Kurt Fearnley: We've produced this podcast on Awabakal Land and we've spoken to people living and working on Aboriginal land across Australia. We pay our respects to the elders, past and present.
Kurt Fearnley: Hello I'm Kurt Fearnley, Paralympian and proud person with a disability.
Sarah Shands: And I'm Sarah Shands, Mum of an audiobook addicted kid with a disability.
Gillian: I love the Faraway Tree. It's not scary like some other books. And moonface, Frannie and Beth all go on adventures. But I don't really like Connie, she's not very nice.
Kurt Fearnley: Yeah, I never really liked Connie either.
Sarah: I'm very sure you've never read the faraway tree Kurt Fearnley!
Kurt Fearnleyt: Or have I?
Kurt Fearnley: I want to take you back to November 24, 2009. I am absolutely emotionally and physically exhausted. All I want to do is collapse into my bed and sleep for the next week.
I've just spent the last 11 long days in brutal conditions crawling the Kokoda Track with all of my family.
And I'm nearly Home. One more flight from Brisbane and I'm there. It's done.
I go up to the counter to check in. I checked my luggage in and then the staff member said to me I have to check my wheelchair in, that it needs to be treated like me luggage. I remembered my heart started racing and I was thinking — this can't happen.
If you've ever had your agency taken away it's terrifying to being on the cups of that happening again. Often when you're agency is taken away you're at your worst. You're at your most vulnerable. And you immediately go back there.
I explained to them as calmly as I could that I take my wheelchair to the door of the aeroplane. I've done it for years. My wheelchair is not luggage, it's my legs, part of me feels like it's my life.
They refused to listen to me. They said I had two options, to check my wheelchair in with my luggage and sit on this aisle chair, that's not a wheelchair. I can't touch the wheels or turn left or right. You're about as vulnerable as you can be. Or I make my own way to the gate. Either way the wheelchair it's luggage.
Now you might be thinking — what's the big deal? It's just a different kind of wheelchair. Like I said it's not like a wheelchair. Not even remotely like a wheelchair. Not like we live in. They are used in aisle of aeroplanes and there's no independence. Once I get in they have to push me into the toilet if I have to use it. They choose if I go left or right. My agency is handed over to someone else. Someone from the airline they generally have to push you. The moment they leave though, you're on your own. You don't move anywhere. Honestly all you feel when that happens is fear.
So I realised at that moment I was never going to hop into one of those chairs. So I climbed out of my wheelchair and they took it away. I thought if I crawl away from check in that they'll change their mind. Right? I thought if I crawled through security, then someone will see and they'd change their mind. They'll understand that the wheelchair is not luggage. I thought I crawl to the gate, someone's gunna say sorry about the mistake. I thought if I crawl to the bathroom because I need to go to the toilet, then no one will have to do this again. But no one did turn up. I crawled onto the plane, But I felt like crawling through that airport was more me than giving up every part of my independence that had been demanded in me since I was a kid. I still get anxious every time I fly that this might happen again. Everytime I fly I feel like i'm in that exact spot and the only thing you feel is fear.
Sarah Shands: Can you believe this happened 13 years ago Kurt?
Kurt Fearnley: To really understand the barriers people with disability face when flying you have to start from the beginning when you book a flight. Because the entire system, from the very beginning, makes flying really difficult.
Sarah Shands: Each airline has a different set of rules you have to navigate if you're a person with a disability and want to fly. If you use a motorised wheelchair, some require you to get a dangerous goods certificate while others don't. And after a court case King V Jetstar back in 2012, Jetstar limits the number of people who need wheelchair assistance on domestic flights to just two. Karni Liddell was recently told she couldn't fly because of this policy.
Karni Liddell: The reason I was ringing the night before and at 4am that morning of my flight to Proserpine because Jetstar have a policy of only allowing two people per plane who need assistance. We started talking about the wheelchair and as soon as that happens, I know something is about to go heywire So from there after an hour, she said to me, you can fly Mam but your wheelchair can't. I said to her what that'd be like you taking your legs off, which doesn't get them on the same level as you because obviously they can't take their legs off. They don't actually really get it. She told me I was being rude and that she was going to hang up on me.
