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First tonight, the parking free for all.
Disabled parking permits are being handed out to perfectly healthy,
and often wealthy drivers.
Our investigation reveals there are more disabled permits being used in Australia,
than there are registered disabled people.
David Richardson reports on the black market giving some a free ride when it comes to parking.
Would you take us down to your car and show us your disabled permit, please?
Would you be able to show us that?
VO: This man has a ticket to ride. A golden pass to park wherever he wants, for as long
as he wants - for free.
Is it yours? How are you disabled, Mr. Singh? Can you tell me how you are disabled?
We've got video footage of you parking in disabled carparks.
VO: Just check the dashboard of his $100000 BMW, and there it is: a Disabled Parking Permit.
Okay. Australian Disability Parking Permit, expiry date: the 7th of December, 2013.
VO: But Kunal Singh can't explain how he got it.
If you're truly disabled, sir, you'd have no hesitation in showing us your pass.
Do you realise what he's doing? You know it's against the law.
Ugly Woman: Yeah.
VO: For three days, we followed this so-called disabled driver,
as he exploited car parks set aside for the genuinely disabled,
grabbing a coffee at McDonalds, and parking in two hour zones in city streets for free,
saving a fortune at someone else's expense.
There's a huge black market operating in disabled parking permits,
and everyone doing it is stealing a parking space from a bona-fide disabled person.
VO: With inner city car parking costing a small fortune,
a disabled parking permit is worth its weight in gold.
In this one street alone: 13 cars displaying disabled permits.
There are 800000 across the country.
50000 more permits than disabled pensioners.
More than half could be fake.
If you're disabled, your life is already monumentally difficult.
You don't need anybody stealing your space by fraudulently purporting to be disabled.
VO: Today Tonight's motoring expert, John Cadogan,
can't believe our disabled are being ripped off by masses of phony permits.
13 to 15 percent of motorists disabled? I don't think so!
Those numbers are grossly overinflated by people rorting the system.
To be such ratbags, to take disabled parking spots
which are always full at any rate because of so many crooks and things like that
from people who need them.
VO: Tony Varrall is a quadriplegic. He drives a specially designed van,
but look at how he's been treated when he parked the wrong way
in a suburban side street - because he had to.
Some brainless, penny-minded council moron
put a parking ticket underneath my windscreen wiper!
Can't even reach the thing!
There's not even a driver's seat there!
You were fined for parking the wrong way, simply so you could get in and out?
That boat down the street: isn't that going the wrong way?
Yes, I'm afraid it's there all the time. Never moves.
And never been given a ticket?
I assume so, he hasn't moved it.
I mean, he'd be given a ticket every day, wouldn't he?
VO: Tony's disabled permit is clear to see, but he still copped a $147 fine.
He's fighting it, but getting nowhere.
While a legitimate quadriplegic is busted in one suburb,
a phony walks away scot free in another.
Would you like to come down and show us your pass? Why don't you show us the pass
and tell us how you got it.
There is a black market in these passes, Mr. Singh, and you seem to have one.
The abuse of disabled parking permits is becoming really epidemic in Australia.
That's what's reported to me every day.
VO: Wheelchair-bound Dr. Rhonda Galbally, AO, is the
Chair of the National People with Disabilities and Carers Council.
Furious at the black market in disabled permits.
They're charging anything from $200 to $800 for a sticker because it brings enormous privilege,
and so there is quite a market in the sale of them.
Video: A key feature of the scheme is the Australian Disability Parking Permit,
which will initially replace over one hundred different permit types across Australia.
VO: The Federal Government has tried to simplify the Parking Permit system,
but permits still don't have photo ID - meaning anyone can get one.
You only need a doctor's certificate to apply.
What allows this fraudulent behaviour to thrive in our society?
It's gotta be bent doctors, it's gotta be too simple to get the permit in the first place,
and it's gotta be too simple to sell it to the wrong person.
VO: Disabled driver groups are now demanding a full audit of every permit in the country.
They want photo ID fitted to all new permits and tougher fines for the cheats.
For people to get in on that, when they're not disabled,
and they don't have to live with that day to day - it's just absolutely terrible, really.
It's a terrible thing in Australia.
That's David Richardson reporting. It is happening a lot, so are photo ID's the answer?