Australian Advocates Push for Accessible Taxis
Disability advocates in Western Australia are calling for the return of wheelchair-accessible taxi services in the town of Broome. The campaign reflects a broader societal demand for robust accessibility in public infrastructure, a sentiment that increasingly influences expectations for digital and physical accessibility on university campuses.
The push for accessible taxis in Broome highlights a persistent issue, years after the town was chosen to pilot a state-funded grant scheme. In August 2022, the Western Australian government selected Broome to pioneer its new Regional Wheelchair Accessible Vehicle (WAV) Taxi Service Grant Scheme, committing up to $65,000 to establish a service where none existed. Despite a public consultation and expression of interest process that concluded in mid-2024, the outcome remains unclear as advocates are again campaigning for a service in 2026. The state's most recent 2025-2026 round of WAV taxi grants, announced in February 2026, awarded funds to establish services in Exmouth and Port Hedland, two other high-priority locations, making Broome's omission conspicuous. This reflects a wider crisis in regional Australia, where the availability of WAVs has sharply declined following the deregulation of the taxi industry. Advocates point to a lack of driver training and inadequate customer service as ongoing barriers for people with disabilities. This struggle for basic transport access is governed by the *Disability Standards for Accessible Public Transport 2002*. A 2022 review of these standards, which gathered input from over 1,000 participants, found that a lack of mechanisms for measuring and enforcing compliance is a significant barrier to removing discrimination. Advocacy groups like the Australian Federation of Disability Organisations (AFDO) have long argued that the system's reliance on individuals lodging complaints, rather than proactive enforcement, has failed to ensure accessible public transport. The foundational law for these transport standards is the *Disability Discrimination Act 1992* (DDA), the same legislation that mandates equal access in digital environments. The DDA's protections have been interpreted to require that digital platforms, including university learning management systems and websites, be accessible. This has led to the adoption of global standards like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) as the benchmark for compliance in Australia. The Australian government has further solidified digital access requirements through procurement standards like AS EN 301 549, which applies accessibility criteria to all information and communication technology products and services bought by the government. For universities, this means the legal imperative to ensure a student can get to campus in an accessible taxi is rooted in the same civil rights law that requires their online courses to be accessible to all learners.
