As this new school year starts, the bureaucracy has delivered a stunning edict to a nine year old Wollongong girl who suffers from cerebral palsy. They have decided that she is no longer eligible for a seat on the bus that takes disabled children to the ParaMeadows school at Fairy Meadow - because her mother has a car and does not work !
In past years this girl has had daily transport from her home at Haywards Bay to ParaMeadows. The only thing that seems to have changed is a move from Haywards Bay to Horsley, but now the department seems to have changed the eligibility rules.
This ruling clearly infringes the Disability Discrimination act. It seems that the bureaucrats have singled out this lone cerebral palsy sufferer for special attention - probably because someone has a bee in their bonnet about parental responsibility issues. It would be interesting to know if the department has surveyed the parents of all those carried by this disability bus - and that all those who continue to meet the eligibility guidelines lack a family car and have a mother with a job.
What the department seems to be saying is the mother has an obligation to provide transport for a disabled daughter - purely on the grounds that she has a car - and doesn't have a job in the work force. That would be an interesting innovation if it were to be extended to the provision of seats on the school bus network. Just imagine the uproar if every kid with a non working mother and a family car was kicked off the school bus system and told to find their own way to and from school.
Inevitably, in the next few days we will read that the problem has been settled in favour of this child being allocated a seat. Such is the way of politics - when the bureaucracy gets a rush of blood and makes some stupid decisions.
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