With so many people asking “what does this actually mean for me?”, we broke it all down in a practical, easy-to-understand way – cutting through the noise and focusing on what really matters.

Presented by PDA CEO Suzanne Gearing and PDA President Paul Williamson, the session also included live Q&A, shared community concerns, and provided valuable feedback to help strengthen our advocacy to government and media.

The recording is now live on our YouTube channel:

Take a look to see how the Budget may impact you.

And while you’re there, don’t forget to subscribe – it’s free and you’ll be the first to know when new webinar recordings are released.

Millions Face Financial Exclusion and Bureaucratic Nightmares as Mobility Barriers Turn Everyday Essentials into Impossible Hurdles

In a nation that prides itself on inclusivity, a hidden crisis is unfolding: Australians with physical disabilities who cannot drive or fly are being systematically excluded from opening bank accounts, accessing government services, and even verifying their identity. With a driver’s license or passport often unattainable due to mobility limitations, these individuals are trapped in a cycle of frustration and inequality, according to a new report from Physical Disability Australia due for public release on June 1st.

The report, titled Barriers Beyond Mobility: The ID Crisis for People with Disabilities, reveals that over 5.5 million Australians live with disabilities, many of whom cannot obtain standard photo IDs due to chronic pain, limited transport options, or geographic isolation.

This “ID gap” creates insurmountable obstacles in a digital-first world, where anti-money laundering laws demand rigorous verification for banking, and government portals like MyGov require in-person or travel-dependent setups.

“Imagine needing a bank account to receive your disability pension, but being unable to prove who you are because you can’t drive to a Service NSW centre or fly for a passport interview,” said Suzanne Gearing, CEO of Physical Disability Australia. “This isn’t just inconvenience, it’s discrimination. People with disabilities are being denied financial independence, access to Centrelink benefits, and even basic information, all because our systems weren’t built with them in mind.”

Key challenges highlighted in the report include:

• Banking Barriers: The 100-point ID system relies heavily on driver’s licenses (70 points) or passports, leaving those without them scrambling for alternatives like certified birth certificates, which often require in-person certification at distant locations.
• Government Service Roadblocks: Setting up MyGov accounts or applying for NDIS support without these documents demands, at a bare minimum, physical presence, exacerbating isolation for rural residents or those unable to use public transport.
• Broader Impacts: Without these ID documents, individuals face delays in healthcare access, employment opportunities, and emergency aid, leading to increased poverty and mental health strain.

The report calls for immediate action, including:

• Expanding digital ID verification options without travel requirements.
• Reforming the 100-point system to prioritise accessible alternatives, such as enhanced Medicare cards or video-based certifications.

Disability advocate Dr George Taleporos shared his concerns, “People with disability are once again being shut out by government systems that are built around able-bodied assumptions. Requiring a passport or driver licence to access essential identity checks ignores the reality that many of us cannot drive, do not fly, or do not have those documents. This is not a minor administrative problem. It is a serious access and equity failure that affects all areas of our lives. The government must make this verification system accessible and inclusive to people with disability.”

George Taleporos is concerned that the government’s verification systems do not consider accessibility and equity for Australia’s disability community.

www.newshub.medianet.com.au/2026/05/trapped-in-a-system-australians-with-disabilities-locked-out-of-basic-services-without-drivers-license-or-passport

pdapressreleaseidsystemsmay2026

Physical Disability Australia is calling for urgent action to fix inaccessible charging infrastructure before inequality is further embedded into the nation’s transport system.

As petrol prices climb and fuel security becomes more volatile, Australia’s move to electric vehicles is accelerating. But for many people with disability, the nation’s EV charging network remains inaccessible, unreliable, and unequal.

The recent Austroads’ “Enabling Accessible Electric Vehicle Charging” report confirms what drivers with disability already know: accessible charging is still not being treated as essential. A “minimum bays” approach may meet basic requirements on paper, but in practice it leaves people with disabilities facing longer waits, fewer options, and greater uncertainty every time they need to recharge.

Physical Disability Australia says that must change.

“If Australia is serious about an electric future, it must be a future that includes everyone,” said Suzanne Gearing, CEO of Physical Disability Australia. “Accessible charging cannot be an afterthought. It is essential infrastructure. When disabled drivers are forced to rely on one bay being available, and not misused, that is not equality. It is exclusion by design.”

Physical Disability Australia is calling on governments, councils, developers, and charging operators to adopt an equity-first approach by making universal design the standard, retrofitting existing sites, and introducing enforceable measures to protect access.

“This is a chance to build the right system from the start,” Ms Gearing said. “We need leadership, urgency, and a commitment to dignity, safety, and equal access. This innovation will, like the curb cut, become a welcome addition to recharging stations, and benefit not just to people with disability, but a significant portion of the community.”

As Australia builds the transport network of the future, accessibility must be built in, not bolted on.

https://newshub.medianet.com.au/2026/05/australias-ev-future-is-leaving-disabled-drivers-behind/

pdapressreleaseelectricvehiclesevmay2026

Melanie Hawkes, PDA’s WA Director, shares her frustration around accessibility of her local EV charging infrastructure.

