There are over 36,000 people in Western Australia who are blind or have low vision and this is expected to rise to over 60,000 people by 2030 as the population continues to grow and live longer. By way of example, 1 in 30 West Australians aged 60 years or older have vision impairment that cannot be fixed by wearing glasses, 1 in 16 over 70 years old, 1 in 10 over 80 years old, and 1 in 7 aged 90 years or older.
Significant progress has been made for our community in the west, including the agreement on the NDIS rollout and the introduction of the iVote system at this election.
At the upcoming State election on 11 March, we are urging all parties to commit to acting on these five issues to continue building the state's record of achievement:
- Employment: Increase the workforce participation rates of people with disability, including people who are blind or have low vision, within the public sector in the next four-year term to four per cent and develop plans that address structural barriers to employment.
- Transport: Review and extend the Taxi User's Subsidy Scheme subsidy fare to $60 and transition to an electronic card payment system to improve accessibility of the scheme.
- NDIS and Aged Care: Commit to improving access to specialist services within the Aged Care system and ensure NDIS information, documentation and plans are provided in accessible formats.
- Rural and remote services: Allocate additional funding to specialist blindness and low vision services providers to support rural and remote communities and commit funding to support Indigenous communities.
- General services: Develop performance indicators for government agencies to better collate data about people with disability accessing services and develop Disability Action Plans.
Learn more about our election priorities Vision Australia Priorities WA Election 2017 (PDF, 254KB) Vision Australia Priorities WA Election 2017 (Word 106KB)
A number of accessible voting options are available for voters who are blind or have low vision at the Western Australian state general election on 11 March 2017.
For further information please contact the Government Relations team at: [email protected].