rather than restricting access, perhaps we should be looking at ways of providing access without damage.

I was in Zion National Park earlier this year. They have a system whereby in the off-peak season, you can drive to all areas of the park in your own car. However, once the crowds become too great, they restrict access to the main roads, and provide (very) regular & free shuttle services to the rest of the park. Runs like clockwork, and it's actually nice to be able to relax on a bus and listen to some commentary about the park rather than alternate between reading a map and looking for a car space.

Unfortunately, if something like this was to be implemented in Australia, the buses would run every 2 hours, would only take you to half the places, and it'd cost $17 per person each way.

[Scotty72]

Unfortunately, if something like this was to be implemented in Australia, the buses would run every 2 hours, would only take you to half the places, and it'd cost $17 per person each way.

I'm not so sure. I reckon the main prob with regular shuttles or public transport is Australians will, culturally, will not use them.

I live very, very close to Sydney's Olympic stadium. It is extremely well serviced by both buses and trains which run 3/4 empty whilst motorists clog up the surrounding streets by endlessly circling the neighborhood for parking spots that don't exist.

If people were more willing to fill up the buses rather than demand the right to drive to the various attractions then the fares and schedules would far more friendly.

Just as an exercise, go to any shopping centre car-park and notice where people park - they will circle around close to the entrance waiting for a spot rather than park out the back then walk or catch the internal shuttle that is provided by some.

And, it's even worse at the mega-malls right by train stations - why to they need 11 huge levels of parking when the train stops at the front door? Because most Australians don't like the idea of mixing with the plebs on public transit.

[Tannin]

If we are talking about visitor levels such that a shuttle bus is even imaginable, we have long since gone past the point where we are talking about an actual national park of biological significance. We are now discussing nature fun parks. (Which is fine, I have no problem with such things, indeed I think they are really useful and important, but we need to keep at least one eye on the biological realities here.)

[tcdev]

I'm not so sure. I reckon the main prob with regular shuttles or public transport is Australians will, culturally, will not use them.

I live very, very close to Sydney's Olympic stadium. It is extremely well serviced by both buses and trains which run 3/4 empty whilst motorists clog up the surrounding streets by endlessly circling the neighborhood for parking spots that don't exist.

Sure, there are examples of areas that are well-serviced, but I'm afraid they're in the minority. Try to get anywhere out Manly Warringah way, or even down at Dolls Point / Sans Souci, and it's a different story. It's a very long, very slow and expensive trip, as we found at last time we visited Homebush for a concert. They were urging people to take public transport, so we did. Huge mistake; we'll never do that again! It simply took way too long to get home - after we discovered they sign-posted the wrong platform at Redfern in the wee hours of the morning. No Announcement, nothing. After sitting for 30 mins we went back up to ask someone... "oh you should be on another platform". And yes, it was *still* wrong when we ran past.

My wife was telling me just yersterday that she went 2 vert short stops on the train the other day, and it cost $6.50!!! Most other capital cities in the world would charge you $2.

The reason people generally don't use public transport is because it isn't cost effective, and it simply isn't reliable. So even when visiting areas that are serviced well, people simply don't consider it as an option because of their previous experiences with public transport. And you haver to admit, struggling on a bus or train - or both - isn't much fun with 6 bags of shopping! I don't begrudge shoppers that at least.

[Duane Pipe]

Country borne lad I am but I have experienced the city.
I can remember back about 28 years ago I was caching the train from Lilydale into the City of Melbourne
I did that for 2 years while I was going to RMIT
And the Trains ran like clockwork,
Today all I hear about public transport is how unreliable it has become.
Why the hell would you want to use it!
Put me in a car any day

[geoffsta]

Ah.. Public transport. Have one bus go through once a day, at an hour that would not get anyone to work on time. And it doesn't go to the town were I work anyway.
Back to the subject. Eco tourism or Eco tours could resolve the problem, but they are not allowed to travel any further than the rest of us. (related to the subject of public transport ) And having one person on that tour that has a disability of any sort, stops the rest from going.

[Scotty72]

This becomes a silly chicken / egg statement.

Do people not use PT because the service is crap

Or

Does the service become crap because fewer people use it.

