Tim Marks: Wheelchair-user and amputee ‘very happy’ to be elected to Glenorchy City Council

Tim Marks, a tireless advocate for people with disability, has been elected to the Glenorchy City Council and hopes his achievement can serve as an inspiration to others in the community.

Glenorchy resident and wheelchair-bound man Tim Marks spoke to the Disability Royal Commission about his experience of repeated harassment and violence from strangers in public. Picture: Supplied by Disability Royal Commission

An amputee and former carer who wants to make Hobart’s Northern Suburbs more accessible for people living with disability has been elected to the Glenorchy City Council, replacing the late alderman Jan Dunsby.

Tim Marks, a wheelchair-user and long-time disability advocate, was a key figure in the successful push to save the Glenorchy War Memorial Pool, believing local residents needed to be able to access the facility because the Doone Kennedy Aquatic Centre in Hobart was too far away for some to travel.

He said he was “very happy that I’m able to represent people in my community” and hoped his election to the council could be an inspiration to other people with disability who may be considering entering public life.

“Hopefully people will come to me and let me know what things are needed because it’s not about me and council – it’s about me representing the people,” Mr Marks told the Mercury.

“People look at someone like myself with a disability and think that they can’t do anything, they’re not capable of doing anything, and then they find out what I do and what other people with disabilities do and they get a big shock.

“Hopefully … other people with disabilities can see what they can do and not what they can’t do.”

Disability royal commission in Brisbane - Tim Marks, of Glenorchy.

A left leg amputee since 2010, Mr Marks was elected to the council on a recount on Monday and was sworn in by Glenorchy’s acting chief executive Emilio Reale before participating in the council’s annual general meeting alongside Mayor Sue Hickey.

“I welcome Mr Marks to Glenorchy City Council and look forward to working with him as he represents the ratepayers of Glenorchy,” Ms Hickey said.

Mr Marks is the president of the Tasmanian Amputee Society, as well as the Tasmanian director of Physical Disability Australia, and has been working in the disability sector for 50 years.

Originally from Burnie, he moved to Glenorchy in 1997, the same year he was diagnosed with reflex sympathetic dystrophy, which caused him to suffer repeated heart attacks and strokes and eventually led to his left leg being amputated due to a hospital error.

Mr Marks gave harrowing evidence to the disability royal commission in 2022, opening up about being verbally abused and physically assaulted in the street since beginning to use a wheelchair.

He told the commission that “thugs” had once pelted him with bottles in the Glenorchy bus mall and he now suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Originally published as Tim Marks: Wheelchair-user and amputee ‘very happy’ to be elected to Glenorchy City Council