DISABILITY ACCESS, PARLIAMENT HOUSE

The Hon. M. PARNELL (15:05): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the President a question about access to Parliament House for people with disabilities.

Leave granted.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: As all members know, Old Parliament House has been off limits to members for a year or so, and now we find the building surrounded with hoardings, and the western access gates and the courtyard have been blocked off to enable building work to be undertaken. All members of staff, I understand, received an email from the Clerk of the House of Assembly, Mr Malcolm Lehman, which said:

Accessible entry for the duration of the project will be via Festival Drive (off King William Road) through the Festival Centre car park pedestrian entry and then entry into Parliament House via the rear door. The rear door has been fitted with an intercom to Building Services for those requiring admittance or escort into the building...Signage advising of the temporary accessible entry arrangements will be posted along North Terrace.

Clearly, this new arrangement will add a considerable period of time for people wanting to access Parliament House from North Terrace, and there have also been concerns raised with me about the danger of people with disabilities (for example, in wheelchairs) needing to negotiate a car park in order to access Parliament House. My questions of you, Mr President, are:

1. How long is it expected the current arrangements will be in place?

2. Will those visitors to Parliament House with disabilities who are used to obtaining a temporary car park permit and parking directly in front of Parliament House on North Terrace be provided with similar free temporary parking in the Festival Centre car park?

3. What options for alternative temporary entry points to Parliament House have been considered, such as opening the eastern door and constructing wheelchair ramps, to avoid the need for visitors to access Parliament House through the Festival Centre car park?

The PRESIDENT (15:07): Thank you very much for your very important questions. In response, perhaps I will go back to some of the stuff that has been done when the JPSC, in particular, knew about the changes and the inconvenience they were going to cause first up. We did seek expert advice as part of the engagement of the project managers and architects for Old Parliament House in relation to access to the main Parliament House building. Some of those things that you have mentioned that were in the correspondence received from the Clerk of the House of Assembly were right. They have been implemented and are ready for access.

In answer to your question about how long, we think 18 months. We hope less, but we think it would be safe to say 18 months. When building, you never know; but we hope it would be no more and we hope it will be less.

An honourable member interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Interjections are out of order, even when the President is on his feet. There is a car park that is kept aside for anyone who needs it. If that is not sufficient, there should be some correspondence or some issue raised with a member of the JPSC so that can be taken on board. There was consideration given to access on the eastern side of the building. The problem with that was it was a great expense, but the main reason was that it was going to require a steep ramp with an 11 to 12 metre drop and also the dangers that come with that because of the traffic that goes past that area.

If there are any other problems that come out of the building work regarding access they should be raised immediately with a member of the JPSC. The members of the JPSC in this house are the Hon. John Gazzola, the Hon. John Dawkins and me. Any of those members would take matters to the JPSC for consideration.