I suspect it may be the latter. Take Sydney as an eg. The M4 tracks alongside the main western line (and stays with 2-3kms of it the whole way). Everyday, untold thousands go from areas well serviced to other areas that are well serviced along the same line (Penrith / Blacktown / Parramatta / Strathfield / City) but most go by car. They could at least drive to a commuter car park then take the train (as I did when I lived at Rooty Hill) .

It is a cultural thing. I've lived in a few Asian cities, some better serviced by PT and some not but, they have a PT culture and are prepared to make multi-mode / multi-line trips.

We seem to have a culture that won't tolerate PT unless we have to - and we expect the govt to fix the unsolvable traffic gridlock (but, of course - we won't pay for it )

Anyway, this is getting off-topic. But, then again, in we toned down our car culture - perhaps a road could be be built through a National Park might not necessarily lead to it being trashed.

[Tannin]

perhaps a road could be be built through a National Park might not necessarily lead to it being trashed.

Every road does damage, Scotty. Significant damage.

• Obviously, it directly destroys a portion of the park.
• The construction and maintenance machinery destroys a good deal more. Not just through mechanical damage (bulldozer tracks and the like) but, far more significantly, through the introduction of weeds and diseases.
• The road itself provides an easy route for the penetration of this park by feral animals - foxes in particular, and foxes, as we know, are the most damaging and destructive of all feral animals in Australia. Where the bush is dense, it has been shown that knocking even a rough track through produces a significant increase in fox predation on rare and threatened bird, mammal, and reptile species.
• The road brings visitors. Visitor vehicles, shoes and clothing bring in a variety of diseases, including in particular the deadly Phytophthora fungus - see here http://www.dieback.org.au/go/what-is...hthora-dieback if you don't know what Phytophthora is.
• Visitors also bring in weed seeds. Weed infestation is a huge, repeat huge problem in parks and reserves. Left unchecked, weeds can destroy the entire ecosystem of a park - and they quite often do. It is normal to expect a badly weed-infested reserve to have around one-tenth of the biodiversity of a healthy park. And, of course, the few native species that do remain are nearly always the most common, least important ones. Most people are completely clueless about weeds. It is easy to make sure you don't spread them, but hardly anyone besides those with biological training or experienced bushwalkers knows how or even cares.
• Visitors bring litter.
• Visitors start fires.
• Visitors destroy stuff by trampling, cutting firewood, and other activities.
• Visitors bring in feral animals - the number of idiots who bring pets in to national parks is astonishing!
• Visitors demand facilities, which in turn create destruction of their own.
• Visitors get turned off by the regimentation and the damage caused by other visitors, so they go off looking for as-yet unspoiled parts of the park and damage those parts as well.
• Various other things I forget right now

Now some of these factors are quite small (trampling only becomes a major issue where there are lots of visitors, or where the particular habitat is especially vulnerable - a peat moss wetland, for example) but others -weeds and diseases in particular - are huge. And all of these factors become worse as you squeeze ever more people into ever-smaller remaining bits of intact or semi-intact natural bushland.

[Scotty72]

I don't disagree.

My point was a bus carrying 50 people will have far less impact than 50 cars carrying 1 person each.

[Dylan & Marianne]

It can be done reasonably well (public transport system in a national park)
You may or may not have heard of Jiuzhaigou in China but that is a pristine part of China in Szechuan province. They have roads and boardwalks leading up the two valleys serviced by buses that run every 10 minutes. Despite the sheer volume of visitors there, surprisigly, you could see very little impact around the environment - of course the mind boggles as to how it would have looked without the roads and tourism there, but let me tell you - mainland Chinese are far from the most eco friendly local tourists and if that many can visit a UNESCO area and leave little footprint, it is a good example of how it can be done (albeit with an impact but minimised).

[arthurking83]

At the least they could build a motel, campground, kiosk and an amenities block there I reckon Geoff!
Considering the remoteness of the place tho I doubt that you'd see one person a week up there tho. It's basically a road to and from nowhere and not on any major tourist highway.

It'd take me all day to do the round trip walk, so I'm loathe to do so.