There are a lot of benefits in becoming a PDA member.

With physical disability making up a huge *76.8% of Australia’s reported 5.5 million disabled, PDA represents the vast majority of our country’s disability community – over 4.2 million in fact.

As well as Australians living with physical disability, we also welcome their families, friends, carers, support workers, providers and anyone with a supportive interest as PDA members.

We’ve been around since 1995 and are one of a very small handful of Australian disability organisations that actually has members and board representation in every Australian state and territory.

This gives us a national footprint and allows PDA to have its finger firmly on the pulse of disability in our country.

It is through this representation that our strong voice is heard and that we are included in Australia’s disability conversation.

As an organisation run by people with physical disability for people with physical disability, PDA also truly understands and stands for the needs, rights and consideration of its members.

We put disability rights at the forefront of all that we do.

So, if you haven’t signed up for FREE PDA MEMBERSHIP yet, what’s stopping you?

Go to

Join today.

You’ll be glad that you did.

*www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/disability/disability-ageing-and-carers-australia-summary-findings/latest-release

Bond University (in conjunction with Professor Michelle McLean -Editor-in-Chief, Ms Elmarie Stander, Assistant Professor Jaclyn Szkwara, Associate Professor Allan Stirling, Dr Priya Iyer, Associate Professor Tanisha Jowsey, Dr Thomas Titus and PDA’s Ambassador, Dinesh Palipana) has had an invaluable resource published to support and inform those affected by spinal cord injury.

Stemming from an initial idea by Dinesh Palipana and Thomas Titus to create ‘something’ that would be useful to everyone affected by and involved with spinal cord injury, this publication contains information, resources, research and most importantly, personal, lived experiences, in one place.

The direct link to the book is:

www.bond.studium.pub/life-well-lived-with-spinal-cord-injuries

Written by Sean Tyrell – PDA’s VIC Associate Director

This blog was prompted by a loose discussion within the PDA Board about our experiences travelling abroad. After hearing some truly horrific stories from some of our members, I volunteered to try a lighter tone and share some history about how I used a bit of lateral thinking to enjoy a much better time than my early efforts.

Many years ago, I dropped in on my sister Sally’s apartment in East Melbourne to find her hosting drinks for friends just returned from a month in Jamaica. I quickly gathered the champagne had already been flowing for some time and listened in to stories about the girls meeting seven-foot West Indian men through a new dating app called Tinder.

What is Tinder, I hear you say? In short, it’s an early 2010’s dating app that helps singles connect by the sharing of photos and two-sentence introductions. Users scroll through the photos of prospective dates, swiping right to indicate interest and hoping that one will receive a right swipe in return. This then enables an online conversation within the safety of the app that can eventually lead to a hook up in the real physical world. Love Story it is not.

And how might this Tinder app assist a young man with disability travelling abroad? Not at all in the beginning, as it happens. When I first downloaded the app ahead of a four-week trip to Paris, London and New York, I found it was completely inaccessible to a blind person such as myself. I obviously couldn’t see the picks, but the app also had problems preventing me from swiping left or right, sending texts and the like.

I reported this to the Tinder designers and was somewhat surprised when they replied immediately seeking assistance fixing the app. I continued to test it for them as I passed through Paris, London and New York. By the time I was sitting in JFK Airport waiting for my flight home, I was able to start getting matches and receiving requests for a date. Encouraging…

Later the same year, I was back in an airport lounge starting a trip to Argentina. Ahead of boarding, I turned Tinder on, set my location to Buenos Aires and published a two-sentence description of myself as a blind Australian in town for three weeks seeking dates with local women willing to show me around their city.

The results were nothing short of amazing. By the time I arrived in Buenos Aires, I had scores of matches on Tinder and a full schedule of dates. Within 48 hours, I’d been taken for cake by a Norwegian equestrian athlete, on a tour of a wooden sailing vessel by a woman who worked for the Argentine foreign office and on a series of walking tours by Veronica, a puppeteer from the local version of the Mr Squiggle television program.

It made for a much better holiday than might otherwise be the case. When I got off my plane at the airport, I was advised that no sighted guide service was available and I would need to navigate my own way through border control. I had over-estimated how much English is spoken in Argentina – the Falklands War might have been a hint – and there’s a good chance I’d still be lost in that airport now if not for the assistance of a university student in a wheelchair who warned me that accessibility in Latin America is not the same as what I’m used to at home. Little did she know I had a cunning plan to overcome any anticipated barriers.

With the help of Veronica, I was able to explore a foreign city to a depth and diversity that I’d never been able to do before. We covered everything from grand Cathedrals, the sites of famous riots and gigs in back street bars by Spanish-speaking Nick Cave clones. True to the legends of passionate South Americans, she wept when it all came to an end and I headed back home a few weeks later.

I should say that Tinder is now all ancient history for me. I don’t even know if it still exists. My 132^nd Tinder date was with Jane, my current partner and mother of our 9-year-old daughter Josie. Our foreign holidays are now largely confined to the comfort and reliability of beachside resorts. It’s nice – but not quite the grand adventure that this disabled man enjoyed back in the day.