Kurt Fearnley: This two wheelchair rule is the worst. I was taking my family on a holiday to the Gold Coast when I got a call. Mr Fearnley you can't travel with your family on the flight you have booked. There are already two wheelchair uses on this flight. You'll have to catch another one. And it's in that moment that you realise once again the airline doesn't value you. And my kids see that the airline sees me as less. I'm expendable and I can be kicked off one flight and put on another because of who I am. And that hurts.
Sarah Shands: There are thousands of stories that are similar to what you and Karni experience that we'll never hear. we invited Jetstar to be interviewed for the podcast but they declined and provided us with a statement saying:
"Jetstar's top priority is providing a safe, comfortable and affordable travel experience to all our customers, including those requiring specific assistance. We provide wheelchair assistance for up to two customers on each domestic flight."
The full statement can be found on our website.
Kurt Fearnley: Airlines and airports have made flying so difficult that people with disability often prefer to take long car trips. This is the case for Jan Pye, who lives in Northern NSW. She has muscular dystrophy and has recently started to use a wheelchair. She says she'll never fly from Coolangatta airport again.
Jan Pye: So we get to the gate and the flight attendant says now You do realise you can't take your wheelchair onto the tarmac. And I said yes, I'm well aware of that. And she turns and she points to this wheelchair and says, well, this is the wheelchair that you need to get into. And I looked at her and I said, that looks to me like it's a wheelchair for a child. And she said, well, that's the only wheelchair that's available. And I said I couldn't even sit in that wheelchair because it was so small. And it was very close to the ground. And she said, that's the only wheelchair that we've got available and you can't take your wheelchair onto the tarmac.
Kurt Fearnley: With the help of her husband and a walking stick Jan is able to walk short distances. And knew that if she wanted to get on the flight to Sydney, she'd need to walk to the aeroplane.
Jan Pye: So you had to walk to the left up this ramp and then to the right and then to the left. Anyway, it was very slow going, I can assure you but I was fortunate I had my husband with me. And we got to the aircraft door and there was a very deep step. There was nothing in place that I could use to help me into the aircraft. So the The flight attendant had to bend down and my husband had to push me from behind to get me into the aircraft. So by this stage I'm feeling extremely, and I repeat that extremely demoralised demeaned. I felt that I was offered no respect, because there was nothing in place to cater for my disability. And, you know, as I explained to the flight attendant, what if I didn't have any legs? How was I supposed to get onto the flight? So we walked to our seat, and I sat in the seat and I turned to my husband, and by the stage, I'll be honest, I was nearly in tears. And I said to him, we are never flying out of this airport again. I said, I'm not going through this experience again.
Sarah Shands: We approached Gold Coast Airport, but they didn't respond to our request for a comment.
Kurt Fearnley: Graeme Innes is a lawyer and former disability discrimination commissioner. He uses a guide dog and was recently flying from Adelaide airport home when he was treated appallingly by security staff.
Graeme Innes: I turned up at the security and I happened to be with a colleague. And he said, there's a lot of switchbacks that you have to go through and I know your dog doesn't operate well in those because she doesn't look above her head so she doesn't see the strips between the poles and she just wants to walk straight through them. Why don't we take the you know, the faster lane the priority lane that happened to be a body scanner. The security guard came and stood in front of me between me and the body scanner and said, you can't come through this line. And I said, What's the problem? And he said, You can't use the body scanner. And I sort of said, well, how do you know, I can't use that. I use them all the time in Gold Coast Airport. Not in Adelaide, he said, You don't use them in Adelaide. So my colleague and I talked with him for a while And at one point, he actually the guard actually turned around and walked away. Now that's a pretty insulting thing to do to a person who can't see.
Sarah Shands: Graeme, like most people, wanted to get through security without being patted down and had taken all the necessary precautions to ensure he wouldn't trigger the body scanner.
