Niklaus and Zuri

Niklaus and Zuri are long-term partners in their 50s. Niklaus has a disability that effects his speech and movement and uses a wheelchair. He worked in the IT sector for almost 20 years. Zuri has a physical disability, is speech and hearing impaired and lip-reads. She is a talented artist and also provides social support for people with disability.

Niklaus and Zuri told the Royal Commission they are frustrated by the increasing obstacles they face accessing the community.

Like everyone, to enter a café or shop they need to scan a QR code using their phone. This is physically difficult. There is often no table or hard surface where they can balance their phones. Increasingly, there are no staff to help them or complete a written check-in.

Niklaus and Zuri are exempt from wearing a mask. Zuri said people give them ‘dirty looks’. Niklaus went into a government office and staff initially asked him to leave. He had to give an in-depth explanation for his mask exemption. He felt uncomfortable drawing attention to himself and having everyone looking at him. Taxi drivers often insist he wear a mask not understanding how difficult it is for him.

Zuri has designed a sign she wears around her neck explaining she is unable to wear a mask due to her disability. It also explains she is deaf and requests people remove their mask when speaking to her to enable her to lip-read. Some people dismiss the sign. ‘If they don’t have time they don’t care,’ she said.

Niklaus suggests when premiers give daily COVID-19 updates they should remind everyone that people with disability are exempt.

‘It’s too hard, with the face mask and the QR code. It’s just too hard. So now I stay home … I only go out to do my food shopping and that’s it, back home,’ Zuri said.

Niklaus and Zuri used to love going to a café every day. They use a straw to drink because they don’t have full control over their movements. Cafés no longer provide single-use plastic straws because of government regulation. Cafés can provide plastic straws to people with disability but ‘they don’t and they don’t care,’ Zuri said. One time she found a plastic straw in her bag and asked the staff if they could rinse it. They refused and told Zuri to go to the bathroom and rinse it herself. Staff sometimes offer metal straws but these straws can cause mouth injuries and chip teeth. Cafés won’t provide silicon straws because they are difficult to clean. Niklaus said people ‘need to be educated’.

A couple of years ago Niklaus had a car accident – he described it as a ‘small bingle’. When police arrived they wrongly assumed he’d been drink driving. Niklaus was required to modify his steering wheel by adding a knob, and this restriction was added to his licence. Niklaus and Zuri like to travel but he can’t hire a car because of the restriction. Niklaus had to re-sit a driving test and have a series of medical checks for authorities to remove the restriction. ‘It just caused so much distress,’ he said.

Niklaus would like to spend his retirement travelling while he is physically able. He has accumulated a significant amount of superannuation but is unable to access it for a number of years. His life expectancy is less than a person without a disability, he said, and the government should lower the preservation age accordingly.

Meanwhile Zuri continues to work. She was working for a disability employment enterprise until she discovered she was being significantly underpaid. ‘I loved that job but I was working very hard for nothing.’ When she made a formal complaint the enterprise increased her pay by reducing the other workers’ pay, so she left.

She now runs her own business. ‘I get more an hour than I got in a whole day. I can’t believe it. I can have a holiday.’