QUEENSLAND – Age Discrimination Petition

Many of you may not know that at age 75, and every year thereafter, healthy men and women in Queensland must endure a demeaning and worrisome medical test to be able to continue to drive on our roads, regardless of driving record, state of health, or any other consideration except age.

This, quite simply, is nothing short of age discrimination.

Discrimination is defined as the arbitrary classification and treatment in a particular way of individuals and/or groups of people based upon certain of their characteristics, such as race, gender, religion, or, in this case, age, which characteristics provide no justifiable basis for such general classification and/or treatment.

In this era of societal openness, extensive anti-discrimination legislation, and wide-spread social support for non-discriminatory policies and practices, it surprises me that such an institutionalised discriminatory practise still exists, but it does.

Consequently, I have lodged a Petition with the Queensland Parliament requesting that our Parliament “abolish this unjustified, stressful, costly, and outdated discriminatory requirement for annual medical checks for Queenslanders aged 75 or older in order for them to be able to continue to drive on our roads”, and I ASK YOU AND YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS TO PLEASE SIGN IT.

The link to the e-Petition is: https://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/Work-of-the-Assembly/Petitions/Petition-Details?id=3667

The e-Petition has a limited life, closing on the 13th March 2022, a date that I have targeted to ensure that the Petition, if it achieves enough signatures, will be tabled on the floor of Parliament in that Parliamentary sitting week, so please act urgently to sign the petition and to ask your friends and family to do likewise.

Feel free to forward this email to your circle of acquaintances, with your request for their support (Queensland residents, citizens, and electors are all eligible to sign).

Additionally, I have written to my local State MP, Julia Lui, asking for her support to have this archaic requirement overturned, and I attach a copy of that letter hereto. Please read it as it gives some idea of the costly, worrisome, unnecessary, and demeaning process to which older Queenslanders are subject, and I would ask that you use my letter as a model for a letter that you can write to your State MP asking for their support in this campaign (I provide a link at the bottom for you to identify your MP and their contact details).

Thank you for reading this, and for your support in my campaign to rid our society of this institutionalised and demeaning instance of age discrimination which, otherwise, all of us will one day face.

Sincerely,

Mal McKellar

[email protected]

 

att: Queensland Legislative Assembly MP Contact List: https://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/Members/Current-Members/Member-List

ps: if you are unsure as to who your local State MP is, drop me an email with your address and I’ll let you know;

pps: I intend to initiate similar campaigns in other States, and to promote the campaign in the media, and to that end I have included some non-Queenslander friends and family in this distribution to let them know what I am doing in Queensland and that I may be in touch for their support in their State – if anyone can help in any way with the media or in their State I would welcome that – drop me an email please.

ppps: the Petition was loaded onto the Parliamentary website only in the last few days, and at time of writing has already attracted over 1200 signatures.