Access for all abilities

Auckland aims to become the world's most liveable city. Robert Berger tells Hayley Hannan he believes this vision should extend particularly to people with disabilities.
For Robert Berger, a wheelchair ramp at Silverdale Hall is a small victory. The concrete incline is the result of months of advocating, planning and pushing to make sure that wheelchair-bound people, like him, can enter and leave by the front door for the first time in a century.
"We put the ramp in the front so people with disabilities can use the front door like everyone else. But we had issues getting it under way."
Mr Berger chairs the Rodney Disability Advisory Group, a watchdog that has fought for more than 20 years to make Rodney's buildings disability-friendly.
There are often "issues" in trying to ensure a building is accessible to all people, he says. He wants to get involved with Auckland Council at planning stages to help prevent this.
The council is setting up a Disability Advisory Group (see box) but Mr Berger argues that the panel is not enough. "At the end of the day we're going to have a really good advisery panel, and people with disabilities should be pretty happy with what the council will do for them.
"But the new panel that's being set up is strategic. We want to see more of an organisational board that all the groups like ours can feed into from across Auckland."
He says the council needs a board working at the planning level to ensure all the necessary ramps, handrails and footpath kerbs are where they are needed.
It can often be costly and time-consuming to backtrack and add features after building inspectors have overlooked something, he says.
The Rodney Advisory Group had been forced to go to court and to the Department of Building and Housing to get accessible features put in.
It seems like an awful hard fight, I comment. "We can't let it go," he says. "We just can't. And I have got better things to do than waste my time on a big fight."
Deputy mayor Penny Hulse has met with Mr Berger. "I think Robert's got a really valid point. He and I will work out what can be done."
What will come of his idea is still unclear but Mr Berger remains optimistic about a more inclusive future.
"Given that the mayor's vision is for the most liveable city, we have got to make it totally disability-friendly."
Group action
Auckland Council is setting up a Disability Advisory Group. Positions on it were advertised in March and interviewing ended last week. The nine members chosen are expected to be notified this week.
Deputy mayor Penny Hulse believes the group will have a strategic role. "The group will most likely be a lobby group and will meet with us,'' she says.
The panel is being set up in a similar fashion to the Pacific Peoples Advisory Panel and the Ethnic Advisory Panel. However, the disability group is not included in the structure's
legislation - it's a decision of the new council.
Ms Hulse says Auckland Transport is also setting up an advisory group to deal with the
day-to-day issues of traffic and transport. "That's where we get most of our complaints - people not being able to get around roadworks, not enough parking spots and pavement issues.''