Graeme Innes: We decided that we didn't want to have an argument so we decided to go through a different lane which was a walk through process rather than a body scanner. So we went to the walk through scanner and again I started to go through and the same guard, I think, said you can't come through here with your dog, you'll have to be patted down. And I said, it's okay I can sit my dog down, she will sit here. I'll go through, I know because I've taken all the necessary precautions I will not trigger the scanner. The only patting down will be for the guide dog and she loves it. So it's not a problem. I said I do this regularly, I fly regularly for work, And he said you can't come through here. And finally I convinced him that I could come through and I did exactly as I said. I didn't trigger the scanner, the dog did and he said, well you'll have to be patted down. That's the regulations. And I said I've just been through all this to avoid being patted down
Kurt Fearnley: We approached Adelaide airport for commnet, they didn't respond to our request for an interview, but provided a statement.
Sarah Shands: This statement is available on our website and essentially says that Adelaide Airport has apologised to Mr Innes for his poor experience and they are reviewing their processes for screening people with assistance animals.
Kurt Fearnley: Graeme has lodged a complaint with the Disability Discrimination Comission, but it will be twelve months before the case is even looked at and who knows how long it will take to get an outcome. I think it's fair to say that if you are a person with a disability flying is an extreme sport. But the thing about the disability community is that we're good, really good at coming up with solutions to the problems that are placed in front of us.
Graeme Innes: It's the system that's the problem. It has been left with the most disempowered group in the process that is people with disabilities. And the only mechanism we have is like chipping away at a hammer with tiles on a tile floor and getting one little tiny piece off at a time by lodging disability discrimination complaints. Whereas we need to bring in the jackhammer, smash up the tile floor and start again.
Sarah Shands: And what could that look like, starting again?
Graeme Innes: I don't think the Disability Discrimination Act is fit for purpose in terms of dealing with this sort of discrimination. I think what we need is what already exists in Europe and in the USA, which is an airline accessibility act, which actually directs airlines and airports, and various authorities at airports because, in fact, the security process is not controlled by the Department of Transport. It's controlled by Border Force, but directs all of those people, airlines, airports, and people operating in them to comply in certain ways to provide better service for people with disabilities. Makes them accountable so there is an independent authority that deals with these issues when the arise and makes them accountable.
Kurt Fearnley: That kind of legislative change could take a while. In the short term though, we have the Accessible Transport Standards, which are currently being reviewed. They Sit under the Disability Discrimination Act. Is It worth looking at strengthening them?
Graeme Innes: There's not really much that is changing in the standards that will have any impact on airlines, they'll just keep going on their own way, with their own little separate system for people with disabilities. These reforms will be a blip, they'll make very little difference to the way the airline industry operates. Currently.
Kurt Fearnley: It feels like the airlines don't take the Accessible Transport Standards or the needs of people with disability seriously.
Sarah Shands: One of the most baffling things I found out about this issue is that each airline and each airport have different rules around when a person with disability is required to surrender their wheelchair. Sometimes motorised chairs are checked in with baggage, and the person with disability is transferred to an aisle chair.They are then taken to the gate and staff will assist with boarding. Akii Ngo was recently injured when they was put in an inappropriate aisle chair.
Akii Ngo: I'm getting pushed along. And essentially, the staff member was quite rough. And we went over a bump. and I kind of got tipped out. Where I hit my head on the flight, like right on to the middle of the glass component of the flight bridge was. So that's where I hit my head. Right on the metal. And then I hit my ribs and then I fell to the ground and, and fell into my hips and back. And I've had multiple spinal surgeries and live with chronic pain but this was a whole nother level
Sarah Shands: They aksed for their own wheelchair be brought to them, but the Jetstar staff airline refused saying that it wasn't their policy. So there partner had to lift them into another wheelchair so they could leave the airport.
