Queenslander of Year Dr Dinesh Palipana wants housing change

Queenslander of the Year Dr Dinesh Palipana is looking to conquer his next hurdle – finding a suitable home and making building standards more inclusive.

The Queenslander of the Year is known as a man who knows no barriers due to his fight back from a catastrophic car accident to become the state’s first quadriplegic medical graduate but Dr Dinesh Palipana has hit a housing hurdle that has left him frustrated and demanding change.

The Gold Coast spinal doctor has been looking for a suitable house to buy for the past year and has not been able to find anything that suits the needs of his wheelchair.

“I can’t find any new build homes with the right features and the housing market is so hot right now that properties are already expensive and to modify for a wheelchair would cost another couple of hundred thousands of dollars and this is out of reach for most people,” Dr Palipana, a dedicated disability advocate said.

Dinesh Palipana wants minimum standards for Australian homes that work for people with mobility issues.

This month State and Federal Housing Ministers will meet to consider national building standards and Dr Dinesh is appealing to them to make Australia’s housing stock more accessible by including mandatory minimum standards that work for people with mobility issues — simple standards such as wider doorways and hallways.

The voluntary code has existed for a decade and 95 per cent of new builds ignore it.

Findings of new research released by Latrobe University for the Summer Foundation will be used to help inform decision makers from the Australian Building Codes Board on the 2022 National Construction Code.

The research shows that architects and access consultants believe many changes would be easy and cheap to incorporate across all new houses, apartments and townhouses. Many are commonsense design features that include the height of power outlets and slip-resistant flooring.

“Instead of spending hundreds of thousands in modifying existing homes it could cost as little as $5000 to add the features in a new build. It would be an investment for the future as the population ages,” Dr Palipana said.

“The Australia we want is one where mobility limitations should not determine where we

can live. Making Australia’s housing futureproof means pre-empting demand for more

accessible housing now. Housing is critical social infrastructure that is with us for

decades, so it is vital to get it right,” Di Winkler chief executive of the Summer Foundation said.

The foundation is an organisation pushing for sustainable changes that stop young

people from being forced to live in nursing homes because there is nowhere else for them.

Originally published as Queenslander of Year Dr Dinesh Palipana wants housing change