A BLIND single mother taking legal action against Metro has accused the rail operator of trying to take away her voice.
Altona’s Annmarie Kelly commutes from Westona station to her sons’ school at Yarraville or to Vision Australia at Kensington.
Ms Kelly has launched an action against Metro in the Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, claiming that inadequate overhead announcements at Newport and on the trains discriminate against the people with a disability.
“My issue is that the Laverton train stopping all stations gets confused with the Werribee train stopping at Laverton,” she said. “You’ve got the Werribee train and you’ve got the Laverton train.”
She said the Laverton train stopping all stations went through the Altona Loop (Seaholme, Altona and Westona), while the Werribee train bypassed Altona Loop, running express from Newport to Laverton.
“People get confused between those two trains and I’ve been put on, so many times, the wrong train,” she said.
At last week’s meeting at the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, Ms Kelly said Metro representatives refused to be in the same room with her unless she agreed to a “gag order”.
“They wanted me to sign an agreement to state that I wouldn’t comment on anything from the very start. They wouldn’t even come into the room to talk. I will not be silenced.”
Altona MP Jill Hennessy, who supported Ms Kelly at the commission, said Metro picked the wrong woman to push around.
“In all my years as a lawyer I have never had a company request a ‘gag’ before they even agree to conciliate,” Ms Hennessy said.
“It is shameful that Metro adopted bully boy tactics against a blind single mother, whose only interest is to make Metro’s services more accessible.”
Metro spokeswoman Geraldine Mitchell said the “other parties did not agree to the terms of the conciliation process, nor attend in good faith”.
Ms Kelly is now seeking a lawyer to sue Metro for discrimination.
The commission could not comment on the claims, but federal Disability Discrimination Commissioner Graeme Innes said the situation was most likely unlawful under Victorian law.
Mr Innes, who is also blind and is taking similar action over announcements on the Sydney train service, said the failure to make announcements would be unlawful in New South Wales, and he was confident it would also be in Victoria.
-with The Age