Akii Ngo: We're trying to leave, I'm still in tears and they're just yelling at my partner and they're just like trying to say we do with hundreds of wheelchairs, 1000s of wheelchairs per year. the team leader was like, just remember, you declined medical care. And I'm like, no, no, no, I was not in a safe enough space. To accept it. They're two separate things.
Sarah Shands: Akii ended up seeing a GP who they trust and was diagnosed with a concussion and fractured rib from this incident. We reached out to the airline for comment and the statement essentially says: Customer safety is extremely important and we've reached out to the customer several times to better understand their experience and are yet to hear back.
Kurt Fearnley: One of the reasons it's so difficult to fly if you are a person with a disability is that airlines and airports use something called the equivalent access guidelines to decide whether a service they would give a non-disabled person. Geoff Trappett is the Chair of the committee currently reviewing the Accessible Transport Standards and he doesn't think the airlines or airports are particularly accessible.
Geoff Trappett: I would make the observation at the moment that that situation is not equivalent, but the chance of a person with a disability of being able to push that through the court system to prove that is that that inequity is next to zero. So you end up with airlines and airports, continuing those processes thinking they're okay. They use the fact that a person with a disability is unlikely to be able to work through the court system to say that no one's ever complained about our process. I don't see how this could be a problem.
Sarah Shands: So if a person with disability faces discrimination or miss treatment during a flight, the main way they'd raise this is through the courts and this would involve taking on a airline with an army of lawyers. And so these incidents rarely come to light.
Kurt Fearnley: Michelle Cohen is a lawyer with the Public Interest Advocacy Service and agrees that change is needed.
Michelle Cohen: So there is no proactive compliance or enforcement framework. And so the burden is really on individuals with disability, or with children or other family members with disability to make those complaints on their behalf and to try and advocate or try and create change or get an outcome in their individual case, through the complaint based process, which is extremely onerous.
Sarah Shands: Hey Kurt?
Kurt Fearnley: Yeah Shands…
Sarah Shands: Is it just me or have I heard this before.
Kurt Fearnley: It's not just you. This issue of a person with disability who has faced discimination has to find money and energy to fight this injustice, alone. Yes, we've spoken about this in other episodes and something that really needs to change.
Geoff Trappett: Inclusive transport just hasn't been prioritised by governments and by transport providers as a means of enablement for people with disability across the community, that it's often said that it's a funding issue. To me, it's not a funding issue. It's an issue of we haven't dedicated the right resources to achieving an end.
Sarah Shands: We approached the new minister for transport, Catherine King for an interview and she wasn't available. But she is on the record in a recent Guardian Australia article saying:
"she was very concerned by reports of airport access and assistance issues impacting Australians with disabilities".
"It simply isn't good enough," she said.
King said the government was "fully committed to further removing discrimination for people with disability in safely accessing public transport".
Sarah Shands: But I think we need to find out what "fully committed" looks like because we're playing catch up for what is a basic human right.
Kurt Fearnley: It really hurts to hear these stories. It's one of the only parts in life where I just feel defeated. I can't see a pathway through it yet. I know we shouldn't have to fight for independence when we are going on holidays or heading to work. And if I'm being honest I think people with disability are traumatised by their experiences flying and this is not okay.
Sarah Shands: Up next on Let Us In…
Scott Avery: When you're the only person in the room and you've got forty to fifty people looking at you and you expose your personal vulnerabilities as well you have the expectations of your community. For people who have skin in the game I've to to say I think why am I doing this? Just the tension the constant tension when your the only person. And the thing that keeps you going is what happens if you're not in the room?
Sarah Shands: That's up next on Let Us In. If you like what you've heard, subscribe on the ABC listen app for more episodes, and feel free to share this podcast with everyone you know.
Kurt Fearnley: This podcast has been produced with the support of the Melbourne Disability Institute and the University of Melbourne. The Executive Producer is Sarah Shands of Point 5 Productions. Fact checking by Lisa Herbert. Big thanks to Blythe Moore, Phil Ashley Brown, Simon Scoble and Nicole Bond. Sound engineer Grant Wolter.