Politicians
always respond best (and quickest) to
personal letters from people who live in their
Electorate. Politicians, it must also be said,
are not stupid. If they receive two, three or
one hundred letters on a topic and all of the
letters are exactly the same, word for word,
those letters get dismissed as being
'organised'.
Your letter
should:
- Use your own
words.
- Be written in your
personal style.
- Come genuinely from
you, including, if it can, personal
illustrations from your life, your family's
experience or of people you know.
What follows is not a
draft letter for you to sign and send off. That
would be dismissed as not genuine. We have set
out a skeleton of a draft letter. You should
flesh it out with your words and
experience.
Letters should
include:
- The name and address
of the politician you are writing to. (You
can check the details on the State
Parliament's web site at www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/...members).
- Your name, address and
phone number so the politician can contact
you. (You might be surprised at how often
people forget such basic
information).
- The date you wrote
your letter.
Introduce yourself
briefly. For example:
- My name is Crocodile
Dundee. I have lived in your Electorate all
my life.
- I am writing to you as
someone who has just moved into your
Electorate.
- We met last year at
the Australia Day Celebration. You said I
should contact you if ever I was worried
about something or had a problem.
Explain why you are
writing. For example:
- I want your help to
fix a problem that I'm having parking my car
in parking bays designated for use by people
with disability.
- Yesterday, I was late
for an appointment at my doctor / dentist /
daughter's school because I could not find a
parking space where I could get into my
wheelchair.
- I want to ask you to
find out why there are so few parking spaces
designated for use by people with
disability.
- I want your help to
eliminate abuse of the NSW Mobility Parking
Scheme. Explain that it's a big problem for
lots of people with physical
disability.
- There are not enough
parking bays designated for use by people
with disability.
- Drivers who do not
display an RTA Parking Authority for the
Mobility Parking Scheme park in spaces
reserved for people with
disability.
- No one ever seems to
issue parking penalty tickets to drivers who
park in designated spaces without displaying
the official parking authority.
- There has been a very
large increase in the number of Mobility
Parking Scheme parking authorities issued. It
seems as if a parking authority is being
given to almost anyone who asks for
one.
- No one checks that
parking authorities for people with
disability are issued only to people who
genuinely need them.
Tell the Member of
Parliament what you want her or him to
do.
- I want you to write to
the Minister for Transport to ask him to fix
these problems.
- I want you to ask a
question in Parliament about why there is not
more effective policing of the Mobility
Parking Scheme.
- I want to see an
increase in penalties for drivers who misuse
parking spaces designated for use by people
with disability.
- I want to invite you
to meet with me and my family / friends at
[a place where abuse is common] to
see the problem for yourself.
- I want you to raise
these problems on my behalf with the Mr Paul
Forward, Chief Executive of the NSW
RTA.
Sign your letter
(people do forget to sign
them!!!!).
Keep a copy of your letter
(send a copy to PDCN).
Give the politician a week
to read your letter and reply. If you hear
nothing by then, phone their office (take a note
of what's said in the phone call).
Contact PDCN if you get a
reply. Good luck!
Dougie Herd
Executive Officer
Physical Disability Council of NSW
