Today in Budget Estimates, Abigail questioned the President of the NSW Legislative Council and the CEO of the Department of Parliamentary Services about the upgrades to make Australia's oldest Parliament fully accessible.

Ms ABIGAIL BOYD: Good morning to all of you. Can we talk about the plans for upgrading the accessibility of Parliament? I know there was some money put aside in the budget, which is good. Can you tell me what that is looking like?

The PRESIDENT (Hon Ben Franklin MLC): ... Accessibility is something that is extremely important to me and, obviously, it is legally binding that we must do this. This is not going to be something that will be able to be—I think—probably ever fixed. It's going to be an ongoing journey. We will rely on not only receiving expert advice but also people providing us with feedback, as you have done previously, and a range of other members around the building have. We've done some very important work over the past couple of years. In the LA Chamber, for example, for obvious reasons, there's been significant accessibility improvements in terms of providing access under the main table, widening the barriers between the advisor's gallery and the Chamber roof, automated doors in the Speaker's square and the LA Chamber and so on.

We've levelled out the floors in the Rum Hospital. We've put captioning on the broadcasting for both Chambers and all committee hearings. We published the first disability inclusion plan back in 2022. We've improved lighting levels in the Chamber and so forth. We have provided accessible ramps in the Speaker's Garden and the Hospital Road entry and exit. But there is much more to be done. What we're doing right now is obviously on level 2. People would be aware that the gym and recreation facility have been closed, from memory, from 15 August and will be closed, from memory, until mid November.

One of the most important parts of that refurbishment is, of course, providing an accessible solution—a ramp—for people to be able to get into the gym. At the moment, they simply can't. It is inaccessible, and that's unacceptable. We're also refurbishing the squash court to make it suitable for a range of multipurpose activities—not just for able-bodied people who can play squash, for example, but for things like yoga and other things. We're renovating the bathrooms in the level 2 recreation facilities to provide access there as well, and some other things. The next item that we're looking at—and I appreciate the funding from the Government in this area—is the gatehouse project. You've drawn attention to this too—and I might comment on that in a moment, if I may—in terms of ensuring that all people can enter and exit the Parliament in the same way.

Accessibility is not just about having the capacity to access; it's about having a quality of access and ensuring that everybody is treated in the same way. We're very conscious of that. Our budget bid was successful in providing a $7 million upgrade to the entry and exit from Macquarie Street. The planning work is happening for that now, but the actual works—because they'll be quite substantial—won't be able to be done until we've got a significant break, which will be, in effect, in the election period in 2027. That's when that will be done. But I think if you're looking at exiting the building, at the moment, to exit the building it requires assistance from staff. That's just not acceptable. You, by the way, raised an issue in a previous meeting—not a budget estimates meeting, but another official meeting at the Parliament—about some people being let through before somebody in a wheelchair. I wanted to make it clear—and Mr Webb might have more comments to make about this—that we took that very seriously and immediately asked for a response to that and have issued instructions again on how all people should be treated as they come into the building.

There's more to be done—you've raised accessibility—on further issues in the Chamber. I understand that needs to happen. Clearly the level 9 garden is an issue. Currently the only way to access that garden from the tower block is with stairs. We're conscious of that. We're conscious of a range of different issues. Once we lock down the Macquarie Street entrance, we're looking at changes that need to be made to the Hospital Road entrance as well. We're considering what needs to happen in terms of the level 9 garden, but we are open to all suggestions about other ways that we can make the Parliament a more appropriately accessible place for everybody. I've talked for a long time, and Mr Webb may have further comments to make on that.

MARK WEBB (CEO, Department of Parliamentary Services): We've been focusing a little on the physical access, which is incredibly important. I acknowledge that what we think of as the Parliament House building is actually seven different buildings. The Rum Hospital, each of the Chambers, the Speaker's wing, level 9, I think at the top of the Fountain Court is a separate building and then the tower block is the seventh building. If you've ever been at the north corner up near the Clerk of the LA's office and seen the different levels that you have to go up and down to get there, you can see where that might create challenges.

Some of the biggest challenges we have are around access through the front of the building, where the current steps from the forecourt are, and access into the galleries of the Chambers. They are both very difficult issues that have defied a lot of attempts to find solutions for. We have dedicated money this year to do a more comprehensive piece of work to try to identify some solutions that might work in that space. I do acknowledge that there are heritage dimensions to this as well. Some of the solutions, for instance, that we've come up with in the past have just been utterly rejected from a heritage point of view, and reasonably so. They would have fundamentally changed the front of the building. But we have dedicated money to try to find innovative solutions to deal with those kinds of issues.

I also want to highlight that accessibility isn't just about physical access around the precinct. We're doing some work on wayfinding in the precinct at the moment. If you have a vision impairment, for instance, or you could only see high contrasts—not just in terms of perhaps being blind, for instance, but if you could only see high contrast—we're trying to look at ways to use either technology or different signage approaches to help people way-find around the building a little better and upgrading the maps on the website so that people can pre-plan
their work in there as well. You would have seen the daffodil, the hidden disability—we've been training people on how to deal with hidden disabilities. We had a member of the lower House introduce some people to us who had had difficulty because of their hidden disability, and that's been a wonderful way of giving us lived-experience information to try to improve the way that we deal with hidden disabilities.

With the refurbishment of the Chambers, we upgraded the hearing loops in each of the Chambers as well. You will see now that we have closed captioning on a broadcast coming through. You yourself trialled some sign language on a committee side of things, and we're looking at how we can improve that as well. I did want to highlight that while the physical dimension to it is incredibly important—and probably one of the more challenging dimension to it—we do want to make sure that accessibility is not just in the physical space but across all ways that people can access this precinct and beyond.

While the Legislative Assembly is not a part of this hearing, I would say that does extend to access to electorate offices around the State as well. For many citizens of New South Wales, their experience of the Parliament is the experience of going to an electorate office, not coming here. So we want to make sure that the electorate offices are also a way that people can access the Parliament, and access it well. Strong accessibility standards are now built into all of our building works, including the electorate office work that we do as well.

The PRESIDENT: Suffice it to say we are treating this very seriously.

30 August 2024