2007 PhD Thesis Final Revised.pdf - Curtin University

In relation to the CDS, the final point emphasises the importance of
consulting with people with disabilities to find out what they need. This point is vital
in minimising the significance of the disability divide and finding ways to address
the issue. The senior policy advisor representing people with disabilities and the
representative from NOIE both indicated that they honestly do not know if people
with disabilities are well informed about what the government can provide for them
and have been unable to effectively determine their needs in terms of Internet-related
technologies. Ellis perceives this as being a fundamental flaw, indicating that the
current government believes that any non-employment issue must be dealt with by
the states and territories. Senator Lundy indicated that she did not have a thorough
understanding of the needs of people with disabilities in relation to IT either but that
the community groups she had spoken to were well informed.
Both the WA and ACT government representatives also indicated that, due to
the autonomous nature of government departments, it is extremely difficult to find
out collectively what people with disabilities need. It is essentially left up to the
individual departments to determine accessibility and need. The WA Office of E-
government sees its role as informing the various departments of their legal
obligations, but the departments have to choose whether or not they wish to be
informed and whether to act on that basis. The ACT government representatives
reported that most of their information comes from similar interdepartmental
discussions. The ACT government has acknowledged some of these issues and
created a report that examined ways to improve access to information. The report,
titled Bridging the Digital Divide (Rooksby, Weckert, & Lucas, 2002) suggested a
three stage solution consisting of providing access to computing and Internet-related
technologies, providing training to those who are unable to use the equipment and
ensuring that AT devices were affordable, possibly through a government subsidy
(Rooksby, Weckert, & Lucas, 2002). One of the key recommendations in the report
was the need for the government to liaise directly with both people who faced a
disability divide and companies who provided AT products. When the WA
government representatives were asked about the ACT report, they dismissed most
of its findings due to the sheer size of land and population, stating that widespread
discussions with disability groups, training and subsidies were simply not practical.
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