I've seen areas and points of significance being developed to silly levels over the years as well(the one that sticks to mind is the Ada Tree near Noojee).
It seems that the one in particular that Geoff is referring too used to be a track that got you a lot closer to a point of interest, whereas now they've decided that the track should be closed off permanently and the walk to a specific point of interest made excruciatingly difficult now.
I tend to believe that it's all about funding(for a track that most likely needs a lot of maintenance, and limitation of liability more than ecological conscience.
Silly thing is, that being so remote, there is more likely to be damage caused by the Rambo Yahoo element because fewer people are likely to visit the area now.

I'm not 100% sure if it's a case of discrimination. I doubt that one could argue discriminatory grounds with an ecologically sensitive department just to have access re opened.
I'm sure financial consideration is a major portion in closing the track/s.

I remember years back when on a trip into desert country, due to weather constraints, we had to divert to places of no particular interest, and one of them was Broken Hill. Whilst there, we found that there was this Painted Desert thingy display, high up on a hill, and there was no way I was going to be able to walk up the 1 or so klms to the summit to view the art display. On casually and jokingly mentioning this to the lady at the tourist office, she claimed that they have a disabled access key, that allows folks to drive the majority of the way to the top and then do a short walk to the gallery.
I reckoned that the gate itself was not really a deterrent to would be gate crashing anarchistic art mutilators armed with cans of spray paint, but strangely enough it was damage free.. and ended up being a nice place to visit all up.
Had it not been for their disabled policy, I'd never have visited the hill top, as it was strictly out of bounds for my then only 6 month old leg injury.

I think there's always an answer to a problem, and that there's always going to be a small element of uncooperative folk that will always have a need to destroy stuff.
I'm wondering if the government is better off providing a park simply for them to destroy at will. Toilet blocks seem to be a favoured target for these types, as well as fences, bins and elevated platforms.
All it needs is nice easy access too the park, but completely impossible access out of the park, with one way razor wire and other externally bound booby traps to play with!

[geoffsta]

The discriminatary part of it was. As I was leaving there was a family of 5 obviously going up there to camp. They were all super fit. You know the ones. Big flash 4x4, dad with the calf musles the size of footballs, Super fit mum with no boobs, teenage kids decked out in the lastest hiking gear, all wearing the $400 hiking boots, and carrying enough gear for a day or two.
They would go up there and; Light fires, cut fire wood, spread their rubbish, trample everything to death, twice as much as a group of people with gimpy legs, who would have a bit of a look around, maybe take some photos, then leave.
You must remember that this area is a six hour drive from Melbourne, and a two hour drive from any small town, with more wild horses in the area than there would be visitors during a weekday ( I did get to see a stallion while I was there. To far away and too quick for me to take a shot.)

[jim]

The discriminatary part of it was. As I was leaving there was a family of 5 obviously going up there to camp. They were all super fit. You know the ones. Big flash 4x4, dad with the calf musles the size of footballs, Super fit mum with no boobs, teenage kids decked out in the lastest hiking gear, all wearing the $400 hiking boots, and carrying enough gear for a day or two.
They would go up there and; Light fires, cut fire wood, spread their rubbish, trample everything to death...

Geoff I think the very sight of these people would make me throw up, nevertheless there are a lot of unfair assumptions in this post.

[Duane Pipe]

Boob less
They might have done the right thing and took their rubbish home, but I doubt it
Who owns the bush Geoff. I do we all do and it think it my right to go anywhere that I like
within reason
I lived in Rawson for 15 years and do you think that Melbourne Water was going to stop me from entering the Thompson Catchment
not on your life
I would enter via a gated but well formed track, no damage done and all I would take was my rod a few lurers a drink and a sanga
no mess no fuss
No way were they stopping me from having a crack at what would be the best trout spot on the main land, I have heard of 20lb trout
being caught
Although it was illegal entry No harm was done IMHO
Shh don't tell any body about my spot
only joking, most trout men from around the Valley go there

[Duane Pipe]

Geoff Are you sure that the track is closed permanently or is at a seasonal closure.
Most forestry tracks are locked in June and re open in October

[geoffsta]

Definitely all year round. Other seasonal tracks were still open at the time.

I will get up there, later in the year. I'll get there early, take a drink and take some nibbles, a decent pair of boots. And make a full day of it.